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
Crime and Punishment causing a rift with his family. Luzhin is discredited, but Sonya is traumatized, and she runs out of the apartment. Raskolnikov follows her. Back at her room, Raskolnikov draws Sonya's attention to the ease with which Luzhin could have ruined her, and consequently the children as well. But it is only a prelude to his confession that he is the murderer of the old woman and Lizaveta. Painfully, he tries to explain his abstract motives for the crime to the uncomprehending Sonya. She is horrified, not just at the crime, but at his own self-torture, and tells him that he