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Featuring cameraman John Alton working his noir magic in Technicolor and wide-screen SuperScope, Allan Dwan’s Slightly Scarlet tells the tale of a brash, young gangster whose professional ambitions get caught between two crimson-coiffed sisters, one dating the reformed mayoral candidate and the other fresh out of prison for theft. The steady John Payne plays junior gangster Ben Grace who’s tasked with digging up dirt on the reform candidate for mayor (Kent Taylor) by tailing his new girlfriend June Lyons (Rhonda Fleming) as she drives to a women’s prison to covertly pick up her just released sister, the mentally unstable kleptomaniac — and maybe nymphomaniac — Dorothy (Arlene Dahl). When Grace seizes on an opportunity to incriminate syndicate boss Solly Caspar (Ted de Corsia), he ends up taking over the rackets when Caspar’s compelled to skip town. But Caspar will be back, and he’ll be unforgiving. Loosely based on Love’s Lovely Counterfeit, a novel by noir fiction pioneer James M. Cain, Blees’ script meanders through the middle but lands for an effective climax. Alton maximizes shadows on the wall, particularly during a brutal defenestration scene, and highlights vivid reds (hair, blood) every chance he gets. Some may find her performance over-the-top, but Dahl seems to be having a blast as the wildly coquettish and psychologically damaged Dorothy, her hungry eyes and teasing laugh coming especially alive in the beach house scenes.
