David Denby

“In Ken Russell's neon-lurid, heavy-breathing Crimes of Passion, Kathleen Turner gives an entertaining performance in an incomprehensible role. By day, Turner is a workaholic fashion designer in gray suits and ties, her hair worn short and brushed to the side in the style of a Berlin lesbian of 1930. At nightfall, however, she steps into a telephone booth, and out comes … China Blue, a blonde hooker with a mean tongue and a happy, theatrical flair for satisfying the fantasies of her customers. Nuns, stewardesses, good girls, bad girls--she can play them all.Error! Reference source not found.

“….This part-time floozy, it turns out, is a martyr to sexual repression… [S]he's never been sexually happy herself. Not, that is, until she meets an unhappily married jock…. So all along she only wanted to meet a nice guy who would be faithful to her--a good husband. But why was she looking for him in a whorehouse?

“That the role is hooey doesn't stop Turner from putting everything into it--she would have made a great Sadie Thompson. But Kathleen Turner has more talent than Joan Crawford. Indeed, in her daytime incarnation, she reminds me of Bette Davis--there's something of the same straight-ahead determination; the same souring intelligence. As China Blue, however, she's an original. The smoky voice, glittering smile, and hip-swinging walk that were often ludicrous in Body Heat have now been edged with mockery and exaggeration. The performance is a genuine camp classis--never to be repeated, one hopes, but indelible in its manic glee.”

David Denby
New York, November ?, 1984