Rating: 
Summary: The best laid plans...
Review: Joan Crawford chews the scenery, Jack Palance looks ugly and menacing, and Gloria Grahame slinks around in this fabulous film noir. Crawford is a wealthy socialite and playwright who marries Palance, an actor she had previously rejected from one of her plays. Turns out he has a girlfriend (Grahame) and they're plotting to murder Joan for her money. Joan finds out and decides to beat them to the punch (so to speak) by hatching a plan to murder her husband and frame his lover for the crime, complete with a little dream sequence showing the audience how it's supposed to turn out. In the middle of the plan, however, Joan loses her nerve...and that's when things get really interesting. The suspense starts about halfway through the film, when Joan discovers the plot against her, but the last ten minutes of the film dials up it a few levels. A must for any fan of Crawford and/or film noir.
Rating:
Summary: Miss Crawford does it again
Review: Joan is superb in this thriller! Joan earned her second oscar nomination as she plays a playrite who fall sfor the wrong guy and then learns the horrible truth and in such a rottten way too! I marveled at Joans character plots her clever defense! This one will keep you on the edge of youe seat. They aren't made like this any more but they out to be!
Rating:
Summary: Spine Tingling Thriller!
Review: Joan plays Myra Hudson, a successful playrite who marries Jack Palance then discovers an awful truth....Now watch Joanie go to work in a very clever way to out fox the villians......It is no surprise to me that Miss Crawford was nominated for an Oscar for this edge of your seat Hitchcockian like thriller...It is a job very well done and Miss Crawford deserves a vivacious round of applause!! ATTA GIRL JOANIE!!!
Rating: 
Summary: Brilliant Movie - Dreadful DVD
Review: Kino Video ought to be embarrassed to release such a poor quality print on DVD. What everyone has said about the transfer is true. It is truly dreadful. There are better copies of this film on VHS. At one point Joan backs away from the camera in horror until her performance is nothing but a fuzzy blur.
Joan Crawford's work deserves better treatment. Hopefully the upcoming Crawford boxed set from Warner Bros will include a better version of this film. Keep your fingers crossed.
That said, I love this movie, even with it's ridiculous ending. That milk! Those eyes! But why does Joan's character cry out in warning at the end of the film only to smirk pridefully as she walks away?
Rating: 
Summary: Great to re-experience the 'fear'...
Review: Most of the previous reviewers have done an excellent job of outlining the plot details of this fine older film. I have just a few comments to add.Since DVDs have arrived and video has become a stepchild, we have an excellent opportunity to view old favorites with little impact on the purse. Sometimes a visit to old haunts proves our memory a little faulty or shows the film itself just hasn't aged well. I loved this movie that first time around and it proved to be just as wonderful in a recent memory lane visit. Joan Crawford, never one of my favorite actresses, deserved the Oscar for this performance, not just a nomination. It was definitely one of her best. She was able to convey the 'fear' without making one groan at any overacting. She portrayed a bright woman with a fear, a plan, a conscious, and a heart with brilliance and with just the right amount of conviction. Jack Palance, conversely always a favorite of mine, was his menacing best in this performance without having to overact for a second. The perfect role, played to perfection. It is always enjoyable to see the work of stars you have forgotten were in favorite old films. Touch (Mike) Conners (TV's Mannix) played Sonny in this film, which didn't rumble back into memory when I watched him each week on TV, but I recognized his name in the opening credits immediately this time. It was very interesting to watch him in retrospect in an early effort (perhaps his first?). Hollywood in their infinite wisdom seems to have decided that today's audiences are too jaded, too sophisticated, too juvenile, or too something to enjoy a simple thriller in the ilk of 'Sudden Fear', 'Midnight Lace', or other great 'woman-in-distress/woman-with-a-plan films, unless they modern-it-up as in 'Panic Room'. Perhaps they know a thing or two, since they are wealthy and I work a 9-to-5 job and post reviews on a website. However, speaking for myself, and hopefully for other viewers who still enjoy; a simple plot with character-study, suspense, b/w beauty, and pleasure while viewing, 'Sudden Fear' tells a great story in a suspenseful manner. I still makes for great viewing. Grab yourself a bargain and enjoy!
Rating:
Summary: AUTHOR ! AUTHOR !
Review: Not so many films noirs of the 40's and 50's are to be found in the DVD standard until now so the arrival of David Miller's SUDDEN FEAR is a pleasure we would be foolish to neglect. With an imperial Joan Crawford, a Jack Palance sweating hypocrisy and, last but not least, with Gloria Grahame ! YES ! THE Gloria Grahame with her voice, childish, slightly pathetic and undoubtedly sexy, SUDDEN FEAR is a superior movie of this peculiar genre. Joan Crawford is Myra Hudson, a woman of character, a playwriter who dares to refuse to Jack "Lester" Palance the first role of her new play. Who will control whom ? That's the theme treated by director David Miller in SUDDEN FEAR. In the movie's beginning, we are lead to think that Jack Palance is going to eat alive a Joan Crawford blinded by love. But Myra will quickly recover from this common illness and take her destiny in charge again. The last third of SUDDEN FEAR is one of the most impressive moments I've lived, cinematographically speaking, since weeks. Myra Hudson will direct "live" the characters she has described in her books for years, she will control, in a certain manner, the sound (with the micros hidden in her office) and the image (with the power of the mind) of the play she is going to be part of. But the ultimate minutes of SUDDEN FEAR will prove that Myra Hudson cannot act so, in the same way she has fired once Lester, she is replaced in the final act by Gloria Grahame for a tragic final. Myra Hudson cannot act nor direct. Luckily enough for us, David Miller has showed us that he can. A scene access as sole extra feature ( it's too much, you shouldn't have, IMAGE ! ) A DVD for your library.
Rating:
Summary: Joan Crawford Triumphs Again
Review: Once I finally broke down and bought a DVD player, I thought the only possible way to break it in was with an unfamiliar film by my beloved Joan Crawford, 1952's Sudden Fear. The film is a real thriller, sort of a higher-class film noir forerunner of some of the more exciting horror films she made in the 1960s (Strait-Jacket and Berserk come to mind; I won't watch Baby Jane because I can't stand to see Joan be mistreated). Joan is magnificent as a wealthy heiress/playwright who becomes the target of a murder plot by her actor husband (Jack Palance) and his girlfriend (Gloria Grahame, whose scene-stealing performance is almost worth the price of the film). Joan becomes privy to the murder plan thanks to the advanced electronic technology in her San Francisco mansion. Always the playwright, she uses her plot-devising skills to foil the murder attempt, but backs out at the last second from carrying out her plan. We do however at least get the satisfaction of seeing what she had intended through a kind of dream sequence which left me cheering. Up to the last few minutes of the film, I felt it definitely deserved five stars. However, the ending is a bit of a letdown; it is far too dependent on mere chance to be satisfactory. I couldn't help thinking that a better ending that arose more naturally from the plot could have been devised. For example, if Joan had carried it out, the dream sequence would have been a great improvement over the ending we have, and confirmed once more her regular screen persona of being in charge of every situation. Nevertheless, Sudden Fear is an engrossing and exciting film. It was a great way to both break in my new DVD player and to spend an evening, not to mention being a valuable addition to my appreciation of Joan Crawford the actress.
Rating:
Summary: Suspense That Shows Joan Crawford Had What It Takes!
Review: One of the best Joan Crawford movies I have ever seen. It really kept me interested the entire time (but to be honest, I could watch her do the dishes and be pleased!) Myra Hudson overhears her husband, a man she has adored, plot her murder with his mistress. Using her ingenious mind, she plots her own revenge against her unfaithful husband and his mistress. Not one minute of the movie is wasted. She honestly deserved the Academy Award nomination she received. Sit back! Watch the show! Be thoroughly entertained by one of the best!
Rating:
Summary: Joan, distressed
Review: One of the problems with buying Joan in the woman-in-distress in this movie is just that Joan is just not very good at playing it (She stares Palance down with the eyes of a gunslinger and looks as if she could take him out with one punch). Once she decides that she is going to engineer the demise of both her murderous husband and his girlfriend, we are in territory that Crawford is best in. But I am not saying she can't be good- despite the nutty scene where she finds out that Palance plans to off her (where she does everything but juggle while spinning her head around a la Linda Blair in "The Exorcist"), she's good in this one. (Especially in the scene where she catches her reflection in the mirror with a gun and actually "sees" herself for the first time. ) Slighly looney, like most late-middle era Crawford flicks, but our Joan makes you buy it lock, stock, and barrel.
Rating:
Summary: Palaver with Palance
Review: Perfect casting, careful pacing, and precise characterizations are the specialties of this suspenseful film noir. Of particular interest is the plot's patient development of the relationship between Crawford and Palance, an intricate bond that continues to intrigue as the harmony of their home begins to ring hollow. Palance's powerful sex appeal is like a lightning rod that draws both Crawford and Grahame, and, though nothing in the storyline comes as a shock, the details are utterly jolting!
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