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At a dinner celebrating twenty-five years of
employment, cashier Christopher Cross is awarded an engraved watch by his
boss, J. J. Hogarth, who later leaves the party with a stunning blonde,
which impresses Chris.
Walking home, Chris breaks up a violent quarrel between a man and a woman
and, after the man flees, offers to escort the woman home. She
introduces herself as Katherine "Kitty" March and asks Chris to buy her a
drink first. Flattered and hoping to impress Kitty, Chris tells her
that he is an artist and his modesty prompts her to suspect he is wealthy.
The next day, Chris, who has been relegated by
his shrewish wife Adele to practice his painting in the bathroom, grows
depressed when she berates him for his lack of talent, and points out that
her first husband died bravely as a detective.
Frustrated, Chris sends Kitty a note asking to
see her again. Kitty's idler boyfriend Johnny, the man who beat her,
also believes Chris is rich and pressures Kitty to make a date with him.
When they meet, Kitty claims she is an actress who finds it hard to make
ends meet and asks Chris if she could pose for him, suggesting he rent a
studio in which he could paint and she might live. When Chris admits
he is married, Kitty feigns shock, but convinces him to rent the studio.
Unsure how to provide the money for the studio, Chris considers stealing it
from his employer, but asks Hogarth for a loan instead.
Later at home, as Adele's nagging continues,
Chris steals some of the security bonds left by her deceased first husband.
Johnny helps Kitty select a lavish studio and demands she ask Chris for
$1,000 more. When Chris unexpectedly visits the studio and finds
Johnny with Kitty, she introduces him as a friend's boyfriend, but Chris's
suspicions are aroused. Nevertheless, he brings several paintings to
the studio and begins painting a portrait of Kitty.
Later, Chris hesitates to provide Kitty with
more money, but when she threatens to ask Johnny, Chris assures her he will
get it for her and, in desperation, begins stealing at work. Johnny,
certain Chris is a famous artist, takes some of his paintings to a street
vendor, who assesses them as amateurish, but offers to try and sell them.
The next day, the vendor brings art critic Arthur Janeway to see Johnny, who
tells him that Kitty did the paintings. Janeway declares the works
highly original and when Kitty repeats some of Chris's phrases about art,
the critic is impressed enough to offer to place the paintings with a
prominent art dealer. Although Kitty is nervous, Johnny readily
agrees.
_NRFPT_01_small.jpg) Sometime later, Adele spots the paintings with
Kitty's signature in a dealer's window and accuses Chris of copying Kitty's
work. Chris confronts Kitty about the paintings and she tearfully
admits she had to sell them for money. Chris is pleased the paintings
are selling and relieved to continue working in anonymity.
At his office, a detective visits Chris, who
fears his theft has been discovered, but the detective confesses to being
Adele's first husband, Higgins. Higgins explains that he faked his own
death and, now destitute, needs money to remain hidden. Chris,
however, wants to pay Higgins to make a public return so he will be free of
Adele. When Higgins hesitates, Chris tells him that Adele has the
insurance money from his "death," which rightfully belongs to him.
Chris arranges for Higgins to break in to the house that night to steal the
insurance money, but traps him with Adele.
Later, Chris visits Kitty and is dismayed to
find her with Johnny. Overhearing Kitty declare her love for Johnny, Chris
leaves, dejected. Kitty is relieved, but Johnny resents having lost
their meal ticket and storms out. Chris returns, and although
bewildered by Kitty's behavior, proposes. Kitty ridicules Chris's
pathetic declaration and admits she has always loved Johnny. Outraged,
Chris stabs Kitty to death with an ice pick and slips away as Johnny comes
back to the studio.
The next day at work, an audit of the books
reveals Chris's embezzlement. Hogarth is reluctant to prosecute and is
sympathetic when Chris admits a woman was involved, but fires him.
Johnny is arrested and tried for Kitty's murder, then is executed, while
Chris remains silent. Guilt-ridden over the deaths of Kitty and
Johnny, Chris attempts to hang himself, but is saved by neighbors. The
haunted Chris takes to wandering the streets, trying to convince the police
of his guilt, while the art gallery sells the "self portrait" of Kitty for
an enormous fee. |
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German director Fritz Lang is
best known for the highly influential films from relatively early in his
career, especially Metropolis (1927) and M (1931). But he also had a brief
Hollywood heyday during the mid 1940s, when he made some of his best films.
I am particularly enamored with Ministry of Fear (1944), a less acknowledged
suspense thriller starring
Ray Milland. But Lang's most noted film from the
era is Scarlet Street, a remake of the early French talkie La Chienne
(1931).
Christopher Cross (Edward G. Robinson) is a middle-aged cashier at a company
run by J.J. Hogarth (Russell Hicks). Cross has a dull job and a shrewish
wife (Rosalind Ivan), and his only pleasure in life comes from painting.
One night Christopher (No relation to the vapid pop singer from the early
1980s) stops a man from attacking a woman in the streets. The man flees, and
Christopher immediately falls for the woman.
We soon learn that she is Kitty (Joan Bennett), a con artist under the spell
of her abusive, manipulative boyfriend Johnny (Dan Duryea). Kitty quickly
sizes up Christopher as a mark, and convinces him that she is an unattached
actress. Christopher lies as well, implying that he is a wealthy and famous
painter. All three members of the love triangle are not as clever as they
think they are, and become enmeshed by their own deceptions.
Much of the cast and crew of Scarlet Street (Robinson, Bennett, Duryea) had
worked on Lang's The Woman in the Window from the year before.
Scarlet Street has been claimed by film noir. This attribution is
understandable. The lighting is dark, with heavy use of shadows. The
characters are all shady as well. Kitty is certainly a femme fatale,
although hints are dropped that she is an inherently decent person who has
become completely corrupted by Johnny. Being the most naive, Robinson is
also the most sympathetic. But even he eventually turns to crime to fulfill
his passions.
But while Scarlet Street has elements of film noir, it is in reality a black
comedy. While Robinson plays it straight throughout, Bennett and Duryea camp
it up marvelously. Bennett laughs when Robinson claims to be a painter: "And
here I had you pegged as a cashier!" She also has to suppress laughter when
Robinson reveals that he is married, and shock when Duryea passes her off as
the mysterious painter.
But Duryea has the most enjoyable role, as the cocky, cynical con artist who
unknowingly alienates everybody except Bennett. Duryea was Hollywood's creep
stereotype throughout the 1940s (The Little Foxes, The Woman in the Window,
Ministry of Fear) for a good reason. No one else could be so entertainingly
obnoxious, at least not until Eddie Haskell of the Leave it to Beaver
sitcom.
While
Alfred
Hitchcock was billed as "the master of suspense," perhaps it
was Lang who gave him the most competition for the title. Lang's ability to
see both the sinister and the sympathetic aspects of human weaknesses sets
him apart from most other so called "film noir" directors. |
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