LRPA After Dark feature is 'Scarlet Street'

LACONIA—Join Lakes Region Public Access Television at 10:30 p.m. this Friday and Saturday night, Sept. 22 and 23, for our “LRPA After Dark” presentation of 1945’s dark melodrama “Scarlet Street,” starring Edward G. Robinson, Joan Bennett and Dan Duryea.

Chris Cross (Robinson) is a loyal cashier at a downtown brokerage house who has just celebrated 25 years on the job with a party and a gold watch. On his way home, Cross breaks up a violent fight between a beautiful young woman (Bennett) and a drunken thug. The man takes off and the woman introduces herself as Kitty March. Chris offers to escort Kitty home, but she’d rather stop and get a drink. Kitty is impressed by Chris’s watch, and Chris is impressed by her looks. Chris tells her a bit about himself – that he “paints for fun” – and she assumes, from his fancy clothes, that he’s a wealthy artist. Chris, smitten with Kitty, lets her believe what she wants and promises to call her. The next day we glimpse Chris’s real life: he’s married to Adele, a complaining shrew who berates him at every turn and treats him like a servant. She was married to a cop who died in the line of duty, and Chris will never live up to her heroic first husband. Chris desperately sends a note to Kitty, asking to see her again. When the note arrives at her apartment, we see that Kitty’s attacker was her no-good boyfriend Johnny Prince (Duryea). Johnny, convinced that Chris really is a wealthy artist, tells Kitty “make friends” with him so that they may extort his money. Chris and Kitty meet. She tells him that she’s an actress, struggling to make a living; maybe he could rent her a place where they could spend time together? Chris confesses that he’s married – and though Kitty is “shocked,” she agrees to the studio set-up. Chris brings some of his paintings there, which leads Johnny to come up with a devious plan. As Chris gets in over his head, things go from bad to worse. How will he come up with funds to keep Kitty in her love nest? How will his paintings play into Johnny’s scheme? And what happens when a good man lies, cheats and steals to hold on to his desperate dreams?

“Scarlet Street” is a particularly bleak entry in the film noir genre, and holds the distinction of being one of the first Hollywood films to feature a criminal who is not punished for his crime. At the time of its premiere, censors across the country stridently objected to the film, describing it as “obscene,” “immoral,” “sordid,” “indecent,” and “contrary to the good order of the community”(!) According to TCM host Ben Mankiewicz, “Scarlet Street” was considered so debauched that, upon first release, it was banned in Milwaukee, Atlanta and throughout New York. Who better to direct this grim morality tale than Fritz Lang, one of the founding fathers of German Expressionism? Under his watchful eye, every detail of the film, from its carefully lit sets to the methodical folds of Bennett’s dresses, received equal amounts of obsessive attention. While “Scarlet Street” may have shocked critics in its day, it has won many over in the decades since. In 2008, the American Film Institute nominated “Scarlet Street” for its Top Ten Gangster Films list.

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