Claudio Carvalho The thirty year-old hard-worker Bobby Grady (John Laughlin) is married with two children with the frigid Amy Grady (Annie Potts) and their marriage is in crisis. Bobby is invited to work in the night shift for the owner of a fashion designer studio that believes that his talented designer Joanna Crane (Kathleen Turner), who is very introspective, is selling his designs to competitors. Bobby accepts the job to make money and please Amy with a bathtub and follows Joanna after hours.He discovers that she has a double life, working as a fifty-dollar hooker called China Blue in the red light district and practicing kinky sex with her clients to satisfy their fantasies. Bobby becomes obsessed by China Blue and when the true thief is found, he has sex with her and they have a crush on each other. Meanwhile the insane preacher Rev. Peter Shayne (Anthony Perkins) decides to save Joanna's soul and stalks her everywhere."Crimes of Passion" is one of the best and classiest "pre-AIDS" erotic-thriller of the 80's and among my favorite cult-movies ever. A youngster that sees this film in 2012 probably will not understand the behavior (and the beauty) of Kathleen Turner. But in 1981, the mesmerizing Kathleen Turner made her debut in the cinema industry with Lawrence Kasdan's film-noir "Body Heat" and this sexy actress became one of the most desirable women of the world. "Crimes of Passion" is her fifth movie and she is very sensual, sexy and gorgeous in the hands of the director Ken Russell. Anthony Perkins in the role of a mad preacher and the music score of Rick Wakeman complete this little masterpiece of the eroticism. My vote is eight.Title (Brazil): "Crimes de Paixão" ("Crimes of Passion")

fedor8 Turner: "Oh, a man of words... He makes up in diction what he lacks in dick." Or: "I never forget a face... Especially when I've sat on it." (also Turner) These are the kinds of lines we get to hear in this movie. It's yet more sexual lunacy from the most sex-obsessed director of the last three decades (not counting Russ Meyer). Russell presents a bizarre combination between wacky sexual-situation comedy, family drama, and psycho-thriller. The movie goes in all sorts of directions, and seems to be about a lot of things - with sex (what else?) being the unifying theme in all the issues. There is both intentional and unintentional humour, though with Russell you can't always tell which is which, but most of the film is a sort of eccentric drama.The characters of Turner and Perkins are absurd and over-the-top, respectively; Turner is a career woman who works as a prostitute during the night, while Perkins is a deranged wanna-be minister with mania written all over his face. At the beginning, Perkins so overdoes his part (as is typical of this incompetent over-actor) that you can't help but laugh. Turner, though playing a far-fetched character, is quite convincing, and very charismatic, as usual. Turner's character is the writer's idea of what a woman, who has been emotionally hurt by a failed relationshit, might do to deal with her disappointment in male-kind (i.e. mankind): she turns to fulfilling (male) fantasies as a prostitute. That'll happen... The idea that Turner - who has sex all the time with various men - would suddenly get emotionally aroused with a customer (Laughlin) just because he feels for her or whatever, is preposterous, though not annoying. In fact, nothing seems to be annoying in the film, in spite of it being Russell's.Well, almost; Russell took one or two themes from Dvorak's "New World Symphony" and milked them for all they're worth. These melodies are played over and over and over, in varying styles. Strange, because this music doesn't in any way suit this film. Some dialog sounds unnatural, some is silly/comical and loaded with sexual word-play, and some is right out of a TV soap-opera.Perhaps the funniest moment was when Turner, while rummaging through Perkins's bag, finds a powerful-looking metal dildo and asks him whether it's a cruise-missile.

moonspinner55 Kathleen Turner is admirable playing a prim fashion designer by day and a kinky hooker named China Blue by night. This determinedly-weird sex-odyssey from outré filmmaker Ken Russell does indeed have the force behind its salacious convictions--it is almost embarrassingly sordid and one genuinely feels for the performers on-screen--yet as a psycho-drama it comes out half-baked. The subplots, one involving family man John Laughlin with sexless wife Annie Potts and the other, sillier one concerning Anthony Perkins as a sidewalk preacher, only take time away from Turner's intriguing impersonation. Last minute editing revisions forced upon Russell leave the final act feeling choppy, however there's some amusing satire here (big city business and stifling suburbia) that gnaws at you in both good and bad ways. The screenwriter, Barry Sandler, has many targets and a lot of interesting things to stay, but the deadened look and feel of the movie makes it seem like a repugnant gag. Yesterday's kink is today's old news. **1/2 from ****

Jay Thompson A few yrs ago, I remember reading an essay by a feminist film theorist who briefly mentioned Rosalind Russell. This theorist wrote that the 'strength' of the 'strong women' that Rozzie R. played lay partly in their ability to stand by their man (even when he wasn't worth it).I thought of this essay after watching 'Crimes of Passion'.Kathleen Turner exudes the same strength and style as Russell in her portrayal of prostitute China Blue. She's the object of affection for two men: the loony priest played by Anthony Perkins, and a bland whitebread boy who's marriage is slowly fading. And she won't let either of them have a piece of her until ...I won't give away the ending - but I will say that this is ultimately Bland Whitebread Boy's fantasy. No matter how hard Ken Russell tries, he can't disguise the fact that this movie is basically a 1940s melodrama for the MTV generation. Except its retrogressive class and gender politics make those old black-and-white films look revolutionary by comparison.