Passion

Passion (1954)

Genres - Western  |   Sub-Genres - Traditional Western  |   Release Date - Oct 6, 1954 (USA - Unknown), Oct 6, 1954 (USA)  |   Run Time - 84 min.  |   Countries - United States  |   MPAA Rating - NR
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Review by Craig Butler

There's not really a lot of passion in Passion, a film that's really more about obsession and revenge. There's nothing wrong with obsession and revenge as the themes of a film, but unfortunately, Passion doesn't play either of these ideas in an interesting way. The screenplay gives us the outline of a potentially decent story; it's awfully familiar, but it has the basic ingredients that could make for an absorbing tale of vengeance. But the various credited screenwriters don't do much with the outline, other than provide dialogue that is alternately stilted and embarrassing. Director Allan Dwan is no more successful in bringing any real emotion out in the set-up, settling for stereotypical generic outbursts, but he does keep the pace up and he demonstrates his ability to take an ordinary right scene and imbue it with a little crackle. Stars Cornel Wilde and Yvonne de Carlo can't really do much with their clichéd parts, but they are certainly decorative. Even more decorative is the location lensing, which provides the film with its biggest asset. Not a terrible film, but on the whole not an especially memorable one.