Slightly Scarlet

This movie showed Rhonda Fleming in a subdued part as a secretary to a town politico. She's one of my favorite actresses from the 50's, and was one of the most beautiful ever to grace the screen. John Payne was lucky enough to have a couple romantic scenes with her.

Back in the 50's, kissing scenes were far more romantic and tantalizing than today. Wish I could have bottled Rhonda Fleming!

I am a trained psychotherapist, so when I watched "Slightly Scarlet", I saw things some others might not see. I mention this because one of the main characters, Dorothy (Arlene Dahl), is a psychological mess. She's a compulsive thief and a girl who craves excitement...all in the worst way. Today, she'd almost certainly be diagnosed with a Borderline Personality...meaning she possesses many qualities of a variety of personality disorders. Antisocial behavior, addictive behaviors and highly volatile mood swings...these are typical of such an individual...and Dorothy is very clearly dealing with these issues.

The film begins with Dorothy being released, yet again, from prison for shoplifting. Her enabling sister, June (Rhonda Fleming), tries her best to help Dorothy but it's clear Dorothy doesn't want saving....she's hell-bent on self destruction, good times and chasing men. Sadly, June is an idiot when it comes to Dorothy and she makes excuses for her wayward sister...and in many ways she enables and encourages Dorothy's actions. How far will all this go? And, how long will June put up with her sister's horrible behaviors? And, how long does Ben (John Payne) fit into all this?

This is a very exciting film that you'll either love or hate. Dorothy's behaviors and June's reactions to them can feel very frustrating....and I could see viewers hating BOTH sisters. But, if you can look past this, the film is fun to watch and worth your time. In some ways, it's like film noir...but the color cinematography make it hard to call it noir. Still, I enjoyed it despite its shortcomings.

"You're not good; you're not bad. You're a chiseler, out for anything you can get."

So, says Solly Kaspar, crime boss of Bay City, of Ben Grace, the anti-hero of this story, adapted from James M. Cain's Love's Lovely Counterfeit. What holds our interest in this story is we're never quite sure what to make of Grace.

There's an upcoming election and crime boss Kasper does not want the reform candidate to win, so Kasper strongarms the newspaper publisher backing him, and in the process kills him.

Grace exposes Kasper, forcing Solly to flee to Mexico, and insuring the election of Frank Jansen, the reform candidate. He uses his influence with Jansen to get an honest police lieutenant friend of his appointed Chief of Police.

Good guy, right?

Then later in this movie he's seen giving orders to Solly's men, going over Solly's books, and positioning himself as Solly's successor. He calls his friend,the chief of police, and demands that his girlfriend's sister who was recently arrested be released without being charged, and so we begin to believe we've misjudged ol' Ben. He's just a hood, a little brighter than most, a little smoother than most, but in the end, no different from Solly Kasper.

Bad guy, right?

Well, we're not sure, because Grace isn't sure. Reform mayoral candidate, soon to be mayor, Frank Jansen has an assistant, June Lyons. On a 1 to 10 scale, Ms. Lyons, with her flaming red hair, and blazing headlights (think Good Girl art) is an 11. Rhonda Fleming never looked better, and Arlene Dahl as her sister, Dorothy Lyons, was equally stunning. But, back to Grace. He is falling for June, and June is a thoroughly decent girl, whose better nature seems to affect him.

In the end, however, Grace's schemes come to naught. Jansen who really is a reform candidate orders Dorothy be tried for her crimes. Solly Kasper returns wanting to take over as rackets boss, and Ben Grace is forced to run. Here's where we see his true character, when he scrounges as much of Solly's money as he can and invites his girlfriend to go on the run with him (she declines).

Solly Kasper was right all along. He really is just a chiseler, out for whatever he can get. Major disappointment, as in the end, Ben Grace disappoints not just his girlfriend, but the audience as well.

This is a beautifully photographed movie in full technicolor. The sets are a wonderful amalgam of art deco - rococo excess. Others here have pointed out how garish everything looked. I didn't find it so. I thought it was beautiful. Certainly, the eye candy was stunning. There aren't any two actresses today who could team as good girl - bad girl siblings the way Fleming and Dahl did. Maybe Julianne Moore and Debra Messing, but they wouldn't look as good. The movie's high marks for visual style are undermined by its low marks for aimless, meandering story. 6 out of 10.

James M. Cain's first Hollywood fusillade went off in the mid-1940s, with Double Indemnity, Mildred Pierce and The Postman Always Rings Twice, all adapted from his books, helping to set the tone and the parameters for the noir cycle just getting up steam. In the mid-50s, he had a second wind, with Serenade and, from Love's Lovely Counterfeit, Allen Dwan's Slightly Scarlet. While not one of Cain's better works or one of the better movies made from them, it has its ample fascinations. Legendary noir director of photography John Alton works in color here, and startlingly enlivens his customary dark trapezoids with bursts of lime green, flame orange and orchid. (The rare films noirs done in color seem even more decadent: see Leave Her to Heaven and Desert Fury). John Payne reprises his solid, sullen self as a fence-straddling minor mobster who sees his chance to take control of the machine in a mid-sized midwestern city. His twin carrot-topped temptations are sisters Rhonda Fleming, as the mayor's gal Friday, and Arlene Dahl, who has just been released from prison -- she's a loony, man-devouring klepto (and Dahl does her proud. There's even a scene when Fleming finds the message "Goodbye Sister" scrawled in lipstick on her bedroom mirror). Too bad there was a lot of (unnecessary) rewriting of Cain's story; the ending is sourly ambiguous. But this is late noir in garish overdrive, and movies aren't much more fun than that.

First, let's be straight: this is a deliriously entertaining, venal and vampy exercise in melodrama. It's a ridiculous movie with a nonsensical script, awesome crazy quilt radioactive light bright technicolor and at times laughably non-motivated behavior. But it's also a tongue-in-cheek anti-noir mini masterpiece crammed with over dramatized scene chewing and pleasingly unintentional laughs. The set designs feature some of the biggest house interiors ever (how does Rhonda Fleming afford that mansion on her secretarial salary??) Arlene Dahl is a deliciously cheesy home run as the sex object du jour and gives Martha "The Big Sleep" Vickers a run for her money in the slutty and criminally irredeemable little sister department. Everyone is working some angle here (particularly John Payne), which is both intriguing and finally just dizzying. Fleming, Dahl, Payne and Kent Taylor take a love triangle and turn it into a quadralateral with little trouble. This isn't the calculated and sleek Double Indemnity James M. Cain, but it sure has the smoulder and desperation of The Postman Always Ring Twice JMC.

There's a political campaign thrown in and a big gangster (huffy and puffy Ted De Corsia) subplot for good measure, but this is ultimately a celebration of the campiest aspects of melodrama and what a party they throw! Definitely a date movie and highly entertaining for all the right reasons. If you can see it in the theatre, you may go blind from the glowingly phosphorescent crimson hues. "Slightly" Scarlet my ass!