Cramming a mammoth book, like Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, into an hour and a half is not an easy job, but while it does fall short of being a great film Josef von Sternberg's 1935 version does ably with the adapting and makes for good entertainment in its own right.

Understandably, it is very condensed with things omitted or introduced but quickly skimmed over, but the basic story, the basic themes and the psychological tension are very much intact and effectively so. The film's low budget does show at times, in some less than imaginative sets (time and place is not always very clear) and some editing that could have done with a little more tightness, and while omissions were inevitable the film could easily have been even better with a longer length to give the story more depth than there was (not that there wasn't already, just that for a story of this amount of complexity there could have been more). Marian Marsh's prostitute-with-a-heart-of-gold character did feel underwritten, there is much more to the character in the book (here, like the similarly blandly played Grilov- who is affected even worse-, the character is reduced to a stereotype),and her performance did come over as bland despite her radiant looks. The romantic subplot very wisely didn't overshadow the film, but the scenes it features in don't quite have the heart and warmth they could have done, and the final third is a touch too drawn out for that reason.

However, despite the low-budget and that it's not a beautiful-looking film, Crime and Punishment has many parts where it still looks good. The lighting is appropriately shadowy, adding much to the atmosphere and psychological tension of the film, and the semi-Expressionist cinematography is wonderfully dark and striking. Von Sternberg directs with cracking efficiency and knack for suspense. Crime and Punishment is hauntingly scored and the script keeps to the tone and substance of Dostoevsky's writing style, the interplay between Raskolnikov and Porfiry is nail-biting in its tension and entertainment value. The story still is incredibly compelling and tautly paced and structured, even with the condensation this is classic Dostoevsky and his style still shines.

Peter Lorre could be as over-theatrical in places, but actually it is more subtle than some of his other work. Raskolnikov's menacing characteristics are really quite haunting, and his anguish is even more convincing and very powerfully and movingly portrayed. Edward Arnold is similarly perfectly cast, he is an absolute joy to watch and gets even more enjoyable and intimidating as Raskolnikov feels more guilt and paranoia after being laid-back initially. Of the solid supporting cast, Mrs. Patrick Campbell stands out, in a formidably wicked performance as a loathsome character that you feel absolutely no sympathy or loss towards her when she's killed off.

All in all, an entertaining and atmospherically effective film but could have been greater. 7/10 Bethany Cox

Dostoevsky's tragic protagonist Roderick Raskalnikov got a man who was born to play it cast in the lead of the film that Columbia Pictures was putting out. Peter Lorre who would soon carve out a respectable career playing all kinds of unusual characters is our lead here, fresh over from the continent where he was the lead in Fritz Lang's M and also in the cast of Alfred Hitchcock's first version of The Man Who Knew Too Much.

We've heard the superior man theories all before be it from Nietzche all the way to Leopold and Loeb. There are just some folks that the ordinary rules don't apply. Usually the folks who commit those thoughts to paper see themselves as those kind of people. Can you imagine if those famous child killers Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb had instead of killing innocent Bobby Franks had killed someone like the mean and cruel old hag pawnbroker like Lorre does here? Or some noted Chicago gangster? What would our view of them be, what would it have been back then in 1923?

Lorre is a brilliant young criminology student whose work in fact has been published. Not that he's made any big money from it, in fact his landlady is ready to give him the heave ho. But in worse straights are his mother Elizabeth Risdon and sister Tala Birrell are in. They are in deep debt to Mrs. Patrick Campbell a horrible and hideous pawnbroker. When he tries to intercede for his family, Campbell says no and Lorre just loses it and bashes her head in.

By the way in the novel Raskalnikov does her in with an ax and then kills another woman who walked in on the deed. With the new Code in place this was a way of gaining more sympathy for Lorre's character.

The bulk of the movie is almost Columbo like. Police inspector Edward Arnold just bores in on Lorre who despite all his protestations to the contrary really does have a conscience. Still because Campbell was not liked, it's Siberia for him as opposed to noose. Arnold is one relentless upholder of the law.

Back in my Crime Victims Board days when we had to determine the innocence of the victim the term public service homicide came into vogue regarding several victims whose loss was no loss to society because of their criminal activities. I think Crime And Punishment takes that view here.

A good but rather softened version of Crime And Punishment is this film.

I've been entranced with Peter Lorre from the first. Unfortunately, his quirkiness typecast him as a threatening, unstable personage. LIke the character in "M," he never seemed to express joy. Unless he was drunk, he never seemed to smile. In this film, an updated version of the great Dostoevsky work, he plays the brilliant student murderer Raskolnikov, who has done in a harsh old pawnbroker. She is evil, but her worth in the eyes of God is as his. His family is being manipulated by a cad because they have no money, and so in order to appease this man, he kills the old woman. They portray him as an expert in criminology which sets him against a police detective, bent on proving his guilt. The punishment isn't a jail sentence but rather the intense guilt he experiences. This guilt manifests itself from the second he brings down a fireplace poker on the head of woman. This is well done, even though it can't match for a second the incredible book upon which it is based. Lorre and Edward Arnold parry and thrust mentally and this makes the film worth seeing, even though it is diminished by a soft Hollywood ending and some religious mumbo jumbo.