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DVD Scarlet Street
In a way, Scarlet Street is a remake. It's taken from a French novel, La Chienne (literally, "The Bitch") that was first filmed by Jean Renoir in 1931. Renoir brought to the sordid tale all the color and vitality of Montmartre; Fritz Lang's version shows us a far harsher and bleaker world. The film replays the triangle set-up from Lang's previous picture, The Woman in the Window, with the same three actors. Once again, Edward G. Robinson plays a respectable middle-aged citizen snared by the charms of Joan Bennett's streetwalker, with Dan Duryea as her low-life pimp. But this time around, all three characters have moved several notches down the ethical scale. Robinson, who in the earlier film played a college professor who kills by accident, here becomes a downtrodden clerk with a nagging, shrewish wife and unfilled ambitions as an artist, a man who murders in a jealous rage. Bennett is a mercenary vamp, none too bright, and Duryea brutal and heartless. The plot closes around the three of them like a steel trap. This is Lang at his most dispassionate. Scarlet Street is a tour de force of noir filmmaking, brilliant and ice-cold.
When it was made the film hit censorship problems, since at the time it was unacceptable to show a murder going unpunished. Lang went out of his way to show the killer plunged into the mental hell of his own guilt, but for some authorities this still wasn't enough, and the film was banned in New York State for being "immoral, indecent and corrupt." Not that this did its box-office returns any harm at all. --Philip Kemp
BUYERS BEWARE!! Any video produced by Alpha is going to be questionable. This DVD produced by this outfit is absolutely horrid. The films jerks and there are points of black outs during scenes in various places. It kept me from otherwise enjoying a fine example of 40's film noir. The sound varies from clear to distortion at points as well. This would have been a thoroughly enjoyable flicks if they had produced it from a restored master, such as the kind that TCM uses on their network. The movie itself is replete with fine performances, most notably by Edward G. Robinson as a middle aged man trapped in an unhappy married who falls in love with a prostitute played by Joan Bennett. Though I question credibility in his character....nobody could be so stupid as to be taken in by this woman unless he was so blinded by love and unhappiness that he failed to see how she was using him. Its a true, haunting portrait of a sad, lonely, frustrated man who becomes Schizophrenic at the end. It is truly a remarkable performance. Joan Bennett and Dan Duryea (the prostitute and her pimp) are equally fine in their respective roles. The film is a dark and moody piece but it certainly is in need of a decent film transfer. The DVD here is horrendous. If you can overlook this flaw, you may be able to at least enjoy watching this fine film. Needless to say, other than scene selection, no other extras are included in Alpha's cheap product which is the reason I give this product (not the movie) 2 stars.
Unusual role for Robinson
Edward G. Robinson plays meek middle aged bank cashier and amateur painter Christopher Cross in Fritz Lang's somewhat disappointing "Scarlet Street". Robinson, henpecked and mired in a loveless marriage of convenience with a harpy for a wife has a chance meeting with sultry streetwalker Kitty March played by Joan Bennett. The plain looking Robinson fall head over heels with Bennett. None too smart, she gets the impression that he's a wealthy and celebrated painter. In cohoots with her boyfriend, the sleazy Johnny Prince played by Dan Duryea they string him along siphoning him for money which helps set them up in a posh apartment. Robinson is allowed to use the pad for an art studio where he also stores his paintings.
This bizarre relationship continues and Bennett and Duryea's demands for cash grow larger and Robinson resorts to stealing. Duryea gets the idea to have Robinson's amateurish artwork appraised. Amazingly an established art critic views several of his works an an outdoor Greenwich Village art exhibit and annoints the works as created by a genius. When the scheming duo of Bennett and Duryea get wind of this unlikely bit of good fortune they set it up as if Bennett was actually the artist of the unsigned works.
Bennett gains celebrity status which is curiously all right with the lovestruck Robinson. Things are going famously for Duryea and Bennett until in a fit of rage she tells off Robinson, revealing her true feelings. Robinson goes beserk and kills her, framing Duryea for the murder. Robinson gets away with the crime but his conscience gets the better of him. He becomes a prisoner of his own mind wandering the streets as a mentally deluded drunken bum.
Lang's controversial film really didn't present much to make it anything special. The acting was OK but Robinson was miscast in this role. The fact that Robinson was in essence unpunished for his crime was against the censureship codes of moviemaking at the time and the film was banned at the box office.
Two Great Characters and a Great Director Make It Work.
Director Fritz Lang makes "Scarlet Street" into a full-blown film noir in this 1945 adaptation of the French play "La Chienne", based on the novel by Georges de la Fouchardière. French director Jean Renoir made an earlier cinematic adaptation in 1931 that incorporated his signature social criticism. Lang's film is about individual personalities, how and why they interact, and to what consequence.
Christopher Cross (Edward G. Robinson) dreamed of being a great painter when he was a young man, but ended up being a cashier, profoundly lonely, and stuck in a loveless marriage to an insufferable wife. Painting still makes Chris happy, though, and he paints every Sunday to please himself. One evening he helps a young woman on the street and accompanies her to a nearby bar. Kitty (Joan Bennett) claims that she is an actress and feigns interest in Chris' artwork, and he is flattered by her attentions. Kitty's boyfriend Johnny (Dan Duryea), a slick con artist who will do anything to avoid work, suggests that she continue to flatter Chris and milk him for money. Chris rents Kitty an apartment where he can paint and be with her. And Johnny and Kitty sell some of his paintings, passing them off as Kitty's work. Oddly, Chris doesn't mind...until he discovers the true nature of Kitty and Johnny's relationship.
"Scarlet Street" owes its success to the performances of Edward G. Robinson and Joan Bennett, as well as Fritz Lang's choice not to speak too well of anyone. Chris's plight is sympathetic. He's a talented man who has spent all of his life in a monotonous job and his recent years being demeaned by a shrill wife. But at the same time, "Scarlet Street" mocks Chris for being so gullible and desperate that he falls for Kitty's barely disguised seduction and her completely undisguised greed. Joan Bennett's trashy, sassy turn as Kitty is authentic and memorable. Kitty and Johnny are a couple of inherently lazy slobs in sharp contrast to Chris' diligence and refinement. As in all film noirs, everyone ultimately falls victim to his own flaws. "Scarlet Street" is a solid film noir with memorable characterizations from one of cinema's great directors.
My 5-star rating is for the movie, not the DVD. "Scarlet Street" is available on 2 DVDs as of this writing: A Gotham disc (2002) and as part of Questar's "5 Film Noir Killer Classics" 6-disc set (2004). Neither is a restored print of the film, but the discs are inexpensive. If you really need a quality transfer, wait until someone decides to restore this film.
This silky smooth film noir pits gruff police detective Dana Andrews, stiff and blunt in his street-bred manners, against a cultured columnist and acidic wit (Clifton Webb at his prissiest) in a battle of wits during a murder investigation. The cop is a romantic hiding under a hard-boiled exterior who falls in love with the beautiful victim through the portrait that hangs in her apartment. Gene Tierney, whose heart-shaped face mixes the exotic with the girl next door, brings the poise and calm of a model to her role as the object of every man's gaze and the target of a killer. Laura, handsomely shot in dreamy black and white, is the first and best of Otto Preminger's cool, controlled murder mysteries. In the gritty world of film noir it remains the most refined and elegant example... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Gene Tierney - Dana Andrews Director(s): Rouben Mamoulian - Otto Preminger DVD Release Date: Released the 15 March 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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The long-awaited emergence of Nightmare Alley into the light of DVD should achieve two things: make a legendary film noir available to a new generation, and restore the horrific charge to the lately watered-down term geek, a concept that once had the power to give people very bad dreams indeed.
To his lasting credit, Tyrone Power--20th Century Fox's extraordinarily handsome but not terribly interesting star of the '30s and '40s--begged for the chance to play Stan Carlisle, the predatory charmer who snakes his way through this bracingly unwholesome story. A spieler for--and lover of--carnival mind reader Zeena (Joan Blondell), he displays uncanny skill at "reading" the susceptible rubes, including a tough sheriff who turns to jelly after Stan psychs him out. Once Stan's... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Tyrone Power - Joan Blondell - Coleen Gray Director(s): Edmund Goulding DVD Release Date: Released the 07 June 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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An amazingly effective film noir action movie, shot on location in New Orleans in 1950, that has twists of plot and explosions of violence that can still make audiences gasp. Elia Kazan, of all people, directed this story of a public health worker (Richard Widmark) and a police detective (Paul Douglas) who have only a few hours in which to capture some fleeing felons who may be infected with the plague. The bad guys are played, with enormous relish, by Jack Palance and Zero Mostel, the latter only a few years before Kazan ratted him out to the House Un-American Activities Committee. In retrospect, this modest crime picture looks like a crucial turning point in the formation of Kazan's distinctive style, a clear precursor to the blistering location work of landmark films like On the... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Richard Widmark - Paul Douglas - Barbara Bel Geddes - Jack Palance Director(s): Elia Kazan DVD Release Date: Released the 15 March 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Interesting plot, excellent actors, so why is it obscure? Because of the editing. This film goes on forever. Cut thirty minutes and it might have been better known. More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Edward G. Robinson - Lon McCallister Director(s): Delmer Daves DVD Release Date: Released the 15 April 2003 Usually ships in 24 hours
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"What's the use of having a war if you don't learn from it?" The speaker is Alec Stiles (Richard Widmark), a menthol-sniffing asthmatic in a snap-brim hat who's nailed down the organized-crime franchise for a burg named Center City, and who runs it "scientifically," using methods he picked up in uniform during WWII. He can even tap into the databanks of the FBI. Which, by coincidence, is gearing up to bring his mini-crime wave to an end. Street with No Name invites us to sit back and watch both sides deploy their methodologies at each other.
The semidocumentary crimefighting/spybusting thrillers of the late '40s are fascinating for their blend of institutionalized rectitude (the FBI is totally trustworthy and awesomely competent), authentic locations ("filmed where it... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Mark Stevens - Richard Widmark Director(s): William Keighley DVD Release Date: Released the 07 June 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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