Scarlet Street

Reuniting the lead cast (Edgar G. Robinson, Joan Bennett, Dan Duryea) and employing the same story premise (an insecure, older man meets a beautiful woman on the street, which leads to his downfall) used in his The Woman in the Window the year before, Fritz Lang struck noir gold again with Scarlet Street, but if the earlier film ends tidily and relatively happily, the latter film makes up for that by leading to hopelessness, despair, and insanity. A bank cashier married to a nasty harridan of a woman (Rosalind Ivan, who had earned a reputation for playing insufferable wives; see the previous year’s The Suspect), Christopher Cross (Robinson) makes the acquaintance of Katharine “Kitty” March (Bennett) who invites him for a drink and learns about his love of painting, mistaking him for a wealthy artist. Per the request of her boyfriend Johnny Prince (Duryea), Kitty leads the older man on and convinces him to support her financially, which includes stealing money from both his wife and his employer to rent Kitty an apartment that will double as his art studio. When Kitty begins secretly selling Cross’ artwork under her own name, she becomes a sought-after artist, but the scheme will soon unravel, leading to tragedy for all involved (Lang depicts Cross’ psychological turmoil brilliantly in the last ten minutes, intensified by Salter’s inventive score). Based on the same novel adapted by Jean Renoir as La Chienne in 1931, Lang’s film is propelled by cruelty: Kitty’s manipulation and abuse of Cross is made even sadder by his earnest belief in her love (his weakness as a painter is “perspective,” he admits) and his increasing emasculation (wearing a frilly apron, painting Kitty’s toenails) as if his degradation is fun for her.