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Just perfect...

Absolutely Fantastic

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

I have seem this film three times now, but every time it surprised me with creating a deeper impression. It is not as popular and acclaimed as the previous "Woman in the Window" with the same cast, to which it is a kind of a sequel, but it is deeper and infinitely more touching and sad. It is not one of the most depressing films ever, but it is definitely one of the saddest. A poor clerk working as a well credited cashier for 25 years has painting for a hobby and is married to a nightmare of a wife who bullies him and threatens to throw out his paintings, meets a lovely young woman (Joan Bennett) who sees an opportunity and actually offers him a way out from his trapped life, but she will only use him for the means of his boyfriend, the abominable Dan Dureya, and the unanswerable question in this film is: How can she stand him? How is it possible for her to love him and stick to him? The film begins with his brutally beating her up. And how can Edward G. Robinson fall for such a woman, with such a friend, whom he at least can't sympathise with? But the story follows its own relentless logics, and he has to follow his course where destiny leads him. Robinson makes perhaps his most shockingly gripping part ever, and the story is one of the very darkest of all noirs, worthy of a Zola or even Dostoyevsky in its abyss of no return. You will never recover from this film, and yet you know you will return to see it again...

I am afraid the DVD copy I found of SCARLET STREET is poor, worse even than many VHS copies - so that was a poor start. Robinson has a commanding performance as the aging man who appreciates beauty and thinks he can own it as one would own a painting. Bennett is very effective as the duplicitous woman who sponges off him to keep her amorous relationship with criminal Dan Duryea alive.I liked the film, but found Robinson's paintings as poor as the ending, with Robinson having voice hallucinations, and sleeping on a park bench.Fritz Lang's direction is very sound, and even enlightened at times, and this might even be, after THE BIG HEAT, one of his better films in the United States, but I was left with the impression that he missed some opportunities to make this a masterpiece. Still, it is well worth watching, at least once.

(Flash Review)A bank cashier, with a heart for painting, who is stuck in a drab marriage breaks up what he thought was a street mugging of an attractive lady. He befriends this woman who had ulterior motives for keeping in contact. Based on her false assumption of this man's true profession and financial stability, she begins to persuade him to give her money for her and her secret boyfriend. How long will this go on? Will the cashier uncover her true motives and how will his depressive life effect any reaction he may have if the truth comes out? This story was well-written, edited, paced, acted, and effective use of cinematography. It also used some unexpected effects at key moments. A prime example of great Film Noir.

I have yet to skip a movie knowing that Edward G. Robinson stars in it, this method to movie watching has not proved me wrong yet, and it didn't this time with Scarlet Street. In 1945 Edward G. Robinson starred along with Joan Bennett in a film by Fritz Lang chronicling the story of a seasoned man living a listless life searching for a way to give his life meaning and decides to create the meaning he seeks by befriending a young woman. Living a life he didn't choose, with a woman who treats him like a housemaid, what is left for a man than to explore the world on his own? Scarlet Street is a film noir classic that is not to be missed by fans of this sub-genre, nor fans of Edward G. Robinson. Christopher Cross (Edward G. Robinson) is a stellar employee, he's been a cashier at the same job for 25 years, loyalty that is appreciated by all those around him, and treasured by his boss. At a dinner party, his boss even gifts him a gold watch. Chris doesn't have it in him to be disloyal, he even stays loyal to his wife who gives him a nightly chore list and insists that he paint, his one true passion in life, in the bathroom of their home. Chris has always wanted to be an artist, life just got away from him and left him comfortable in a life he didn't choose. One evening, while walking home after a dinner party, Chris sees what he believes to be an attempted mugging, and rushes to help the woman he sees in distress. After getting to know the woman, Chris falls in love. Unfortunately, Katharine 'Kitty' March (Joan Bennett) is a con artist and in love with a career criminal Johnny Prince (Dan Duryea) and both of them realize that they can take financial advantage of Chris. Chris, who has allowed Kitty to believe he is a wealthy artist now has to devise a plan to come up with the money that Kitty keeps requesting. Stealing from his work and his wife, Chris puts Kitty up in an apartment and begins to paint and store his work there. Johnny sees Chris's art as a golden opportunity and begins selling his work as Kitty's, soon gaining the attention of a well- known critic and art dealer. For awhile, this arrangement works, Kitty is paid for Chris's work, and Chris gets to paint and knows that his work is hung at the most prestigious of galleries. When Chris finally gets the courage to leave his wife, only to discover he has been used all along by Kitty, it proves too much for him to bear.The first thing that was impossible to notice was how rough of a cut Scarlet Street was. Apparently, there existed a lapse in ownership creating a legal channel for Scarlet Street to be copied and distributed en mass. The downside of this mass distribution is a grainy, terrible copy of a wonderful film. Despite the rough cut of the film, Edward G. Robinson shines, as he always does; a true great of film noir. Despite the overt moral message of code approved films, Scarlet Street is a wonderful exploration of what one will do to live the life they want, and what one will steal to live the life they believe they deserve.