Faye Dunaway herself up to her estranged father and a lover. I understood that dilemma well, the conflict between ambition and love, the fear of trusting someone else with your love." The film was a modest success but Dunaway received good notices for her performance. In his review of the film, Roger Ebert noted how she had never topped the work she did in "Bonnie and Clyde", and said that her career had been "rather absentminded" ever since. He praised her performance in "Oklahoma Crude", saying that she played the role with "a great deal of style", while adding, "Perhaps she has
Faye Dunaway of that evil that she brings to it, I think that’s just major acting." Although the film became a cult classic as well as one of her most famous characters, Dunaway expressed her regrets for playing Crawford, as she felt "it was meant to be a window into a tortured soul. But it was made into camp." She also blamed the film for hurting her career and almost never agreed to discuss it in interviews afterwards. In 1982, Dunaway appeared in a television adaptation of Clifford Odets's dramatic play "The Country Girl" as the wife of a washed-up alcoholic singer