Product Description
A major box office hit in its day, despite being banned in three American states, Scarlet Street is seen by many as on of Fritz Lang s finest films during his American period. Its film-noire setting sees Edward G. Robinson in one of his most emphatic performances as a middle-aged cashier, Chris Cross, who has a chance meeting with the wayward Kitty (Joan Bennett). Trapped in an unfulfilling marriage and desperate to be a painter, Chris falls in love with Kitty. Kitty, however, is already under the spell of her conman boyfriend Johnny (Dan Duryea) and as Chris becomes obsessed with the irresistibly vulgar Kitty, Johnny senses an opportunity to extort money from the love struck cashier.

Synopsis
In this remake of Jean Renoir's controversial 1931 film, LA CHIENNE, Christopher Cross (Edward G. Robinson), a quiet, staid cashier and dedicated Sunday painter, feels consumed by passion for the first time in his life when he meets pretty, manipulative Kitty. The two become involved, but Kitty is really in love with petty crook Johnny. She keeps Christopher around simply for his money. In order to impress his precious mistress, Cross embezzles funds from his employer. He doesn't realize, however, that Kitty and Johnny are also getting rich on his paintings, which are becoming a huge success under Kitty's name. When Christopher's theft comes to light, he loses his job and his dignity. And when he seeks out Kitty for solace, he discovers her in Johnny's embrace. The film explodes in its violent climax, and with it Lang creates perhaps his most chilling Film Noir work. The tightly structured story and the evocative paintings that lie symbolically at the center of the plot create a visual and psychological atmosphere of suspense, filled with double meanings and games of representation and appearance, all pointing toward a brutal final act, motivated by Cross' inner demons and repressed emotions.

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Scarlet Street (1945) is a remake of Jean Renoir's picture La Chienne (1931). The most important immediate difference between the pictures is one of tone and attitude towards the characters. Renoir's film is a kinky black comedy about a pair of sexy low-lifes who humiliate a middle aged man. It is basically a sexual fantasy. Lang's picture is a tale of paranoia, how a pair of disgusting human beings, and fate itself, persecute an innocent man. Lang strips most of the sexiness from the crooked couple in the picture. Instead he and scenarist Dudley Nichols emphasize their sheer awfulness.

Excerpt from the Film of Fritz Lang website located HERE