Crimes of passion is a thriller from 1984 directed by Ken Russell. Fresh from On the hunt for the green diamond and years before her infamous Jessica Rabbit, Kathleen Turner plays Joanna Crane, a successful fashion designer who also works as a sex worker China Blue. In addition to Turner, Psycho star Anthony Perkins as Reverend Peter Shayne, an evil, voyeuristic preacher, and John Laughlin as Bobby Grady, a disgruntled family man on the verge of divorce. When Bobby Grady takes a surveillance job on behalf of Joanna’s employer, he discovers her China Blue personality but keeps it to himself. Meanwhile, Reverend Peter Shayne alternates between popping poppers at peep shows, preaching about sin to said peep shows, and stalking Joanna while insisting on “saving” her. Crime oo Passion is an exciting, erotic and often hilarious exploration of issues surrounding sex, vulnerability and the double lives we all lead.

“Crimes Of Passion” explores sex and power

China Blue is a character who embodies several different roles – a Russian doll of performative vulnerability. She invents elaborate backstories for her clients. They are not only designed for the specific fetish she is selling that night (beauty queens, brutal cops and flight attendants), but they also serve the fantasy that all these men share: China Blue is a lost soul who has just gone through a breakup or experienced childhood sexual violence and is desperately searching for money on the streets. She needs to be rescued. Whether these things are true or false is of little consequence. The evil Reverend Peter Shayne remarks to her with equal parts compassion and mockery: “You wear your torment like a chastity belt that cannot be carried around with you.”

These men come to her not just for the specific roleplay or BDSM dynamics, but to feel like heroes saving a poor, down-on-the-luck woman. But unlike a story like Pretty womanJoanna doesn’t need the money she takes from her clients. In case that wasn’t clear given her successful career in the fashion industry, there’s a very telling scene early in the film where she carelessly sticks her gum in a $50 bill and throws it away like it’s nothing. Money creates an emotional barrier between her and her clients. It reduces interactions that would involve great emotional vulnerability in an actual relationship to a simple transaction.

Anthony Perkins’ Reverend Peter Shayne is a scary predator

This hero complex of her clients is best embodied by the character of Reverend Peter Shayne. Crass, hypocritical and a little creepy, Shayne pursues Joanna relentlessly. He is convinced that she is some kind of mirror image of himself who needs to be saved from China Blue’s sinful ways and resorts to her after being rejected. Unlike Bobby, who seeks a genuine emotional connection with Joanna, Shayne feels somewhat entitled to Joanna’s emotional vulnerability and true identity. Even without the actual physical violence that Shayne uses, his demands have an emotional layer. He doesn’t just want to know objective facts about Joanna’s everyday life, he wants a level of real emotional vulnerability that he hasn’t earned, and Joanna doesn’t want to shareWhen someone sees behind the facade you have artfully constructed, it can feel as hurtful as if someone had ripped the clothes off your body.

The character of Reverend Peter Shayne is extremely threatening. He is reminiscent of characters like The Hunchback of Notre Dame‘S Claude Frollo and Night of the Hunter‘S Rev. Harry Powell. He himself is much more corrupt and poses a great threat to Joanna’s safety.. His continued forays into sin do nothing to diminish his interest in her China Blue persona. While the introduction of his ultimately fatal “killer dildo,” a sex toy with a sharp tip, is initially comical, the menace of him looms over the narrative as he stalks Joanna. “What are you going to do? Fuck someone to death?” “Only the right woman.” Perkins plays Shayne with a kind of nervous, manic energy that makes the character seem unpredictable, even if his eventual capture of Joanna is clear from the start. His knuckles are white, his fingers gripping his Bible as if he’s afraid someone will rip it from his hands, muttering a mix of prayers and vulgarity under his breath. Even from his introduction, it’s obvious that Peter Shayne is just as afraid of someone seeing through the facade he’s put up as Joanna is. And this fear that penetrates his innermost being only makes him an even more terrifying bogeyman, living on the fringes of Joanna’s life until one day he no longer exists.

“Crimes Of Passion” combines eroticism with humor

Crimes of passion is also a deeply funny film. Much of the humor revolves around sex and can be quite juvenile, but in a way that only serves the characters and the story itself. Bobby Grady’s “human penis” appearance, a gag where he ties two basketballs to his feet and spits milk like an ejaculating penis, is exactly the humor you’d expect from a teenager, but that’s the point. Bobby Grady is stuck in a perpetual emotional adolescence that he only begins to leave after he meets China Blue. Reverend Peter Shayne also gets many lines that are funny to the audience but very serious to him, including the infamous “Snatch can’t fool me, sir.” And Kathleen Turner, as China Blue, is the funniest and most quick-witted of them.

Many of the film’s explicit sex scenes and eroticism are inextricably linked to the comedy. China Blue is certainly arousing as a sexy flight attendant, but it’s hard not to laugh at the flat pun, “Though we might run out of Pan Am coffee, we’ll never run out of TWAT.” Joanna’s China persona is always like that. Her rouged lips and husky voice effortlessly wrap around little jokes and banter. When she first meets Reverend Peter Shayne, he pleads with her with a trembling voice and pleading eyes, “Do you recognize me, child?”, after which she takes a drag from her cigarette with sensual affection “I’m sorry. I never forget a face. Especially when I’ve sat on it.” Her humor is fast and dirty, and it only works because she has such a voice. Anything and everything can be an innuendo, the way she says it. And while that would work on a comedic level regardless of the character, it contributes to Joanna using her China Blue personality to protect herself from emotional intimacy. China Blue is funny specifically because it’s meant to distract from the harsh emotional realities of their lives.

In a way, this is also a parallel to Bobby’s humor. His aforementioned “human penis” gag is one he performs in front of his wife and friends while in the midst of marital problems. It’s a gag he performs after his tired wife Amy begs him not to perform a magic trick and she is visibly displeased with it. Bobby’s inability to grow alongside his wife and his refusal to recognize the problems in his marriage until it’s too late lead to him losing Amy. He’s not a bad or even insensitive person. He knows he’s losing Amy. something is wrong, he just can’t figure out what. And he makes really serious attempts to communicate with Amy – but it’s just too late. She’s already been married to the emotionally immature Bobby for over a decade. Amy is simply fed up with her troubled marriage and cannot wait for Bobby to grow up, which happens after meeting China Blue.

“Crimes of Passion” is a black comedy and an erotic thriller that is worth watching again

Crimes of passion is artfully compassionate when it comes to tackling the lives and mistakes of its characters. The film has a visual toughness, as everything is grimy and bathed in neon, but it also has an emotional toughness. While Bobby and Amy’s marital problems may not be as exciting as those of a fashion designer moonlighting as a sex worker and avoiding an evil preacher, they are still interestingly and realistically written. Amy Grady, what little we see of her, is a woman who is dissatisfied with her life and doesn’t know how to move on. A lesser film would have pitted Amy and Joanna against each other in some ways – perhaps with the suggestion that Joanna’s outward sexuality as China Blue made her more attractive than the sexually disinterested and somewhat repressed housewife – but Crimes of passion does not go this way. After visiting China Blue, Bobby tries even more desperately than before to keep his marriage alive.

He misses the emotional intimacy of sex with his wife – not the actual act. And Joanna, whether playing China Blue or herself, is deeply disturbed. The emotional intimacy she experiences with Bobby frightens her far more than the pursuit of Reverend Peter Shayne. But as with Joanna’s China Blue persona, there is comedy interwoven with drama at the heart of the film. Even during Joanna’s captivity, Shayne breaks out into song in a scene that is both hilarious and frightening to watch. Crimes of passion is mostly an erotic thriller but it skillfully balances some heavy themes with hilarious comedy.

Crimes of passion is currently available to stream on Pluto in the US

Watch on Pluto