SCARLET STREET
(directed by Fritz Lang, 1945)
***** (out of 5)
.
> Fritz Lang kicks noir ass again in this classic black-and-white tale of a wronged man, gone wrong.
. Trapped in an unhappy marriage, milquetoast bank cashier Christopher Cross (a painfully earnest and sympathetic Edward G. Robinson), is walking at night when he comes upon a woman being pummeled by her absolute lout of a boyfriend. (Joan Bennett as wily Kitty and a smarmy, amoral Dan Duryea as craven Johnny make a vile duo.) Though terrified, Chris knocks Johnny out cold to rescue the lady in distress, escorting Kitty safely home, like a gentleman…
. Bad idea. Both choices come back to haunt him.
. Chris falls hard for this untrustworthy dame, (the classic femme fatale!), who plays him like the winning hand in a high-stakes game of poker. Amoral Kitty and petty thug Johnny scheme to take Chris for everything he is worth- which turns out to be a whole lot less than they hoped. But they find one angle they can play: Chris has been an unheralded amateur folk artist all his adult life, and though the works look like a child’s simple renderings to Johnny, he steals them and puts them on consignment, only to discover that highbrow gallery owners consider the work exceptional- and valuable! The two schemers brilliantly con Chris into allowing Kitty to claim the unsigned paintings as her own work and the dough comes rolling in.
. But this house of cards cannot stand. Chris is in for a rude awakening, when he discovers Kitty is not the woman he willfully mistook her for. Once his blinders are off, Chris is a man cheated and defeated- and we see what happens when you push a decent man too far.
. The final shot of this film bristles with brilliance. It could not be more perfect- or more heartbreaking. Lang uses a cinematic device that shows us just how broken and defeated Chris has become, in the most stark and elegant way. It’s just brilliant.
– Fritz Lang was one of the very greatest directors the cinema has ever known.
*
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