And He Still Didn't End a Sentence With "See"

 Scarlet Street 1945

Starring Edward G. Robinson, Joan Bennett, Dan Duryea 

Now for a movie, I cannot snark on. 

This is a surprisingly good movie with a fine performance from Robinson. 

Robinson plays the quiet and gentle Christopher Cross whose true joy in life is painting. His life will take an unfortunate turn when late one night he stops to help a prostitute, named Kitty, played by Joan Bennett, who's being beaten by her pimp/boyfriend, Johnny, played by Dan Duryea. Okay, because of the Hays code in this version, she's not a prostitute but is more of a lazy opportunist but the visuals are there to let you know what she really is.

After Kitty's pimp flees, Chris takes her out for a coffee, which turns into a drink and he immediately becomes smitten. He tells her about his painting and when she tells him he must be a rich artist he never corrects her. He asks if he can give her a call and in an obvious brush off she tells him that she doesn't have a phone so he asks if he can write her she points to the building number and says "There's the address". 

When Johnny finds a letter that Chris has written to Kitty she tells him that Chris is a rich artist and Johnny enacts a plan to get money out of the poor lovesick sap and this will lead to murder.

As I said, Robinson really does give a fine performance. His Christopher Cross is a simple and kind man who doesn't expect much out of life. He's married to a horrible hateful woman whom he only married because he didn't want to be alone. Painting is the only thing that makes him happy, well that's until he meets Kitty.  Dan Duryea also does a good job of making Johnny Prince so despicable that when he finally meets his fate you feel a sense of schadenfreude. Joan Bennett plays Kitty as a lazy selfish woman who will go wherever Johnny leads her and it works.

This film is based on the French novel La Chienne written by Georges de La Fouchardiere. There's also a French version that I would love to see. 

You can stream Scarlet Street on Tubi and Pluto and I'm sure you can find it on Youtube as well.

The three leads also appeared together in The Woman in the Window. Now that's a movie I can snark on.