Crime and Punishment (1935 American film) Murray Mayer. Edited by Richard Calhoun. Crime and Punishment (1935 American film) Crime and Punishment is a 1935 film directed by Josef von Sternberg for Columbia Pictures. The screenplay was adapted by Joseph Anthony and S.K. Lauren from Fyodor Dostoevsky's novel of the same title. The film stars Peter Lorre in the lead role of Raskolnikov (here named Roderick instead of Rodion). Von Sternberg, who was contractually obliged to make the film, disliked it, later writing that it was "no more related to the true text of the novel than the corner of Sunset Boulevard and Gower is related to
Underworld London: Crime and Punishment in the Capital City favours the highwayman: her pen-portraits sparkle with the notoriety and swagger of these romantic figures.' The Historical Novel Society also praised the work, writing 'the author collates a variety of secondary sources in a readable and pacy narrative' and whilst also noting 'Arnold makes a strong case to show why capital punishment should remain off the statute books and if there is anything positive to take away from this catalogue of human iniquity, it is that the more enlightened recent attitudes towards the punishment of serious crime has to be a good thing'. The book was also reviewed in the