****SPOILERS*** Updated version of Russian Fyodor Dostoyevsky's crime classic has "Hansome George" Hamilton in his film debut as the creepy and psychopathic law school drop out Robert Cole who's guilty conscience gets finally the better of him. That after he thought he committed the perfect crime the robbery and murder of pawn store owner Lizzy Griggs, Eve McVeagh, to get himself enough cash to pay for his collage education. While on the beach burying the incriminating evidence, a blood stain crowbar, Robert does a good deed for once in his life rescuing Mr. Morman who collapsed from a severe case of the booze induced DT's. It's later that Robert got to meet Mr. Morman's daughter Sally, Mary Murphy, whom he in his own crazy and sick way fell in love with.Despite how perfect his crime was it was the on the ball Let. Porter, Frank Silvera, who saw right through Robert knowing indistinctly what a psycho he really was. But with the late Mrs. Griggs' house painter Hendricks, Ken Darko, confessing to her murder there's nothing that he could do about it. It's a smug and confident in his immunity to the law, because as he says he's a member of elite class, Robert who himself confesses to Mr. Griggs murder to Sally , with an evil smirk on his puss or face that's creepy enough to make one's blood run cold, she's still in love with him and feels that she can somehow straighten him out before he kills again!It's when Robert meets his bible thumping older sister Debbie's, Marian Seldes, rejected lover Fred Swanson, John Harding, gets into the picture that Robert, in hating the very sight of him, blows his cool. At first wanting to ring Swanson's neck Robert soon realizes that he and Swanson are one of a kind: Unrepentant murderers. With Swanson having murdered his wife after she caught him in a compromising position with Robert's sister Dobbie!****SPOILERS*** Finally convinced to see things his way Robert takes Swanson's advice to leave town with his now stand by her man girlfriend Sally and start a new life outside of Santa Monica Calif. That's all shot to pieces when Swanson who after making a complete fool of himself! That's by him first threatening to turn her baby bother Robert over to the police for Mrs. Griggs' murder and then like a baby getting down on his hands and knees crying begging and slobbering for her to marry him which she rightfully turned down. Seeing that his life can't go on without her Swanson realizing what a sorry a** spectacle he made of himself does himself in by blowing his brains out! It just happened that the hotel room where Swanson was staying was next to the room where Robert & Sally were who were the first to come on the scene! A completely freaked out Robert finally seeing the light and smelling the coffee drops his act of being a elite superman that's above the law and finally decides to come clean. A zombie like Robert leaves Sally alone as he in what seems like an hypnotic trace goes to the local police station to give himself up to Let. Porter. Thus not only paying the price for his crime but also getting an innocent man off, the house painter Hendrick, who so foolishly confessed to the crime that Robert committed.

To begin with, I almost did not acquire this when I chanced upon it, since the film does not have much of a reputation; even so, it has recently been released on DVD-R as part of Warners' "Archive Collection", running 96 minutes (like the version I watched) rather than 78 as listed on the IMDb! In any case, the result is undeniably gripping (given the source material) and decidedly accomplished (in spite of the obvious low budget) – with gleaming cinematography by Floyd Crosby and a jazzy score by Herschel Burke Gilbert.Best of all, the performances (notably, as always, the arrogant protagonist and his wily nemesis) are reasonably impressive. George Hamilton (being nominated for a BAFTA award in his film debut) kind of channels Anthony Perkins here, and it is unfortunate that he would soon forsake such thoughtful roles for sophisticated (and, in the long run, superficial) ones. Frank Silvera plays his pivotal cop role as something of a buffoon; Mary Murphy's character, then, does not shy away from discussing her sordid 'profession'; while John Harding appears as the seducer of the hero's sister. Incidentally, Hamilton's scenes with the latter two are only slightly less compelling than his confrontations with Silvera (established in previous cinematic renditions as the novel's centerpiece).As the title suggests, Dostoyevsky's morality tale has been updated to modern-day America: curiously, it eschews the pivotal figure of the pawnbroker entirely (though we are still told why the murder was committed) – indeed, the narrative here starts off with the arrest of the painter! Still, the victim's essentially disagreeable characteristics are transferred onto the afore-mentioned Harding – which seemed unnecessary at first, but this does generate an intriguing complicity between the two murderers…paid off, most effectively, in ironical fashion when the student ultimately confesses because he believes the other fellow killed himself out of remorse when it was over rejection! In the end, the film is pretentious (boasting a powerful script by Walter Newman), with a tendency towards sleaze; that said, this mature approach is quite redolent of the transitional period in which it was made – being entrenched somewhere between studio-system Hollywood and the 'movie brats' generation. For the record, this was also director Sanders' first effort, of whose later work I have watched (and own) WAR HUNT (1962), ELVIS: THAT'S THE WAY IT IS (1970/2000) and INVASION OF THE BEE GIRLS (1973); besides, I have just acquired THE American WEST OF JOHN FORD (1971; TV) and am interested in ONE MAN'S WAY and SHOCK TREATMENT (both 1964).

This is a very good adaptation of Dostoevsky's novel. The actors all gave solid performances, and the script captures the essence of an investigation into a crime that will depend on not on physical evidence, or finding a witness, but on a psychological campaign by the police detective, as he seeks to get a crack his suspect. As George Hamilton's Robert fences with Frank Silvera's Inspector Porter, he tries to come to terms with his own guilt and fear. In the end, it resolves wonderfully, with Robert coming to terms with his actions and deciding how to live them.The low budget for the film seems to have been a benefit in this case. The seedy Southern California landscapes give a feel of desperation that makes the initial crime believable, and makes Robert's desire to escape it understandable. And the 'cheapness' fits the small cast, and the film's concentration on a few characters, intensifying the psychological pressure Robert is feeling.Really well done, and I highly recommend it.

I am not going to present a conventional rejection, nor to justify such a rejection from a conventional perspective. Apart from people who have a professional relation to such subjects, rather few persons are as familiar with different philosophical schools and different forms of fictional literature. But I do not think that Dostoyevsky is more than a middle-sized writer: far from poor but also far from good. Perhaps a little better than Walter Scott. And I am unable to perceive any philosophy in his writings. Nor have I learned much from texts aimed at explaining his philosophy. Consequently, it would be alien to my thinking to reproach Sanders's movie for having neglected 'the philosophy' of the novel. Nevertheless, I think that Denis Sanders has reduced 'Crime and Punishment' to a kind of 'Classics Illustrated'. A boy murders an old pawnbroker woman. This is the kind of events we may read about in the newspapers or watch on television, and the same thing is true of what follows: the boy eventually gets of a nervous breakdown because of his crime. He goes to the police and confesses, and even hands over hard evidence. - However much I think that Dostoyevsky is overrated, his novel contains SOMETHING more than just mass media sensations, but Sanders's movie does not (apart from one scene). The boy's writings about super-humans with the right to discard normal moral rules reminds me foremost of a newspaper columnist trying to catch the attention of bored readers by means of funny paradoxes. - - - But there is one scene that moved me very deeply; perhaps mostly so because of its very quiet nature. Sometimes (though not always) it is a wise rule that emotions should be felt by the spectators, not exhibited by the actors. There is nothing in the girl's appearance or behaviour that reveals her profession. But one night when she goes past a cheap café, she sees the boy in there, and goes to him. She tells him, 'I go out with men. Many men.' - This is a really great scene, and it must be regretted that I do not have the proper competence for describing why it is so. After some 40 years I still would like to see this scene again. I have no wish to see any other part of the movie again.