That was an excellent one.

everything you have heard about this movie is true.

This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

The wealthy playwright Myra Hudson (Joan Crawford) is the heiress of a great fortune. However she works and is donating part of her inheritance to foundations. When she watches the rehearsal of her play, she asks the director to replace the lead actor Lester Blaine (Jack Palance) that she believes is not adequate for the lead role. When she returns home, she meets Blane in the same train and they travel together. They stop in Chicago and soon Myra is seduced by him. They get married and live at Myra's home in San Francisco. Myra summons her lawyer Steve Kearney (Bruce Bennett) to change her will and transfer her fortune and properties to her beloved husband. She uses her Dictaphone to record the changes to be done in her will. However Steve will travel with his son Junior Kearney (Touch Conners) to Sacramento and they leave the room. Then Blaine and Junior's girlfriend Irene Neves (Gloria Grahame), who is his lover, come to the room to plot a scheme to kill Myra so that he will be the heir of her fortune. On the next morning, Myra learns that she has forgotten her Dictaphone on and when she will proceed to dictate her new will, she hears the conversation of her husband with Irene. What will she do now that she knows what are Blaine's real feelings and intention? "Sudden Fear" is a suspenseful film-noir with excellent first half. The story of a wealthy spinster seduced by a crook is great until the moment that the lead character learns that he husband and his mistress are plotting to murder her. Her plan to save her life and get rid of them is also great. However her clumsy and moralist attitudes are terrible and reduces what could have been a little masterpiece to a good film-noir only. Joan Crawford has another magnificent performance. My vote is seven.Title (Brazil): "Precipícios d'Alma" ("Precipices of the Soul")

Joan Crawford delivers a typically strong performance as a wife who discovers that her husband plans to murder her, and it's fun to see Jack Palance in an early role (interestingly, playing a stage actor who was rejected for a part as a romantic lead). Film noir fans will appreciate the cinematography, especially in the final scenes, which of course take place in darkened rooms and on darkened streets and alleys. But the plot has more holes than a block of Swiss cheese. Most obviously, when Joan Crawford's character finds proof of her husband's homicidal intentions, she doesn't go to the police, as any sane person would do, but instead comes up with a convoluted plan of her own, which of course goes awry. Add to that the movie convention that a man can simply sweep a woman off her feet with a little sweet talking, and be married to her in practically no time at all, plus the stretch that Jack Palance's character is so angry about being rejected for a Broadway role that he decides to marry and then kill the playwright, that we're talking about some serious suspension of disbelief here. If you can overlook those flaws, it's a fun couple of hours.

This is a quintessential 1050'w "Woman In Peril" thriller, a genre that dynamic Joan Crawford visited several times,best, marshaling all her considerable melodramatic skill to cope with the personal horrors she must endure when the man she trusted is doing her wrong.Sudden Fear is a well-made noir from a reliable studio, the story of a woman playwright who misreads a potential lover and suffers because of it; the film was nominated for four Oscars (Joan's last nomination of three), and the evidence is there in superb lighting, cinematography and costumes (that pajama outfit is quintessentially 1950's).If you are a fan of slightly hysterical noir, replete with a hidden Dictaphone and cars chases down dark alleys in San Francisco, this one's for you--be warned, however, the available transfer is grainy, and fairly dreadful, with a soundtrack that needs to be cranked way up--this film deserves a better quality print (my rating would be better with a better transfer). But it's still quite watchable and great entertainment of it's kind.

Sudden Fear is directed by David Miller and adapted to screenplay by Lenore J. Coffee and Robert Smith from the novel written by Edna Sherry. It stars Joan Crawford, Jack Palance and Gloria Grahame. Music is by Elmer Bernstein and cinematography by Charles Lang Jr. "Miss Hudson, in your own native city of San Francisco, there's an art gallery in the Legion of Honor in which there's an oil painting of Casanova. It's quite obvious that you have never seen this painting. For your information, Miss Hudson, this is what Casanova looked like. He had big ears, a scar over one eye, a broken nose, and a wart on his chin, right here. I suggest, Miss Hudson, that when you return to San Francisco, you visit this gallery and see this painting!" The above is the response Lester Blaine (Palance) gives to Broadway playwright Myra Hudson (Crawford) who has just rejected him for the lead role in her latest play on account of his looks. Later that day the pair meet up on a train heading for Frisco and Myra is swept off of her feet. They court and marry, but once finances come into play and Irene Neves (Grahame) arrives on the scene, something far more sinister begins to rear its head… It takes a while to get going, but once Sudden Fear hits its stride it's a suspenseful noirish delight. Filmed on locations in San Francisco and with Lang Junior bringing the chiaroscuro while Miller dabbles in deftly placed shadows and tracking cameras, there's a visuality that's vital to the edgy atmosphere of the story. It's pretty obvious quite early on what is happening in the plotting but this never affects the suspense, Miller builds it slowly and then unleashes the chills at the midpoint, garnering top performances from the three principal players in the process. It's ready made material for Crawford, where she gets to run through her repertoire of female emotions, while Palance enjoys playing the villain and Grahame slinks in to view in the way that only she can. Some trimming of the running time wouldn't have gone amiss, and some of Myra's stamina powers in the final quarter stretch the faith a touch, but all told it's a very good "woman in peril" noir that is crowned by a terrifically exciting ending. 7.5/10