SCARLET STREET

This is a rather odd film noir directed by Fritz Lang.

It starts off predictably enough. Middle-aged Chris (Edward G Robinson), who has a low paying job as a bank cashier and a very unpleasant wife, meets pretty young Kitty (Joan Bennett). He falls madly in love with her, not realising that she is just humouring him. 

She has a grifter for a boyfriend Johnny (Dan Duryea) who immediately sees the opportunity for some easy money.  Very quickly Chris is persuaded to set Kitty up in an apartment even though their relationship is so chaste they haven’t even kissed. 

Chris is an amateur painter who pretends to Kitty that he is successful and well-off.  In reality the only way he can fund her lifestyle is to steal money from both his wife and his bank. 

It’s at this point that the story takes a bizarre turn.  Johnny takes it into his head to try to sell some of Chris' paintings, and through an improbable series of events an eminent art critic sees them and, very surprisingly, likes them. Naturally Johnny then passes Kitty off as their creator. 

When Chris discovers all this he isn’t angry, he’s just happy that his paintings are being appreciated, even if he isn't getting the credit (or indeed any money from their sale). 

Then in another unlikely turn of events Chris' wife’s first husband (presumed dead) turns up, so now Chris is free to marry Kitty.  As if!

It’s at this point he discovers that Kitty and Johnny are lovers, flies into a rage and kills Kitty with Chekhov’s Ice-pick.

Chris is lucky in one sense in that it is Johnny who gets arrested and sent to the electric chair.

On the other hand he ends up haunted by guilt, or by the ghosts of Kitty and Johnny, and ends up a sad figure, out of a job (his theft from the bank having been discovered) and alone.

The business with the paintings is diverting enough but really the focus of the film should be the relationship between Chris and Kitty.  Unfortunately this doesn't get beyond tepid, and Chris' murderous rage comes out of nowhere and is unconvincing.

This director and the three lead actors had all been in a hit, 'The Woman In The Window', the previous year, so this film smacks of being a rush job to cash in on its success. 

RATING: x Curb Your Enthusiasm