Crime and Punishment

Far from Sternberg's best, but still a fairly impressive, if overly condensed, adaptation of Dostoevsky's novel. Lorre is highly effective as the arrogant Raskolnikov, committing a murder and then battling it out both with his conscience and with police inspector Arnold. The strongest scenes, in fact, are those dealing with the cat-and-mouse games between the two men, although the whole thing benefits from Lucien Ballard's characteristically fine photography. Of course it falls a long way short of the book in terms of philosophical import and characterisation, but it's pretty compelling nevertheless.