La rue rouge

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.