Sudden Fear

After Lester puts down Irene's telephone, he calls out her name three times but the second we hear her name, his lips don't move at all.

During the critical "clock pendulum" planning scene.

The visible clock and the phony "shadow strike across the chest" shadows are a significantly differently tempo than the real clock.

The shadow shadow clock moves twice as face.

When Junior brings Irene to her apartment and refuses to leave, she tries twice to close the door.

Each time, a stagehand's hand can be seen reaching for the knob from out in the hall, a common practice on stage sets if a door doesn't latch properly or stay closed.

Sudden Fear builds suspense very effectively, right up until the completely unpredictable dénouement and the subsequent thirty-second (!) resolution.

A wealthy playwright is swept off her feet by an audacious actor who she'd just rejected for the lead role in one of her Broadway plays, but something nasty awaits at the end of their honeymoon.Full on melodrama noir that really cranks through the plot gears, and repeatedly clips the audience round the ear to make sure we're paying attention.

This is not a film noir.But it is a not so good movie.

Love the 'reel-to-reel' tape technology, & Joan Crawford's face & her emotional state of mind, from being ill or faking it to hiding or not being sure what to do or whether to keep the cassette reels - just after the moment she finds out she's being betrayed by her husband.Emotions aside, what I found fascinating about the movie is how the mind - (her mind) - just springs into action with a revenge plot - a plot that is never revealed to the audience throughout the movie.

Jack Palance is quite a stiking young man in this film with very sharp features. Joan Crawford still holds the picture firmly however in her role.

Well, close enough. At least the title rhymes.

A slick little thriller from 1952 that showcases Joan Crawford's ability to carry a movie. She starred in a lot of high-quality stuff (like "Mildred Pierce" for example) that any actress would have shined in, but it's when she landed in more middle-of-the-road material that she was able to illustrate her star wattage, because not just any old actress could take a movie like "Sudden Fear" and make something memorable out of it.

In one riveting, mesmerizing scene the camera glides beyond Crawford's severe facial expression, inexorably drawn to THOSE eyes and a stare sufficiently piercing and blazing to melt every choc-ice in the theatre! The impact that this image had on audiences almost 70 years ago is difficult to imagine.

For me, this is what the old movies are all about. The sounds, the plot, the actors, i can smell the movie.