La rue rouge

SCARLET STREET is, no doubt, one of Hollywood's first mature forays into the relationship of a prostitute with her pimp and her client.

Until 1945, the big screen's version of a 'lady of the night' was almost waif-like in her mien, casting innocent doe-like eyes at any gentleman who would like to share "a spot of tea" for a nominal fee. As portrayed by Joan Bennett, Kitty is cool,cynical, calculating, a 'ho' who is world weary and holds no illusions. Dan Duryea as her slick, slimy pimp/boyfriend, Johnny, matches Kitty scene for scene in the seediness of their relationship. "Lazylegs" is Johnny's term of affection for his Kitty when he's not cuffing her about openly on the streets.

Then there's the third wheel to this tragic ride, Edward G. Robinson as the henpecked husband Chris Cross who also happens to be a frustrated weekend artist. Kitty sees Chris as a hearty meal ticket as Chris laps up Kitty's milk, little realizing that his dream girl is a nightmare in waiting.

Director Fritz Lang's unflinching finale leaves the viewer drained of emotion. There is no Hollywood happy ending at the end of SCARLET STREET, just a back alley of guilt, punishment and shame.

It is no coincidence that 'Melancholy Baby' is refrained throughout this flick. As played on Kitty's phonograph, the record is scratched and skips over and over at the same spot. For this recording is, like all the characters who reside on SCARLET STREET, damaged goods.

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.

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.

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.