Straße der Versuchung

Fritz Lang does a wonderful job directing "Scarlet Street," a true film noir from 1945 starring Edward G. Robinson, Joan Bennett and Dan Duryea. A miserable, henpecked man, Chris (Robinson) falls in love with a prostitute, Kitty, and she starts milking him for money with the encouragement of her abusive boyfriend Johnny (Duryea). Chris is a cashier who has just reached his 25th year of service; he's also a part-time painter. He steals bonds from his wife, who is the widow of a police detective, and sets Kitty up in an apartment where he can also paint since all his wife does is complain about him cluttering up their place. He believes that Kitty is an actress and that Johnny is the boyfriend of Kitty's ex-roommate. You really want to slap him. His stealing escalates; meanwhile, Johnny and Kitty are passing his art work off as Kitty's, and she's making a name for herself. Instead of killing her then and there, Chris is happy about it, believing that he's a failure and could never have sold a painting, and continues providing her with art work. We assume she and Johnny are getting the money.

Alas, there probably are desperately lonely and unhappy men like Chris with footprints all over their bodies, though Chris seems pretty gullible even by 1945 standards. Robinson, however, does a fantastic job in helping us understand why Chris is the way he is. He's a simple, shy, self-effacing man who just wants someone to love him and enjoy his hobby of painting, and Kitty pays lip service to that while she's sleeping with Johnny. It seems that just to bask in her presence is enough for Chris.

Using the backdrop of New York City, Lang has directed this with magnificent style and flair, making it one of the most famous noirs of all time. And the performances are top notch. It's amazing how much Joan and Constance Bennett looked alike when they were both blond, but they were very different actresses. Constance had a great deal of sophistication; Joan did better playing tramps. She had a low voice and could be very sexy, and she made a stunning brunette. I saw her in person in the late '80s and was surprised at how tiny she was given how tall she looks here. If anyone has seen the "Gone with the Wind" screen tests, she was one of the most beautiful Scarletts. Here she's very convincing talking out of both sides of her mouth, telling Chris that she loves him and Johnny that she loves him. Duryea is phenomenal as a very unlikable con man, and the two make a great couple.

But the character of sad Chris hangs over the film due to Robinson's performance with his shy smile and nervous manner. When his anger emerges, it's years and years worth of it. Unfortunately, he's basically too good a man not to hate himself for actions committed in a rage, and in true Hollywood fashion, he goes the way of most men who let themselves be made fools of by women.

A really, really great film. Lang was difficult to get along with, and as the studio system diminished, the powers that be were less willing to put up with him, so his last Hollywood films can't compare with those he did at the top. This is top Lang. Don't miss it.

Edward G. Robinson gives the most subtle - and possibly the greatest - performance of his career in this, the most depressing film ever made. Such a devastating ending is hardly possible these days, and indeed wasn't supposed to have been in 1945. "Immoral, corrupt and tending to incite crime," they called it, "A Hollywood movie we can do without." Perhaps the subversive ending was Lang's answer to those who had criticised his 'cop-out' ending for 'The Woman In the Window' a year earlier. The other two leads - Duryea and Bennett - are brilliant as well, and all the actors make us feel in the end that no one has got what they deserved. 'Scarlet Street' has so many beautifully subtle touches in it that it really has to be seen several times in order to be fully appreciated: the parallel between Kitty and Chris' flower (his 'problems with perspective'); the expression that flashes over Kitty's face when Chris 'confesses' that he's a married man; the brief reference at the beginning to Chris's superstition, which will eventually bring about his psychological downfall. Like many Lang films, it deals with the concept of criminal justice, and is a clever, cruel and fascinating film - a little dated technically, but far ahead of its time, and one of the greatest and blackest film noirs from the forties. The climax is still one of the most chilling in film history - more frightening than most of the great horror films.

Chris Cross is a bank cashier who has just been given a gold watch by his boss for years of faithful service. Chris has three gifts, which are highly sought and cannot be bought: honesty, integrity and talent. The first two earned him the gold watch but the third is something he keeps to himself. He's a "Sunday" painter who paints from the inside out as a means of escaping his colorless life and loveless marriage. Chris is a man who loves beauty but has none himself, and so he fantasizes about some pretty girl that might see beyond his exterior to the man inside. And so one late rainy night chance places a beautiful damsel in distress in this path, and after saving the girl from the villain, he falls desperately in love and to his amazement, the girl loves him back. But things are not what they seem, and in a short while, Chris will trade in the three gifts he does possess for something he can never have. One of the defining films of Classic Film Noir.

Christopher Cross, in middle aged, and in a life going nowhere and devoid of love and inspiration. Till one evening he rescues Kitty March from a mugger, it's the start of a relationship that has far reaching consequences for them, and those closest to them.

The previous year director Fritz Lang had made The Woman In The Window, a film that was hugely popular with critics and fans alike. Here he reunites from that excellent film with Edward G. Robinson, Joan Bennett and Dan Duryea, the result being what can arguably be described as one of the best exponents of Film Noir's dark sensibilities. Adapting from works by André Mouézy-Éon and Georges de La Fouchardière (novel and play), this story of desperate love and greedy deceit had already had a big screen adaptation from Jean Renoir in 1931 as La chienne, which appropriately enough translates as The Bitch! Now there's a Noir title if ever there was one! What Lang does with this adaptation is drip his own expressionism all over it, whilst crucially he doesn't ease off from the harsher aspects of the story. This is nasty, cruel stuff, and with Lang at the time feeling a bit abused and used by the studio system he was slave to, who better to darkly cloak a sordid story with a biting edge? Is it purely coincidence that Lang took on this film about a struggling artist who's vision is stifled by another? Possibly not one is inclined to feel.

Edward G. Robinson is fabulous as the pathetic Chris Cross. Married to a wife who constantly heckles and belittles him (Rosalind Ivan), Robinson's take on Cross garners empathy by the shed load, so much so that once Kitty (Bennett) and her beau, Johnny Prince (Duryea), start to scheme a scam on Chris, the audience are feeling as desperate as Cross was himself at the start of the movie. Few noir guys have so meekly fell under a femme fatale's spell as the way Cross does for Kitty here. But such is Lang's atmospherics, you not only sense that it's going to go bad, you expect it to, and naturally Robinson is just the man to punch us in the guts with added impetus. Bennett and Duryea are very convincing, almost spitefully enjoying taking the hapless Robinson character for everything they can, and the visuals, especially during the bleak, shadowy last couple of reels, cap the mood perfectly.

This film is in truth probably saying more about its director than anything else that he made. And in fact it was said to be one of his all time favourites. That's nice to find out because it finds him on particularly good, and yes, devilish form. Grim, brilliant and essential film noir. 9/10

I've seen LA CHIENNE, and although most of SCARLET STREET is a remake, the two are entirely different films. LA CHIENNE is virtually a comedy. In fact, it begins with an introduction by puppets (!), so we know we're not to take the plot very seriously. Renoir's film is light and fun, and is very interesting to watch for comparisons of 'moral standards' between France and Hollywood.

By now, you probably know the story. A sad little man gets involved with a prostitute and her pimp. Hollywood toned down the fact that Robinson and Bennett were involved in a sexual relationship, and the ending of the film had to live up to Hollywood's standards of 'morality'. I won't spoil it for those who haven't seen it yet, but needless to say, the endings between the two films differ in a major way.

What makes SCARLET STREET so outstanding in my opinion, is that given the repressed nature of the protagonist, the film works better because of the changes. You can better understand the pressures of what living as a human doormat has done to this man, and how coiled up he really is. Edward G. Robinson gives one of the best performances of his career, which is saying a lot! I know, there will always be those who will insist on seeing him as the cigar-chomping tough guy only, and won't accept him as anything else, but SCARLET STREET showcases his more subtle talents and his enormous range. Joan Bennett is pure charm and snake oil in this, and Dan Duryea out-weasels Richard Widmark in KISS OF DEATH [in fact, I'll bet good money that the weasel toons in WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT were based on Dan Duryea's character!]. Hollywood films will always falter in comparison to other country's films because the industry's fear of offending audiences always dulls the blade of truth. But, at least during the classic era of Hollywood, the talent usually made up for the story flaws. What do you get when you put Fritz Lang, Edward G. Robinson, Joan Bennett and Dan Duryea together? Magic!