Check out Fritz Lang’s Scarlet Street (1945) starring Edward G. Robinson, Joan Bennett and Dan Duryea down at the Metrograph on Sunday. This seminal film noir features unexpected plot twists and a terrifically ironic ending, all seen through Lang’s expressionist eye.
From Little Caesar to Johnny Rocco, Edward G. Robinson has practically defined the Gangster persona in classic American film. His cigar, his sneer and his “mnyeah” are iconic, earning him the highest of honors: portrayal in the Bugs Bunny cartoon Racketeer Rabbit (1946).
But Emmanuel Goldenberg is an equally convincing milquetoast patsy. In Scarlet Street, he’s Christopher Cross, a timid, middle-aged cashier in a miserable marriage, whose one joy in life is painting. All you need to know about his marriage is the portrait of his wife’s first husband hanging prominently in the living room looking down in stern disapproval. I tell ya, he gets no respect. His shrewish wife even complains about the cost of his paints, and threatens to throw his art work out with the trash.
Chris is eventually seduced by Kitty (Joan bennett), and she and her abusive parasite of a boyfriend Johnny (Dan Duryea) arrange to scam Chris under the misapprehension that he’s a prominent artist. In one of the many ironic twists in the film, it turns out that the paintings his wife had so disparaged are indeed judged to be significant, and are then sold by Johnny. That his name is criss-cross is as appropriate as it is ironic that Johnny’s last name is Prince.
Fritz Lang, of course, was a giant of German cinema of the 20s and early 30s, directing such landmark films as Dr. Mabuse: The Gambler (1922) Metropolis (1927), and M (1931) before fleeing Hitler in 1934. Scarlet Street is his 12th American film, and is frequently thought of as part of a matched set with Lang’s Woman in the Window, a similar film noir released in 1944 and also starring Edward G. Robinson, Joan Bennett and Dan Duryea. It was a critical and financial success, and the Hollywood law that if it works, do it again, certainly applied here.
Lang acknowledges the connection between the two films with a visual joke. The Woman in the Window starts with Robinson admiring a portrait of Bennett in the window of an art gallery. Scarlet Street ends with the portrait of Bennett painted by Chris seen through a window as it’s being transported to the home of the new owner.
