Crime and Punishment entitled "The Drunkards", which was to deal with "the present question of drunkenness ... [in] all its ramifications, especially the picture of a family and the bringing up of children in these circumstances, etc., etc." This theme, centering on the story of the Marmeladov family, became ancillary to the story of Raskolnikov and his crime. At the time Dostoevsky owed large sums of money to creditors, and was trying to help the family of his brother Mikhail, who had died in early 1864. After appeals elsewhere failed, Dostoevsky turned as a last resort to the publisher Mikhail Katkov, and sought
Crime and Punishment (1935 American film) and elaborate description of [his characters] mental attitudes." Harry Cohn's approved the project in part because Crime and Punishment, first published in 1866, was in the public domain and would require no copyright fees. Crime and Punishment exemplifies a trend in Hollywood of the 1930s towards elevating feature film credentials through adapting classical literature "to lend an air of prestige" to the film industry. The "odd cast", bestowed upon Sternberg, included a mix of Columbia contract artists as well as "supers"—freelance players engaged without a contract, for a modest fee—that satisfied Columbia's budgetary constraints. Production code officials had reviewed a