'Scarlet Street' takes a little while to go anywhere, but once it catches our attention, it's wildly engrossing. This is a fine story about two con artists and the man they're fleecing for cash.
Edward G. Robinson is swell as hard-working, love-stricken Christopher Cross, a middle-aged gentleman trapped in a cold, loveless marriage. Robinson neatly captures Cross' mounting air of nervous desperation as he falls deeper in love, while being taken for ever more cash. Joan Bennett is vividly terse and demanding and entrancingly alluring as Kitty, the target of Cross' affections, as she strings him along with just enough false pretense to get whatever money she can from him. And Dan Duryea, as Kitty's boyfriend/partner Johnny Prince, exudes every possible ounce of calculating wise-guy smarm, bearing an outfit and accent that's readily recognizable as a contemporary archetype.
The progression of the narrative is increasingly riveting as the web of lies and deceit deepens, heading toward an inevitable catastrophe one way or another. I enjoy the costume design and set decoration all the while, helping to cement the story. The cast's excellent performances are made ever easier with characterizations of complexity and depth, allowing surprising nuance to come out. And Fritz Lang's keen eye as director builds superb, memorable scenes that leave more of an impression than the picture first leads us to believe it might.
From the start 'Scarlet Street' seems light in tone, and unassuming, but it unquestionably grows distinctly dark, and depressing, until by the end the picture hardly resembles the one we began watching. Even with Lang's reputation I was caught off guard by the first act, but make no mistake, he certainly delivers. This is an outstanding thriller that holds up magnificently almost 80 years later, well worth seeking out wherever one can.
Edward G. Robinson is swell as hard-working, love-stricken Christopher Cross, a middle-aged gentleman trapped in a cold, loveless marriage. Robinson neatly captures Cross' mounting air of nervous desperation as he falls deeper in love, while being taken for ever more cash. Joan Bennett is vividly terse and demanding and entrancingly alluring as Kitty, the target of Cross' affections, as she strings him along with just enough false pretense to get whatever money she can from him. And Dan Duryea, as Kitty's boyfriend/partner Johnny Prince, exudes every possible ounce of calculating wise-guy smarm, bearing an outfit and accent that's readily recognizable as a contemporary archetype.
The progression of the narrative is increasingly riveting as the web of lies and deceit deepens, heading toward an inevitable catastrophe one way or another. I enjoy the costume design and set decoration all the while, helping to cement the story. The cast's excellent performances are made ever easier with characterizations of complexity and depth, allowing surprising nuance to come out. And Fritz Lang's keen eye as director builds superb, memorable scenes that leave more of an impression than the picture first leads us to believe it might.
From the start 'Scarlet Street' seems light in tone, and unassuming, but it unquestionably grows distinctly dark, and depressing, until by the end the picture hardly resembles the one we began watching. Even with Lang's reputation I was caught off guard by the first act, but make no mistake, he certainly delivers. This is an outstanding thriller that holds up magnificently almost 80 years later, well worth seeking out wherever one can.