adrian-43767 David Miller is a rather obscure director, who I remember for no other movie, but in SUDDEN FEAR he was in very good form.The screenplay is quite good but overly chatty in the first half, 15 minutes less would not have hurt it - quite the contrary, methinks. The second half has far less dialogue, but perhaps a couple too many emotional shots involving Crawford, especially toward the end. Still, this is one of her better performances, and I have never seen a better one from Palance, either.It is the cinematography that really projects this film onto a higher level. There is great care with filming interiors and objects that prove important to dénouement, and the angles are reminiscent of Hitchcock who, in 1952, was still to do his best work in the United States (REAR WINDOW, VERTIGO, NORTH BY NORTHWEST, PSYCHO, BIRDS), so I am not suggesting for a second that Miller borrowed any ideas from Hitch.There are two truly memorable scenes: when a gun-wielding Crawford suddenly sees her reflection in the mirror, and her look as she is about to commit murder; and the final sequence, of personal absolution, as she knows that it was kill or be killed.Of course, the film and the dialogue are of 1952; and of course you can look for, and find, goofs and loopholes; but I wish most movies of today were as enthralling, thoughtfully directed and well shot as SUDDEN FEAR.

gavin6942 After an ambitious actor (Jack Palance) insinuates himself into the life of a wealthy middle-aged playwright (Joan Crawford) and marries her, he plots with his mistress (Gloria Grahame) to murder her.Crawford received her third and final Oscar nomination for this film, the one and only time she competed against archrival Bette Davis for Best Actress, who was nominated (for the ninth time) for "The Star". Neither actress won: Shirley Booth took home the prize for "Come Back, Little Sheba". We live in a strange world where Davis can be nominated os many times, and a world where Crawford could be such a huge star with her clown-makeup face.You absolutely have to love Jack Palance. He isn't quite the same in this, being so young... he never really came into his own until he reached that wrinkled, leathery old man look. Heck, I think some of his best work is in the 1980s, more than 30 years after this film was released!

blanche-2 In the old days of Hollywood, glamorous leading ladies were finished getting starring roles around age 30. Many times they were reduced to horror films, badly produced B movies, and television. If they want to strip their glamour and gain weight, they could do character roles. However, Joan Crawford, whose contract was terminated by MGM at the age of 35, continued to make good films throughout the '40s and into the early '50s. One of them was this one, Sudden Fear, for which she served as executive producer. In that capacity, she chose the screenwriter, the actors, the director, the composer, the cinematographer - and they were all top drawer.The story concerns Myra Hudson, a woman born into a wealthy family who became a successful playwright. She marries an actor, Lester Blaine (Jack Palance) and then realizes that he and his mistress (Gloria Grahame) are plotting to kill her.Crawford registers the bliss of new love, the pain of betrayal, hysteria, and then the steel to pull herself together and take action. Really it is one of her best roles. This is a woman who knew how to play to her strengths.Sudden Fear is exciting, suspenseful, atmospheric, and highly entertaining. Of course, if I saw Jack Palance and Gloria Grahame together, I'd know something was up. The first choices for the Lester role were Gable and Marlon Brando. Palance is excellent as a masculine, romantic man hiding a violent and psychopathic personality. As his flirtatious mistress Irene, Grahame is perfect.While there is no actual sex, there is a lot of raw desire and innuendo in this film.The end of the film has very little dialogue, and you'll be glued to the screen.It's sad to see once great stars like Lana Turner, Merle Oberon, and others reduced to poor circumstances in film, and sadder still that they knew that once they were at the top of the heap. Crawford at least fought the good fight and in Sudden Fear proved that she was still a force.

Wael Katkhuda This is The Forth film I saw for Joan Crawford after seeing (What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? 1962 , Mildred Pierce 1945 and Grand Hotel 1932) and to me her best performance was in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?Now about this film : I don't know what to say, it's not a bad movie and it's not a good one. in the first 45 minutes the film is so boring the film show us a love or to be specific a blind love between an old-woman and a young man played by (Jack Palance) and you know from the beginning that he is a bad guy in these cases when you knew from the beginning the bad guy you become angry unless the film made it in a professional way ,( but not this one) cause Jack Palance face is evil so how could Miss.Crawford loved him I just don't know besides in all of his films he played the bad guy.( so nothing new) the big problem is that Joan Crawford couldn't convince anyone that she was in love with him although she is doing and performing it well she just didn't convince me there isn't a chemistry between these to leading stars. Then after the 45 minutes when she discovered that her lovely husband is a NEMESIS the movie began to get much better and it continuous till the end. but there were many scenes in the second part are funny and made me laugh ( although they didn't suppose to made you feel that way) such as the two imaging scenes they are just not real and when she made herself falling down the stairs if I were her I would probably broke my neck! As for Joan Crawford performance she is doing a good job here especially at the closet scene she did it in a great way and when she see here emotions after looking at herself at the mirror and feeling terrible about becoming a killer that was great one to. if you are Joan Crawford Fan(like me) see this Film , but don't expect too much.