{"id":40714,"date":"2025-12-10T08:19:48","date_gmt":"2025-12-10T13:19:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/?p=40714"},"modified":"2025-12-10T08:21:02","modified_gmt":"2025-12-10T13:21:02","slug":"sudden-fear-1952-starring-joan-crawford-jack-palance-gloria-grahame-z-view","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/?p=40714","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;Sudden Fear&#8221; (1952) starring Joan Crawford, Jack Palance &amp; Gloria Grahame \/ Z-View"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/stallonezone.com\/zone\/2025\/z121025zview_suddenfear.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"757\" \/><\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Sudden Fear <\/strong><\/em>(1952)<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Director:<strong> David Miller<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Screenplay: <strong>Lenore J. Coffee, Robert Smith; <\/strong>based on <a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/4iLcEQq\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">SUDDEN FEAR<\/a> by<strong> Edna Sherry<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Stars: <strong>Joan Crawford, Jack Palance, Gloria Grahame, Bruce Bennett, Virginia Huston,\u00a0 Taylor Holmes, Selmer Jackson, Lewis Martin <\/strong>and <strong>Mike Connors.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Tagline:\u00a0<i> A Thrilling New High In Suspense Melodrama!<\/i><\/p>\n<p><strong>The Plot\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Myra Hudson is a successful Broadway playwright and producer.\u00a0 Her every production is a success.\u00a0 She&#8217;s powerful, rich and single.\u00a0 On a train ride across country Myra has a chance meeting with Lester Baine.\u00a0 He&#8217;s an actor that Myra fired from one of her productions not too long ago.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Myra is apologetic, yet Lester says, &#8220;No apology needed.&#8221;\u00a0 They talk a bit and really hit it off.\u00a0 Lester is witty and charming.\u00a0 Before the train ride is over, Myra is falling in love.\u00a0 A whirlwind courtship and marriage follow.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">What Myra doesn&#8217;t know is that Lester doesn&#8217;t love her.\u00a0 It&#8217;s an act to gain access to Myra&#8217;s money and prestige.\u00a0 In fact, Lester is having an affair with his old flame (and fellow grifter) Irene.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Myra is so in love with Lester, she decides to secretly revise her will.\u00a0 She will leave him everything should she die.\u00a0 Lester learns that Myra is planning to change her will.\u00a0 He doesn&#8217;t know that the change would benefit him.\u00a0 Lester decides to kill Myra before the change is made.\u00a0 He recruits Irene and they plan the murder.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Myra accidentally learns that Lester is cheating on her and he very soon he will kill her.\u00a0 Myra&#8217;s shock turns to disbelief, then fear and then a plan for revenge.<\/p>\n<p><strong style=\"font-size: inherit; color: var(--text-color); font-family: var(--text-font);\">Thoughts (beware of spoilers)\u2026\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>Sudden Fear<\/em> was nominated for four 1953 <em>Academy Awards<\/em>&#8230;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><em>Nominee<\/em> for <em>Best Costume Design, Black-and-White &#8211; <\/em><strong>Sheila O&#8217;Brien<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><em>Nominee<\/em> for <em>Best Cinematography, Black-and-White<\/em> &#8211; <strong>Charles Lang<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><em>Nominee<\/em> for <em>Best Actor in a Supporting Role<\/em> &#8211; <strong>Jack Palance<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><em>Nominee<\/em> for Best <em>Actress in a Leading Role<\/em> &#8211; <strong>Joan Crawford<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><em>Sudden Fear<\/em> marked Jack Palance&#8217;s first <em>Best Supporting Actor Academy Award<\/em> Nomination.\u00a0 He would earn his second <em>Best Supporting Actor Oscar Nomination<\/em> the following year for his performance in <em>Shane<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Joan Crawford not only starred in <em>Sudden Fear<\/em>, she also served as the film&#8217;s Executive Producer.\u00a0 She was hands-on. Crawford personally selected the film&#8217;s screenwriter (Lenore J. Coffee), the director (David Miller), the cinematographer (Charles Lang) and her co-stars (Jack Palance and Gloria Grahame).<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Because Joan Crawford optioned the rights to Edna Sherry&#8217;s novel, Crawford had more control over the production.\u00a0 Crawford gambled and took 40% of the film&#8217;s profits rather than her normal $200,000.00 salary.\u00a0 The gamble paid off when the film was a huge success.<\/p>\n<p><em>Sudden Fear<\/em> features Mike Connor&#8217;s first feature film role.\u00a0 He is billed as Touch Connor.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Based on the film&#8217;s <em>Oscar<\/em> nominations and reviews, most folks liked <em>Sudden Fear<\/em> A LOT more than me.\u00a0 I found <em>Sudden Fear<\/em> to be overly melodramtic.\u00a0 I did enjoy the surprise at the end, but felt that much of the danger and suspense could have been easily avoided with better choices from the Joan Crawford character.\u00a0 As always, your mileage may vary.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><em><strong>Sudden Fear <\/strong><\/em>(1952) rates 2 of 5 stars.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/stallonezone.com\/zone\/logo\/zview_d.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"100\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/stallonezone.com\/zone\/2025\/z121025zview_suddenfear2.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"348\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sudden Fear (1952) Director: David Miller Screenplay: Lenore J. Coffee, Robert Smith; based on SUDDEN FEAR by Edna Sherry Stars:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":912,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[52,17,54,65,74],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40714","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-celebs","category-movies","category-trivia","category-z-view"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40714","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/912"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40714"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40714\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40715,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40714\/revisions\/40715"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}