The idea behind most noir, as explained wonderfully by my pal Eddie J. Oslan, is "a guy falls for a girl, does something really dumb and gets caught." That's true in Scarlet Street, another great film from the German master Fritz Lang, but there's a crucial difference- we want the guy to suceed, as what he want is resonable. Watching this movie and seeing the protogonists' mistakes was almost painful, which was offset by the fact that the movie is also very funny.
Edward G. Robinson stars as Christopher Cross (wipe the smirk off your face, I'm not making any adult comptemporary jokes), a cashier for a big corporation who lives a really hellish life. He's in a loveless marridge, has no real friends and only finds solace in his hobby, painting (he originally wanted to be an artist). What makes Chris different from so many other noir characters is that he we feel for him because he has done everything right- he tries to provide for his wife, do a good job at work, and his life still sucks. He is also fundamentally a nice guy, which is why he attacks a man (Dan Duryea, who I am distantly realted to), with his umbrella when he sees him attacking Kitty (Joan Bennett). He developes a crush on her, and buys her coffee. Unfortantley, for him, he doesn't know that the man was actually Johnny, her jerky gambler boyfriend, and that Kitty is a prostitute. Unfortinatley for them, they belevie he is a rich and famous painter with lots of money to be swindled out of. This is not the first time there will be a criss cross....
Scarlet Street is an unofficial remake of Jean Renrior's 1931 social satire The Bitch (La Chien), which I have not seen, so I cannot make a comparison. The production history of remake is iteresting, it was in development at Paramount for years, always with Ernst Lubtisch attached as director. Finally, the film ended up being made independantly with Lang (who had complete creative autonomy, the only time in his American career). Interestingly, Lang saw Renroir's version only once, upon it's original release, and made most of the remake from memory. The movie is distinctly Lang from beginning to end (we even get his trademark montage of stylized close-ups).
The movie is so brillantly directed I don't where to begin. Lang manages to turn a plot which in the hands of any other director of the day (well, maybe not Welles) would have seemed redicoulously plot-driven and implausable and makes it believable and self-reflexivley funny at the same time. There are legitamate reasons why every character believes the stupid things they do, we laugh at Chris's guillibilty even as we are rooting for him to get wise to the sitution. Edward G. Robinson does a lot to add a certin dignity and pathos to Chris, his life sucks because of circumstance, not because of unusually bad choices. The screenplay by Dudley Nichols (supervised by Lang) is excellent as well.
This is the best noir I've seen- and I have seen both The Maltese Falcon and Double Indemnity. That statement ought to suffice as a final paragraph.
Scarlet Street (1945)