Crime and Punishment U.S.A.

Crime and Punishment U.S.A. (1959) is an American feature film, directed by Denis Sanders, and is – as the New York Times put it – “a beat generation version”^[1][2] of the novel Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky.

The film was released on November 1, 1959, is 96 minutes in length, and shot in black-and-white. In addition to making some changes in the plot and characterizations, it sets the tale, not in 19th-century Russia, but in mid-20th-century Los Angeles. The script was written by Walter Newman, and stars George Hamilton, in his first screen role,^[3] as “Robert Cole,” the character based on Raskolnikov, the protagonist of the Russian novel.

Cast[]

• Mary Murphy as Sally
• Frank Silvera as Lieutenant Porter
• Marian Seldes as Debbie Cole
• John Harding as Fred Swanson
• Wayne Heffley as Rafe
• Eve McVeagh as Mrs. Griggs
• Tony Johnson as Mrs. Cole
• Lew Brown as Sergeant Neil Samuels
• George Hamilton as Robert
• Len Lesser as Desk Officer

Production[]

According to Hamilton, director Denis Sanders "saw his project as a tragedy for the Beat Generation" and cast Hamilton because of his similarity to Tony Perkins.^[4]

The film was completed early in 1958 but took over a year to be released.^[4]

Reception[]

In his review in The New Republic, Stanley Kauffmann commented that “modern versions of classics are generally more clever than convincing because the very term ‘classic’ means a timeless work . . . that need not be transplanted.”^[5] Nonetheless, he continued, “by reason of its attendant skills and an innocent, unpretentious earnestness of address," Crime and Punishment U.S.A. "is a moderately interesting attempt to state the material of a vast symphony with a small jazz combination.”

Roger Corman later said the film "lost me a lot of money."^[6]

See also[]

• List of American films of 1959

References[]

External links[]

• Crime and Punishment U.S.A. at IMDB

This 1950s drama film-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by .

• v
• t