This film is cinematic Marmite – you either love it or hate it. I am in the former camp, although quite what that says about me I don’t know.

I remember going to see this while at university, with my friend John. We both really enjoyed it, to the point that he recommended it highly to his girlfriend at the time. She subsequently went to see it with her girlfriends and promptly broke up with him in disgust! Crimes of Passion is a film by the late English auteur Ken Russell, who made a great many other sensationalist/censor baiting films, including Tommy and The Devils, and like many of his works it revels in its extremities.  

This one stars Kathleen Turner as a successful businesswoman by day choosing to also be, for reasons never wholly satisfactorily explained as far as I can recall, a sleazy Hollywood hooker by night. If you can get beyond that, plus some fairly explicit S&M scenes, it is a surprisingly entertaining and witty movie, which also features a great supporting turn from Anthony Perkins as a sex obsessed preacher.  At one point I recall he belts out a bizarre rendition of “Get happy” on the piano while dressed as a nun. (Just go with it – it’s that kind of movie!)

This poster does rather capture the whole tawdriness of the voyeuristic milieu in which it is set. I actually have this movie on DVD, but after John’s experience I have never once suggested to my wife we sit down and watch it. Instead, I have put it firmly on my ‘NOT a good date movie’ mental list….