La strada scarlatta

This is a good, tense drama that builds up an interesting 'noir' story that includes some rather creative story elements. It has several strengths, but most of all it features three fine performances by Edward G. Robinson, Joan Bennett, and Dan Duryea. It's also easy to see Fritz Lang's skilled hand at work in the story-telling, mood, and pacing.

Robinson shows his skill and versatility in portraying a mild-mannered bank cashier who really wants nothing more than the chance to dabble in his painting, before getting caught up in a complicated situation. Bennett is quite effective as the opportunistic young woman who befriends him, and Dan Duryea adds his presence and ability to very good effect - Duryea had the knack of portraying this kind character as well as anyone. His appearance in any film-noir always seemed to make an average movie good and a good movie even better.

The story is developed carefully, as Robinson's character slowly begins to realize that he has gotten into a situation beyond his control. By the time that things come to a head, the tension is considerable. The ending is also rather resourceful, in being carefully written so as to satisfy the stringent requirements of the production code of the era while also ending the story in a way that seems appropriate and fitting to the tone of the movie as a whole.

All of this adds up to make "Scarlet Street" a fine movie that is well worth seeing, especially for fans of film-noir.

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.

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.

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!

Scarlet Street (1945)

It starts slowly, with little bits of intrigue and a lot of empathy for Edward G. Robinson's character, Chris Cross, a lonely cashier with dreams of being in love. And then he sees a man hitting a young woman on the street, and he rushes to help her. Things start a torturous, complicated, fabulous decline from there. The woman sees how Cross finds her beautiful, but Cross, it turns out, is unhappily married. And petty, selfish cruelty turns to many worse things.

Fritz Lang, the Austrian director now firmly settled into Hollywood, is not known for cheerful movies (he directed M, for one), and this one draws on so much empathy, and heartbreak, and finally downright shock and surprise, it's breathtaking. Great film-making, beautiful and relentless. The woman, Joan Bennett, comes alive on the screen, duplicitous and raw. Her boyfriend, Dan Duryea, is perfect Duryea, clever and annoying and as usual, coming out less than rosy.

The cinematographer, Milton Krasner, has so many richly brooding and dramatic films to his credit, it's almost a given that we will be invisibly swept into every scene (and much of the action takes place in an apartment almost tailor made for great filming, with glass doors, and two levels to look up or down from). The story is key, based on a novel by Georges de La Fouchardière, little known here, but he wrote "La Chienne," the basis for Jean Renoir's second film (1931), where the film announces to the audience that it is about, "He, she, and the other guy . . . as usual." And that describes Scarlet Street just as well, for starters.

Lang is credited as one of the key shapers of the film noir style, and that certainly applies visually. It lacks that film noir key of a young man at odds with post-War America, but it does have a man, alone, at odds with the world. Chris Cross is a pathetic creature, far more naive than most of us could ever be, but yet we identify with him because he represents innocence swept up in a world more sinister than we expect. He's a victim, in a way, but also the cause of his own troubles.

And troubles they are. What a story, what a film. Dark, wrenching, and unpredictable. Very Fritz Lang.