Scarlet Street (1945)
Director: Fritz Lang
This film bears a striking resemblance to Lang's 1944 movie, 'The Woman at the Window' (1944). Not only are the lead actors identical, but the plot is also the same. Both stories depict a middle-aged married man engaging in an illicit liaison with another woman, a femme fatale. The 1944 version sought to avoid controversy through a subtle, cautionary ending—that it was all just a dream—and thus avoided the scrutiny of censors. The 1945 film attracted opposition from censorship boards in three states: New York, Milwaukee, and Atlanta. These boards believed it was their duty to censor films that were 'obscene, indecent, immoral, inhuman, sacrilegious' or whose screening 'would tend to corrupt morals or incite to crime.'
Edward G Robinson portrays the most uninteresting man in the world. Working as a cashier for 25 years with an impeccable record, Chris is trapped in a loveless marriage. Chris's wife, Adele, is a foul-mouthed woman who thinks Chris is a good-for-nothing. She lives in the memory of her first husband, a policeman who drowned trying to save someone. In reality, her first husband was a crooked policeman who was attempting to rob the drowning woman. He also faked his own death to escape his wife's loud mouth.
Chris rescues a pretty lady, Kitty, who is being harassed by a roadside thug. Chris believes the lady is in love with him and tries to start an affair with her. Chris has a hobby: he paints. Unbeknownst to him, his paintings are quite good. Long story short, Kitty and the thug are actually a couple. They try to cheat the love-struck Chris out of his paintings, and Kitty sells them as her own. After discovering he'd been duped, Chris gets into an argument and kills her. Kitty's boyfriend is framed for her death and eventually faces the gallows. Chris gets away free, but his conscience pricks him, and he soon becomes mad, wandering aimlessly without a job or a home.
The censors believed that Chris' not paying for his crime in the traditional sense was not seen as poetic justice. The fact that the police and the courts were condemning the wrong person did not cast the police in a positive light during a time when America was attempting to strengthen the police force.
An entertaining melodramatic film from the past where theatrics took precedence over natural acting, and morality codes dictated how stories were told.
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