Dostoyevsky abbreviated in American style and turned into a bestselling pulp fiction but not without efficiency - the film is mediocre but not bad, and for a variation of a great theme its Hollywood turnabout of the end makes it quite interesting. Cookson is a very American Raskolnikov, but he is not a poor emaciated student but a medical student not without some social standing, especially among his fellow students, with whom he shares some beer. Cathy (Eileen) here is not a fallen destitute like Sonia, and she is not burdened by that miserable family Marmeladov. The victim of the murder is not an old greedy worthless woman but a male pawnbroker not without some decency. As an American version of "Crime and Punishment" it is not on par with Josef von Sternberg's version ten years earlier with Peter Lorre, which stuck to the book, but the twist to the story makes this version quite original and not be despised, although hardly to be included in any Dostoyevsky films canon.
