Scarlett Street finds Edward G. Robinson getting away from the gangster type and more to the mild mannered Mister Winkle which he played a couple of years before. Unfortunately things don't end as good for Christopher Cross as they do for Mr. Winkle.
A mild mannered little guy married to a harridan of a wife in Rosalind Ivans, Robinson's only outlet in his life is the painting he does. He's far better at it than he thinks and if he had some encouragement instead of misery from Ivans this whole story never would have happened.
In any event due to a combination of circumstances, his own personality and fates compelling the path he takes, Robinson winds up involved with bad girl Joan Bennett and her layabout boy friend, Dan Duryea. When Robinson moves his studio over to her place, Duryea grabs up some paintings and tries to sell them.
He makes a real impression on dealer Vladimir Sokoloff who sells them to noted critic Jess Barker and Duryea and Bennett say she did them. And Robinson the chump, goes along with it because he's so taken with Bennett.
Fritz Lang directed this film and it's one of his best American made films about fate just directing the broad march of events and trapping people into circumstances.
Leads Robinson, Bennett, and Duryea were all in Lang's last film The Woman in the Window and there is some similarity in plot. But I think Robinson's character is better compared to Claude Rains's Claudin in Phantom of the Opera and how he reacts when he thinks he's being made a fool of.
As for Joan Bennett, she's one of the coldest hearted women ever created on screen. All of the leads get a brand of justice one way or another in Scarlet Street.
A mild mannered little guy married to a harridan of a wife in Rosalind Ivans, Robinson's only outlet in his life is the painting he does. He's far better at it than he thinks and if he had some encouragement instead of misery from Ivans this whole story never would have happened.
In any event due to a combination of circumstances, his own personality and fates compelling the path he takes, Robinson winds up involved with bad girl Joan Bennett and her layabout boy friend, Dan Duryea. When Robinson moves his studio over to her place, Duryea grabs up some paintings and tries to sell them.
He makes a real impression on dealer Vladimir Sokoloff who sells them to noted critic Jess Barker and Duryea and Bennett say she did them. And Robinson the chump, goes along with it because he's so taken with Bennett.
Fritz Lang directed this film and it's one of his best American made films about fate just directing the broad march of events and trapping people into circumstances.
Leads Robinson, Bennett, and Duryea were all in Lang's last film The Woman in the Window and there is some similarity in plot. But I think Robinson's character is better compared to Claude Rains's Claudin in Phantom of the Opera and how he reacts when he thinks he's being made a fool of.
As for Joan Bennett, she's one of the coldest hearted women ever created on screen. All of the leads get a brand of justice one way or another in Scarlet Street.