Crime Without Passion

Crime Without Passion is a 1934 American drama film directed by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur and starring Claude Rains. It is the first of four pictures written, produced and directed by Hecht and MacArthur for Paramount Pictures. Sixty to seventy percent of the film was directed by cinematographer Lee Garmes.

Plot
The plot centers around a clever and suave but unscrupulous and dishonest lawyer Lee Gentry (Rains) who boasts that he "lives by lies". His attempts to finish his two-timing affair with a clinging, besotted cabaret artist do not go according to plan.

Critical reception
In The New York Times, Mordaunt Hall found "a drama blessed with marked originality and photographed with consummate artistry," and cited one of its many pluses as "that of having Claude Rains in the main rôle."