Scarlet Street

A great noir with nuanced direction. Robinson is too smart and fatalistic to be completely pathetic, Duryea is too weak and fragile to be utterly vile, and Joan Bennett . . . well Joan Bennett is wonderful. Besides being sexy in her lingerie--and even sexier in her transparent raincoat--she is too full of life to be stereotyped as a femme fatale. Her lazy sensuality, her amusement at Edward G.'s dorkiness, even her baffling love for Duryea, give this movie a distinctive European feel.

Well made, and it becomes more interesting as it progresses, but it lacks the sardonic humour and irony of La Chienne, and the young grifting couple are too stereotypical to take seriously. Bennett's weak performance is also a sore point. Positives include Lang's solid direction, which keeps the narrative moving along at a pleasing meter, and Robinson, who is almost always watchable, even in his decline period.

Edward G. proves he has range with a quiet turn as a pathetic man caught in the traditional web of lies, unwilling to give up the better world glimpsed in a misunderstanding. The film struggles with tone; it threatens constantly to veer into the truly dark, but then cuts right back into light comedy, before flinging itself over the guardrail at the end. I might've guessed it to be Lang towards the end, there, but otherwise it bears little in the way of hallmarks.

The characters are at once despicable and sympathetic, and that makes this love triangle noir a really engaging and effective piece of suspense. It really works around the limitations of the Hayes code with some originality and ends as strongly as it starts.

Simple characters all getting in over their heads. Its astuteness is in how it starts off small and slowly builds from there. Like the portrait of Dorian Gray, it's the small insignificant sins that layer the canvas with increasing thickness of oils. These are all 2nd tier characters who'd normally find their place enabling the leading character but finally get their long sought spotlight here. Through these characters we get an unlikely yet much more human story; as unflattering as it may be.

It's an interesting turn for Edward G. Robinson, in which he plays a pathetic milquetoast being exploited for his naive "lack of perspective." Notable for its depiction of illicit romance and grisly murder, and Lang's refusal to punish his characters by the appropriate letter of the law. Instead he opts to condemn his protagonist not with the electric chair, but by subjecting him to perpetual psychological torment. If I have any significant complaint, it's that Dan Duryea is a clown.

Enjoyable noir that takes a little longer than average to build up the tension that you know is coming. Robinson emotes the henpecked husband a little too well to make the movie plausible, but I'd probably have been a little brain-addled after meeting Joan Bennett too. The ending is a bit of a surprise (from a historical perspective).

i was wondering what this would be like considering i didn't much enjoy one of his other american efforts, the big heat, and to begin with it felt similarly devoid of interesting themes and his unique visuals. however, it got significantly better over time when it darkens and becomes a more interesting exploration of an artist, a lover, a killer (lol). pretty good overall, though i'm still not at all convinced that the american film noir scene did much for lang as an artist.

Robinson turns his character into a guy Idlike to meet.I was even imagining having a chat with Chris Cross about painting & I dont give a damn about painting,thats how endearing Robinson was.Bennett as the femme fatale does a good job, but the character simply isn't interesting enough and Bennett's presence isn't charismatic enough to keep the movie from dragging during a long second act stretch where Robinson is benched.I'd recommend it for Robinson fans, and, naturally fans of Lang like myself

The whole ending where karma kicks in made the entire experience. Brilliantly laid-out by the great Fritz Lang and his crew. Few could be the sorry old man like Edward G. Robinson, and he plays his tragic character to perfection. Slap-happy Dan Duryea brought the cheapness, and you got to love the deserved abuse he kept rewarding Joan Bennett with! A lovely piece of tragicomic excellence.

I preface this review by stating that I have yet to see Renoir's 'La Chienne' which seems a much more suitable title for the film than 'Scarlet Street'. In many ways this is a generic story; an 'ageing, lifelong loser and restless soul of a man' is taken advantage of by a 'younger, dangerous and beautiful woman'. However, Lang transcends this formulaic narrative form through the panache of Bennet's performance - "jeepers!" - and Robinson's ability to embody the downtrodden and tortured life.

Fritz Lang Joan Bennett = Film Noir CLASSIC!

Very nice, intricate story. Moves very slowly at times, but the ending wraps it up perfectly.

Viewed September 18, 2020.

A film that actually commits to every character getting what they deserve. No one here escapes punishment. A very bleak film. Also hits the bullshit of the art crowd pretty hard. Top tier Lang. "No one is appreciated in their home country" LOL

A masterpiece of film noir, this is one of Edward G. Robinson's best performances, which is saying alot. Too bad the production code was in full force at this point.

Loved this one! Melodrama meets film noir. Great performances by Robinson and Bennett in one wild ride of a movie.

Great dark comedy with a bleak, but earned ending.

Great script, great direction, great actors. Joan Bennett is especially wonderful as an iconic femme fatale. In the canon of film noir, I'd put this right next to the superlative Double Indemnity.

One of those older movies that time has bypassed, reducing the drama to the overwrought, overdone and unbeleiveable. Wildly overrated (bar Robinson who is excellent). The ending is perfect though and earns some points. Some say this was overly softened by the Hayes code so next to watch is the French (original?) La Chienne.

952

Sometimes death is an escape we aren't granted to have when we want it more than anything. Bleak, haunting and surprisingly funny

Noir meets sappy tragic drama? An engrossing story with some genuine surprises. Ending gave me the creeps.

Star Rating: ★★★

of the late-period Lang i've seen so far, this is the one where he really gets it right. just a very well crafted film, clever, charming and a with a big heart.

Nice. A year after 'Woman in the Window' Robinson and Duryea are at the helm again. Fritz Lang does it better this time around with a story that is just as filled with deception as the last time and though I'm a fan of Robinson, he didn't quite live up to his name in this picture. Duryea however put on a great perfomance, pulling this picture through with his performance as a "good" bad guy.

A sort of a light drama that veers into something surprisingly darker towards the end of the film. I'm not sure how I feel about it, but it's all pretty well done and I did like the pessimistic conclusion. Edward G. Robinson is pathetic as hell in this.

Negatives first - I thought some of the acting, particularly from Joan Bennett, was a little too theatrical at times, and Duryea really didn't cut it as a tough guy. Other than that, it's all you want in a noir. A pitiful leading man trapped by circumstance, a deadly dame with sharp claws, greed, lust, murder, guilt... all the good stuff. The shift in tone towards the end is perhaps a little jarring, but the final 15 minutes is about as dark as it comes, which is fine by me.

watched: 2011, 2015, 2021

Joan Bennett and Edward G. Robinson are unforgettable in this terrifyingly bleak noir.

A better-than-expected noir gem.

An incredible movie that stands as one of the greatest pictures I've had the pleasure to see.The acting in this film is phenomenal.Edward G. Robinson, Dan Duryea and Margaret Lindsey give performances of the highest order.Fritz Lang directs the film in a way that meticulously crafts a spider web that ensnares everybody.Rarely have I seen an ending as good as this and as in sync with what we know about the character.Two Thumbs enthusiastically up for this masterpiece.

Eddie G brings an otherwise mediocre Noir up to greatness with a fantastic against-type role.

"But you don't always see what everyone else is seeing." http://illusionpodcast.blogspot.com/2015/06/episode-63-films-noir-of-fritz-lang.html

Great film.

E.G. Robinson is more sap than sage in this one, and he pulls it off well: so consumed with blinding shame over his own deception that he doesn't see the honking big lies on the other end of the relationship. This story probably couldn't be told today without earning some groans. Shame, because I really do love a mean bitch, for cat's sake.

Edward G. Robinson puts out a great performance, strengthening the dramatic nature of the story.

Lang's adaptation of the novel "La Chienne" (adapted in France by Jean Renoir in the previous decade) is an astonishingly grim film. Robinson is victimized, but his behavior is so foolish and selfish that he's almost a willing party to his own destruction ... and that destruction is thorough and complete. The guilty parties in this film are so thoroughly crushed that it feels like Lang is mocking the Production Code.

The story is quite contrived, and the characters two-dimensional. The script in general isn't very good. The strength lies in a few of the little details. Bits of it shine in a way I can't put my finger on. It's certainly carefully crafted, but still very overrated.

940

While a decent drama in its own right, Scarlet Street inevitably suffers from comparisons to the superior La Chienne; Renoir doesn’t hide away from the henpecked husband’s complicity in his downfall, whereas Lang mutes this aspect, making the character more innocent but the story less compelling as a result. Robinson too is a fine actor but lacks both the effortless pathos and slight dirtiness of the inimitable Michel Simon. There isn’t much here to warrant its classification as a noir.

Quite interesting, but very uneven: from lighthearted 'comedy' to a creepy ending.

Well-directed, sharp and laden, it's a solid slice of film noir from the mid-40s. Fritz Lang handle the medium with an inexhaustible elegance and a visible assertiveness; this is sublime filmmaking.

#997

Lang ruminates on authenticity, duplicity, art, and his personal favorite theme, justice in this dark-as-all-get-out thriller. Edward Robinson is excellent as the cuckolded protagonist turned criminal.

One of my favorite Fritz Lang films of his Hollywood era. A very good companion-piece to The Woman In The Window, directed by Fritz Lang one year earlier. Both feature legendary Edward G. Robinson as leading-man in similar roles. Classic(s)!