Inspector Porfiry is eager to meet the criminal expert, and he has Roderick observe the interrogation of an innocent prisoner suspected of the pawnbroker's murder.

[4]Sternberg and Paramount studios ended their eight-year affiliation with the completion of The Devil is a Woman, the director's seventh and final collaboration with actress Marlene Dietrich.

[5][6][7] Producer B. P. Schulberg, recently expelled from Paramount, joined Harry Cohn's Columbia Pictures and quickly brought Sternberg on board in a two-picture contract with the "poorly financed" studio.

[8][9][10] Dostoyevsky's psychological exploration of a murderer, his remorse and redemption posed an immense challenge for cinematic rendering "as there could be no visual equivalent [for] the author's detailed reasoning and elaborate description of [his characters] mental attitudes.

"[11] Harry Cohn approved the project in part because Crime and Punishment, first published in 1866, was in the public domain and would require no copyright fees.

[15][16] Production code officials had reviewed a recent stage adaption of the novel and warned that the narrative describes "a failure of the police to arrest and prosecute the young college student [Raskolnikov]" and that "serious thematic difficulties will be encountered because of the characterization of the heroine [Sonya] as a prostitute.

"[18][19] Writing for The Spectator in 1936, Graham Greene gave the film a poor review, noting that despite the fine acting of Peter Lorre, this version of Crime and Punishment was entirely too vulgar.

Greene commented that the original Russian story of "religious and unhappy mind" had been altered in this picture into a "lunch-bar-chromium version" with idealism, ethics, and optimism "of a salesman who has never failed to sell his canned beans".