Not the best adaptation, but where von Sternberg falls short of the book in terms of narrative, he makes up for it in visual realization, painting vibrant images with space and light.

Probably thanks to the Hays Code, Sonya's being a prostitute is completely dropped from this adaptation. Apart from this, most of the script is tasteful, up until a ridiculously kitschy last 15 minutes. What weighs the film down most of all is the bad cast. The worst of it is Edward Arnold who irreparably crushes the novel's most delicately written character, Porfiry Petrovich, under utterly wrongheaded delivery. Lorre, another miscast, nails a few scenes but leaves much to be desired.

Not exactly Dostoyevsky, but powerful and atmospheric nonetheless. Lorre, Arnold and Marsh are very good, and Sternberg, master of shadows, casts his usual spell.

Film Noir / Komedi arasi bir suc ve ceza- garip bi uyarlama.

Crime and Punishment within 80 minutes! How good could it be? And Peter Lorre as Raskolnikov? Come on! This movie looks like Smurfs compared with the novel!

Surprisingly good; cutting an 800-page novel down to 80 minutes means getting rid of a lot of the stuff that makes it a great story, but they keep enough of the moral confusion and the sparring between Raskolnikov and the inspector (Edward Arnold) to make it feel like they actually wanted to do right by Dostoevsky.

Slight and narrow perspective with nothing really to speak of in any field of it; not even that good of a Lorre role.

actually a pretty good movie, although peter lorre's accent is atrocious. i'd probably have liked it considerably less had i read the book, but even so the story alone warrents at the very least a watchable movie.