Sudden Fear (1952)

Sudden Fear is classic mid-century noir. The men wear hats and suits and ties because men did back then. The women wear silk stockings and have elaborate coiffures because women did back then. People travel cross-country by train and the automobiles are enormous. It's all filmed in glorious black and white.

Joan Crawford and Jack Palance make a quirky romantic couple. She plays an heiress and successful playwright. He plays an aspiring actor. She fires him from her Broadway show. He seduces her and plots to kill her, aided by an old girlfriend played by Gloria Grahame. 

Crawford's acting style recalls the silent films in which she started with close-ups that allow her facial expressions to reflect sequences of thought and emotion. Palance's style exemplifies modern realism. Grahame's acting transcends style.

Much of the film recalls Alfred Hitchcock's criticism of what happened initially when sound was added to movies: they became "photographs of people talking." However, in the final quarter of the film, when Crawford and Palance launch their deadly schemes, director David Miller and cinematographer Charles Lang put on a tour de force​ of visual storytelling that Hitchcock might have envied.