CRIMES OF PASSION

title: CRIMES OF PASSION

year: 1984

rating: **1/2

If Brian De Palma, David Cronenberg, David Lynch, Paul Schrader, and John Waters had a baby, it'd grow up to attend the same college as Ken Russell's CRIMES OF PASSION. The title derives from a term of committing legal murder against a wife or husband who's cheating, but is tweaked, in this case, to passion i.e. sexual intercourse being treated like a criminal act i.e. prostitution and what's considered taboo. Enter Kathleen Turner, a fashion designer by day, anything-goes hooker by night... crossing paths with sexually frustrated family man John Laughlin, who's hired by Turner's daytime boss to shadow her nightlife (the boss thinks she's stealing his prototypes). Laughlin learns of her trade and, curious, becomes one of her most loyal, and beloved, customers. On the peripheral is Anthony Perkins, resembling a dilapidated muppet and doing an over-the-top impersonation of what people expect of his post-PSYCHO purgatory career, playing a wacky street preacher out to "save" Turner - only he wants some on the side, and steals a bad movie like a bank manager rips his own bank.