1984 Directed by Ken Russell
Joanna Crane lives a double life. During the day she works as fashion designer but during the night she is the high class prostitute China Blue. As she is accused for industrial spying, Bobby Grady is hired to shadow her. However, they fall in love. Meanwhile a psychopathic preacher starts stalking her.
Kathleen Turner Anthony Perkins John Laughlin Annie Potts Bruce Davison Norman Burton Stephen Lee Gordon Hunt Dan Gerrity Terri Hoyos Vince McKewin Deanna Oliver Patricia Stevens Janice Renney John G. Scanlon Pat McNamara Christina Lange Seth Wagerman Joseph Chapman Thomas Murphy Roxanne Mayweather Jan Rabson John Rose Louise Sorel Lisa Hayslip Pamela Anderson Janice Kent Yvonne McCord James Crittenden Show All…
Ken Russell's Crimes of Passion, China Blue, Престъпления от страст, La passió de China Blue, China Blue bei Tag und Nacht, Νύχτες της Τσάινα Μπλου, La pasión de China Blue, Crímenes de pasión, Intohimorikoksia, Les Jours et les Nuits de China Blue, Szenvedélyes bűnök, クライム・オブ・パッション, 크라임 오브 패션, Zbrodnie namiętności, Crimes de Paixão, As Noites de China Blue, Преступление на почве страсти, Zločin iz strasti, Tutku suçlari, 激情犯罪
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A hyper stylized, psychosexual neon cum puddle of a thriller with plenty to say about marriage, sexual politics, and religion. Ken Russell’s lurid LA giallo-esque sex romp features some of the snappiest perverse dialogue I’ve ever heard, a fearless scorcher of a performance from Kathleen Turner (her best IMO) and Anthony Perkins destroying the screen as a dildo killer Preacher on the piss stained ultra sleaze streets of Los Angeles.
A non stop crazy, full speed ahead sexual tango with relationship topics that never feel heavy handed. Definitely one of my favorite Ken Russell jams, as well as a banger of a satire that screams expressionistic cult mayhem waiting to be discovered nightly when the clock strikes midnight.
It just feels so right that a movie as ludicrously horned up as this one includes the onscreen credit “Director of Photography - Dick Bush.”
straight querelle? also kinda straight frankenhooker, straight kenneth anger, or a straight, live-action bakshi toon: "if you've got a penis, you're in trouble!!" something-weird perfection except ken ru$$ell keeps showing off his dorm room poster collection i kept waiting for him to intercut a sex scene with "dogs playing poker" also the couple in back the limo shouldve been bartel/woronov. anybody pulling that whitmans sampler shit on me im kickin their ass: "you think youre gonna get back in my panties, forget it: theres one asshole in there already!" why wasnt annie potts ever in a slasher?
At one point during the film, the supposedly happy family man and bumbling private eye, Bobby Grady, is slouched in the driver's seat of his car while on a stakeout. In his hands, he is holding a John Fowles' book, "The French Lieutenant's Woman". In this post-modern novel, the narrator interrupts the story to present to the protagonist three possible endings: stay faithful to his wife and live unhappily ever after; have an affair with all the disruptions that ensue but ultimately wind up happy; or have an affair and everything just goes to shit.
Well, it just so happens that the person he is keeping an eyeball on is an enigmatic and beautiful woman who works in a respectable…
when cinephiles talk about modern mainstream movies not being horny/sexy enough anymore, this is exactly what they're nostalgic for. ken russell deconstructing post-60s american sexuality; dialogue consisting solely of puns, juxtaposing cis-hetero surburban ennui with hyperbolic libido, a man driven to madness by his christian mores contradicting his fierce eros. ultra-trashy and fun, but also thoughtful and brooding. adult sincerity by way of neon-gauze.
Kathleen Turner seems to have a lot of fun with this ridiculous role. Ken Russell's films are always envelope-pushing in terms of taste, and they often leave their themes out in the open. This one is no different, as it explores with bluntness sexual repression and liberation. The big idea seems to boil down to the fact that the former is bad and the latter is good, but there's a little room for nuance here as Bobby's wife is depicted as, at least, human. Indeed, there's a hint here that some middle ground is needed, but that gets short shrift as a false priest is stabbed with a metal dildo.
Scuzzy neon drenches this film, of course, as it is…
an explicit american giallo, the eroticism and religiosity and repression and emotions all dialed up to 11. the lush pinks and purples and the prog score would make this a perfect companion to argento's 80s work. it's also a natural partner with russell's other work (especially the devils and listzomania). god bless kathleen turner, who must have just ruined her mainstream career with this one - but i wouldn't give this performance up for anything.
"Don't fight me, child. I'm the messenger of God and I only want to heal you."
"Heal thyself, pimp shit!"
Put Kathleen Turner in the Ken Russell-directed pantheon alongside Eleanor Bron (Women in Love), Vanessa Redgrave (The Devils), Dorothy Tutin (Savage Messiah) and Ann-Margret (Tommy) because boy oh boy, Turner's performance in Crimes of Passion is GREAT. As a rule, I'm not partial to films in which a woman works as a prostitute specifically because of a history of emotional/physical abuse, thus requiring a knight in shining armor to offer her salvation, but this type of narrative pays off in Crimes of Passion since Russell twists it into such insane entertainment.
Penned by Barry Sandler, an openly gay screenwriter whose…
"The daimon of sexuality approaches our soul as a serpent."
Eros sits perched above eyeshot, gazing down upon our tumescent, shadowy blazes. Seeking connection, we traipse below the neon—some giveth, others taketh away. Broken hearts heal slowly in the torrid heat of the midnight hour; and slower… slower still, as darkness drags us toward the first grayish glimpses of daylight.
Desire for a salvation entirely telluric, for what good is a hope for any kind of heaven if there is no respite from the earthly hellfire scorching our souls in the present. What refuge have we? Is there no divine answer? Only in our here and now does the thought of deliverance ring true in hearts battered by a dissatisfying…
"What do we have if we can't be honest with each other?"
(Previous review here.)
Deep in the neon fever dream, there exists a New World.
Rick Wakeman's Dvořák-infused score for Crimes of Passion is but one part of why this is probably Ken Russell's masterpiece, at least to my eyes. It's the most audacious and outrageous, kind of hilarious, gloriously erotic, utterly terrifying, deliriously distasteful and occasionally heartbreaking drop off into (totally, easily watchable) madness, and that's saying a lot since this is the same director who made some of the nuttiest films of the 70s and 80s. (Give it up, also, for the cinematography by Dick Bush, the most perfectly named collaborator you could imagine; fun to see…
