Movies are the culture of the 20th century. They have affected people in everything, from determining how they dream. To how they kiss. So much of moviemaking is moving the audiences eye. When are we going move it . How are we going to move it . What do we want them to see . bell ringing its very important to watch every detail in a film, particularly with a director like fritz lang, whos not going to leave anything up to chance. Everything is calculated. dramatic music plays no, johnny no. Well. Maybe. narrator never has a woman been more beautifully brutal. Oh, im sorry i cant ask you to come up, but i share my apartment with another girl. A chance encounter becomes a tale of lust, betrayal, and murder. Its only blackmail, baby, when youre dumb enough to get caught. knocking on door you will see it all on scarlet street, universals terrific suspense drama. If i werent a gentleman. Scarlet street will shock you. It will show you things that you never knew existed. Paint me, chris. Youve got a date on scarlet street. Theyll be masterpieces. Scarlet street is a film directed by fritz lang. Its about a middleaged. Mildmannered, honest bank clerk. His only pleasure is that on sundays he likes to paint. This life is interrupted by his meeting abruptly with a young woman, kitty, whom he falls in love with. She has this kind of boyfriend pimp character who encourages her to kind of dry hustle edward g. Robinson, to encourage him to think that shes a struggling actress who needs support. Edward g. Robinson starts stealing things from his harridan of a wife. He sets her up in an apartment where he is also going to come and paint. Johnny takes the paintings to an art dealer and finds they can make some kind of money, and before they know it, kitty is signing chriss paintings and making money out of them. Chris discovers this plot but doesnt care because hes so enamored of kitty. Eventually we think that edward j. Robinson is going to knock off his wicked wife. However, by some elaborate subplot, hes managed to get rid of his shrewish wife, and he arrives one night. And sees his lady love saying Sweet Nothings and embracing the pimpy character, who blows up when edward j. Robinson walks away. Chris returns and she ridicules him. She attacks his manliness. He picks up an ice pick and he brutally murders her. However, hes not seen leaving the house. Dan durea breaks back into the apartment building, and edward g. Robinson stays quiet until dan durea is given the chair. And then, a free man now to paint or whatever he wants to do, it turns out that hes not free. So now he walks around with their voices forever in his head. Hes just led to his fate which is to be alone in an empty world. Theres a tremendous abundance of things to discuss in the movies and that one can learn in general about culture and the way that it functions, particularly in the modern world. narrator a chance encounter becomes a tale of genre theory, feminist analysis, and auterism. Scarlet street will open your eyes. It will show you things you never knew existed. Its a rare film for really allowing us to see the pressures and the constraints and the demands on masculinity on men for an ideal of masculinity. I think in langs kind of worldview, what he sees is that that little guy is going to lose, you know, that the cynics of the world are going to be able to prey on people who are believers. Scarlet street could be considered film noir for a number of reasons. First of all, you have a kind of illusion of bourgeois or petty bourgeois order which the bank clerk represents, and that is disrupted. Hes cast out from his normal existence into a dangerous, glamorous street world. That sequence when chris cross first sees kitty is close to being the essence of noir. It stopped raining. Yeah, a halfhour ago. Oh, which way is it to the east side subway . round the corner, past the el, 4 blocks. Oh, thank you, officer. I guess i got turned around. These streets are all mixed up in greenwich village. hoberman appearances are deceptive. Space is deformed by the lighting patterns. Its the city late at night. Chris gets involved in a violent scene that he cant really understand. And, in fact, its quite violent. For the time, the idea that a woman would be lying on the ground while this guy is kicking her is fairly sadistic and is typical of more violence. Along the sociological analysis, chris feels that to be masculine, first of all, you save women in distress; and, secondly, to be masculine, you also have a glamorous woman interested in you. We might also have been wondering, is she the noir femme fatale . Is he hurt . Ill go call a policeman. No, wait wait shes kind of fetishized, wrapped up this transparent raincoat, which is both tawdry and glamorous at the same time, a beautiful, mysterious woman who is instantly duplicitous. Whered they go . In that direction. What does he look like . I dont know. I didnt see his face. He took 15. He didnt believe it was all i had, so he began pushing me around. Then this gentleman ran in and knocked him down. Thats right, officer. He was right there. I couldnt hold him. He got up and ran. Come on. Lets get outta here. But we have to wait for the officer. I dont want to get my name in the newspaper; do you . Well have to go the station house and make a complaint. Then every time they make an arrest, they send detectives to your house for weeks. Oh, its a nuisance wont you take me home . Kitty is clearly an experienced woman. We know that because shes so familiar with the ways of the police. Its one of the ways in which shes able to take charge of the scene and of chris cross, the robinson character, and draw him across the line of respectability into this shadowy nether world. In general, you have three, at most four, points of view working in a film. You have an omniscient point of view, which is the kind of authorial point of view. It can be very neutral or it can be very editorial. At the beginning of the scene, were seeing from the outside. Were seeing this little man with an umbrella kind of wandering around in the rain, a little bit lost. Then there is the point of view of the characters. And the first point of view of a character we get into is chris crosss point of view looking at this woman being beaten by a man. But then we go back, and this is a little more editorial. Ill go call the policeman. No, wait wait this is the author, whos in control of the movie, letting us see something that we know but edward g. Robinson doesnt know. We cut away with edward g. Robinson running off into the distance. Then when we cut back to her, we see her looking offscreen left. Edward g. Robinson and the cop, of course, dont see which way the guy went cause she kind of recovers and brushes off and picks something up. They come back. She says, oh, he ran off. Screen right. So from this point on, well have suspicions about kitty that chris cross is not going to have. The femme fatale, then, is a seductress. Its a very beautiful woman whose beauty bedazzles the male hero and who uses her beauty and the bedazzling of the male to achieve her usually evil ends. Listen, baby. You got him right where you want him. Hes on the hook and cant get off. He can walk out, cant he . Hes got a wife, hasnt he . Just drop a hint that his wife might find out about this apartment and hell shell out fast. Thats blackmail. Its only blackmail, baby, when youre dumb enough to get caught. Whats very interesting about kitty as a femme fatale is her subservience to johnny. Her femme fatale nature is brought out by johnny. knocking on door is that him . I told you i heard the doorbell. Get rid of him. Its very clear its specifically sexual prowess that keeps kitty tied to johnny. We dont actually see any sexuality, but its clearly indicated that they are involved in sex and leisure and pleasure. This scene seems to be heavily encoded. Theres a whole underlying sense of them belonging to a particular demimonde. Why . Dont you answer doorbells . Thought you were mad at me. Peace offering scotch. Thanks, honey. I didnt think you were out. Its only 10 past 12. Millie showing up with a bottle of scotch. Its just noon. Kitty rarely is able to rouse herself sufficiently to put on anything more than a robe over her slip, calling kitty a working girl. Youre doing all right for a working girl. Dont start that again. The suggestion is that kitty has elevated herself from the street to being a kept woman. Dont tell me hes under the sofa, too. No, bright eyes. We do have the only positive woman, really, in the sociological analysis now, and its millie. And millie is, indeed, an independent working girl. Shes smart. You can come out, johnny. Shes witty. All you have to do is call, funny face. Shes a very important contrast to kitty. You must have made a killing in wall street, mr. Prince. Could be. The last time i saw johnny, he was talking about going to hollywood. I might try it yet. Why, i read in a movie magazine about a fella who landed in hollywood stonebroke and cleaned up a million, no experience, either. All he had was looks, and he worked in a drugstore. If he worked, johnny, he didnt look like you. So shes wise to johnny. They kind of spar quite a bit. And theres this, uh, veiled dislike between them, but because theyre both hooked up with kitty, theyre not gonna come to blows. Kitty, meanwhile, cant engage on this level, at all, of wit. You two stop fighting. Im not fighting, baby. She just doesnt know my speed. Why, i hear of movie actors getting 5 10,000 a week. For what . For acting tough, for pushing girls in the face. What do they do i cant do . If youre so clever, why dont you do it . I might, funny face. I might. knocking on door shes putty to johnny, and then shes a femme fatale in relation to chris. So shes really a split. Chris ive brought over some of the my things, kitty. Ill bring some more tomorrow, the rest on saturday. Film noir is a world of duplicity. People lie to each other. Oh, you have company . Just millie and johnny. Joh. . You know, millies boyfriend. The denizens of this world just lie to him without a second thought. And johnny prince. Glad to know you, mr. Cross. Johnny is dangling chris on a string through kitty. So that that puts the viewer in the position of knowing that cross is really a dupe, which is a weak a very weak masculine kind of position. He accepts everything at face value, and yet hes still disturbed. How do you do . It seems to me ive seen you before somewhere. Could be. Could be, mr. Cross. Yes. I, uh, i just dont seem to remember. Maybe im mistaken. Could be. Edward g. Robinson is kind of lost in these taller peoples bodies. So when he enters, he doesnt take over the room. Hes almost like an intruder. Ill go with you, sweetheart. Oh, dont bother, johnny. I wouldnt think of lettin you go alone, darling. You might get run over by a street car. Each character has a rhythm of how they speak. Goodbye, mr. Cross. Its most markedly different between johnny and chris. Johnny speaks almost only in statements of fact im going to do this. Only if you get caught. Even when hes teasing, it has a point to it. You might get run over by a street car. Theres no hesitation in anything he says. Hes very at ease with himself. Whereas chris, everything is hesitant. Even his sentences always kind of start and stop. Whats the matter, chris . I i dont think i like that young man shes in love with. Oh, johnnys all right. Oh, i know he is or he wouldnt be your friend. But theres something about him that shes crazy about him. Uh, would you, uh would you like to see my pictures . Not yet. Come sit down, chris. You happy . What he is is a guy who is an eternal victim, and hes an easy mark. Adelle is pretty much of a monster. Shes kind of an escapee from a w. C. Fields movie. Shes the kind of wife who goes humph a lot and does go out of her way to be mean just to him. Let me back up. We first see her in the street, but its a very different ichnography of the street than the street kitty was in. Kitty was in a midnight street with everything dark and shadowy. Adelle is on the street, but shes shopping and its broad daylight, so its a very permissible street for a woman to be out in when she sees the pictures. And she knows that its supposed to be chriss, but its got kitty marsh, and so she comes home to yell that hes just copied and that hes no good. The scene unfolds like a nightmare. Hes, in effect, cheating on his wife. She shows up. Hello, adelle. I dropped over to the butcher shop like you told me to. I got a nice piece of liver. Even the idea that his idea of dinner would be a nice piece of liver is something that tells you something. You can almost smell the dankness of this apartment. Hes in a frilly apron. Hes in the kitchen doing the womans role. Hes making dinner. He also his language says, ive just stopped by the butcher shop as you told me to, adelle. In the background we see this big oval picture of the ex, missing, dead possibly dead cop husband. Its very high up on the wall, so its very, very dominant, not just that hell never live up to this guy, but that its the law. Its almost always in between them in the background. How long have you known kathryn marsh . Answer me hoberman its a very ironic moment. I dont know what youre talking about. Hes exposed in this scene for his double life, and yet hes not exposed. How long have you known her . Now, dont get excited, dear. Let me help you off with your coat. Youre the one thats excited. And get away with that knife do you want to cut my throat . She articulates his unconscious desire do you want to cut my throat . And, of course, he does, although he hasnt fully realized it yet. How long have you known her . So were starting to think oh, my god, is he going to kill his wife . And then his wife keeps pushing him and pushing him and saying nasty things to him while hes got a big butcher knife in his hand. And you just think thats it. Hes already stolen from her. He hates her guts. Shes gonna push too far and hes gonna knife her. So this has been used to plant in our mind that hes got murder in his heart. I dont know what youre talking about. Dont lie to me you copy her work. Pretending you painted those pictures out of your own head. I bet youre at delerose every day making notes. Where . Delerose art gallery on 57th street. Theyve got a window full of paintings by kathryn marsh. Youre talking crazy. She gets 500 for for a single picture. Shes a genius. No wonder i used to think sometimes there was something in your work. If you ever do any more painting around here, i swear ill write that woman a letter telling her youre stealing her ideas. Weve already seen chris in the domestic sphere with his shrewish wife, completely emasculated and clearly impotent. Youre a thief weve seen him struggling to become a man and at each point the women have blocked him. You have a situation where chris is being accused of a crime that he didnt commit. He did not plagiarize the paintings its his work just as by the end of the movie, he will have eluded punishment, or at least punishment by the state, for a crime that he did commit. laughing thats love, honey. glass breaking whispering here he is now. Goodbye, hon. Hello, johnny. Come on, johnny. I heard you. She is lounging like a chocolatecovered cherry in a candy box there, with all that light and all those fluffy pillows and the mirror and everything like that. And in comes this guy who looks like death on a soda cracker. Usually hes quite tentative. This time he seems dangerous. When he begins speaking to her, he again wants to make excuses. Hes placating and so on, but something seems to have snapped in the character, so that he is, in a way, taking possession of that space. You lied to me, kitty. It was him, wasnt it . Can i help it if im in love . No. Its just an infatuation. You couldnt love a man like that, kitty. Hes evil. He wouldnt let you alone. Isnt that right . I wanted to kill him, but thats wrong. Theres these mirrors on the side of the bed, which are always very useful in staging you know, in a kind of literal way. She is literally twofaced. Whyd you come here . To ask you to marry me. What about your wife . I havent any wife. Thats finished. Her husband turned up. Im free. laughing or crying dont cry, kitty. I know how you feel, but thats all over now. We all make mistakes. I dont care whats happened. I i can marry you now. I want you to be my wife. Well go away together, way far off, so you can forget this other man. Dont cry, kitty, please. To get that mirror shot, she actually had to cheat her face toward the mirror. So shes probably looking at him like this, so that we get a good, almost full frontal shot of her in the mirror. And weve got a threequarters of edward g. Robinson on the other side of the screen, and you didnt have to move the camera or cut into whats a kind of a twoshot, dramatic scene. Im not crying, you fool. Im laughing kitty. Oh, you idiot how can a man be so dumb . Kitty . laughing continues i wanted to laugh in your face ever since i first met you even though shes really chewing the scenery, she doesnt stand up and tower over him. So she doesnt really take over this time. We can worry about her future in that shes still down there. Youre old and ugly, and im sick of you kitty, for heavens sake. You kill johnny . Id like to see you try why, hed break every bone in your body hes a man you want to marry me . You . Get outta here we dont cut to him first moving toward her, and then cut back to her saying, what are you doing . We see her lose steam in the middle of her tirade. Get out get away from me chris get away from me chris chris murder is very often at the center of film noir. An otherwise innocent or respectable man becomes a murderer. Lang turns this into a blatant sex crime with him stabbing her on the bed originally seven times. Its this kind of cathartic, um. Horrible moment where their relationship is at last consummated. Cross is trying to find masculinity in this relationship with kitty. You can forget this other man. Dont cry, kitty. Please dont cry. Im not crying, you fool. Im laughing its almost unbearable for the woman he loves to turn on him and berate him for being old and ugly. You kill johnny . Id like to see you try why, hed break every bone in your body its the second time. Homers been the real man. Johnnys the real man. Hes nothing. Get away from me chris chris get away from me he goes towards her as he had gone towards adelle, but, of course, hadnt completed the action with the knife. Its his third phallic weapon, we could say, the umbrella being the first, the knife the second. He simply releases his rage and he murders her. Get away from me chris chris this is very much a male perspective. I mean, im honoring its incredible ability to produce this insight about masculinity. But in order to do that, lang has to sacrifice the female roles. Billy wilder could have made this movie, and it would have ended up a comedy. He would have skipped the stabbing and probably chris and kitty would have ended up being married at the end, and in the same exact relationship. And johnny would have continued to have his affair with her, and chris would have thought he was the luckiest guy in the world. Theres the odd footnote of Walter Wanger going to prison some years after this movie for shooting the agent of his wife, joan bennett. So its hard now to distinguish, you know, one sense of joan bennett from her appearance as a femme fatale. narrator you must see scarlet street. dramatic music playing captioned by realtime captioning van nuys, california. Annenberg media and with additional funding from these foundations and individuals and by and the annual Financial Support of to order videocassettes for information about this and other annenberg media programs call 1800learner and visit us at www. Learner. Org. Annenberg media and with additional funding from these foundations and individuals and by and the annual Financial Support of theatrical music playing movies are the culture of the 20th century. They have affected people in everything, from determining how they dream. To how they kiss. So much of moviemaking is moving the audiences eye. When are we going move it . How are we going to move it . What do we want them to see . bell ringing its very important to watch every detail in a film, particularly with a director like fritz lang, whos not going to leave anything up to chance. Everything is calculated. dramatic music plays no, johnny no. Well. Maybe. narrator never has a woman been more beautifully brutal. Oh, im sorry i cant ask you to come up, but i share my apartment with another girl. A chance encounter becomes a tale of lust, betrayal, and murder. Its only blackmail, baby, when youre dumb enough to get caught. knocking on door you will see it all on scarlet street, universals terrific suspense drama. If i werent a gentleman. Scarlet street will shock you. It will show you things that you never knew existed. Paint me, chris. Youve got a date on scarlet street. Theyll be masterpieces. Scarlet street is a film directed by fritz lang. Its about a middleaged. Mildmannered, honest bank clerk. His only pleasure is that on sundays he likes to paint. This life is interrupted by his meeting abruptly with a young woman, kitty, whom he falls in love with. She has this kind of boyfriend pimp character who encourages her to kind of dry hustle edward g. Robinson, to encourage him to think that shes a struggling actress who needs support. Edward g. Robinson starts stealing things from his harridan of a wife. He sets her up in an apartment where he is also going to come and paint. Johnny takes the paintings to an art dealer and finds they can make some kind of money, and before they know it, kitty is signing chriss paintings and making money out of them. Chris discovers this plot but doesnt care because hes so enamored of kitty. Eventually we think that edward j. Robinson is going to knock off his wicked wife. However, by some elaborate subplot, hes managed to get rid of his shrewish wife, and he arrives one night. And sees his lady love saying Sweet Nothings and embracing the pimpy character, who blows up when edward j. Robinson walks away. Chris returns and she ridicules him. She attacks his manliness. He picks up an ice pick and he brutally murders her. However, hes not seen leaving the house. Dan durea breaks back into the apartment building, and edward g. Robinson stays quiet until dan durea is given the chair. And then, a free man now to paint or whatever he wants to do, it turns out that hes not free. So now he walks around with their voices forever in his head. Hes just led to his fate which is to be alone in an empty world. Theres a tremendous abundance of things to discuss in the movies and that one can learn in general about culture and the way that it functions, particularly in the modern world. narrator a chance encounter becomes a tale of genre theory, feminist analysis, and auterism. Scarlet street will open your eyes. It will show you things you never knew existed. Its a rare film for really allowing us to see the pressures and the constraints and the demands on masculinity on men for an ideal of masculinity. I think in langs kind of worldview, what he sees is that that little guy is going to lose, you know, that the cynics of the world are going to be able to prey on people who are believers. Scarlet street could be considered film noir for a number of reasons. First of all, you have a kind of illusion of bourgeois or petty bourgeois order which the bank clerk represents, and that is disrupted. Hes cast out from his normal existence into a dangerous, glamorous street world. That sequence when chris cross first sees kitty is close to being the essence of noir. It stopped raining. Yeah, a halfhour ago. Oh, which way is it to the east side subway . round the corner, past the el, 4 blocks. Oh, thank you, officer. I guess i got turned around. These streets are all mixed up in greenwich village. hoberman appearances are deceptive. Space is deformed by the lighting patterns. Its the city late at night. Chris gets involved in a violent scene that he cant really understand. And, in fact, its quite violent. For the time, the idea that a woman would be lying on the ground while this guy is kicking her is fairly sadistic and is typical of more violence. Along the sociological analysis, chris feels that to be masculine, first of all, you save women in distress; and, secondly, to be masculine, you also have a glamorous woman interested in you. We might also have been wondering, is she the noir femme fatale . Is he hurt . Ill go call a policeman. No, wait wait shes kind of fetishized, wrapped up this transparent raincoat, which is both tawdry and glamorous at the same time, a beautiful, mysterious woman who is instantly duplicitous. Whered they go . In that direction. What does he look like . I dont know. I didnt see his face. He took 15. He didnt believe it was all i had, so he began pushing me around. Then this gentleman ran in and knocked him down. Thats right, officer. He was right there. I couldnt hold him. He got up and ran. Come on. Lets get outta here. But we have to wait for the officer. I dont want to get my name in the newspaper; do you . Well have to go the station house and make a complaint. Then every time they make an arrest, they send detectives to your house for weeks. Oh, its a nuisance wont you take me home . Kitty is clearly an experienced woman. We know that because shes so familiar with the ways of the police. Its one of the ways in which shes able to take charge of the scene and of chris cross, the robinson character, and draw him across the line of respectability into this shadowy nether world. In general, you have three, at most four, points of view working in a film. You have an omniscient point of view, which is the kind of authorial point of view. It can be very neutral or it can be very editorial. At the beginning of the scene, were seeing from the outside. Were seeing this little man with an umbrella kind of wandering around in the rain, a little bit lost. Then there is the point of view of the characters. And the first point of view of a character we get into is chris crosss point of view looking at this woman being beaten by a man. But then we go back, and this is a little more editorial. Ill go call the policeman. No, wait wait this is the author, whos in control of the movie, letting us see something that we know but edward g. Robinson doesnt know. We cut away with edward g. Robinson running off into the distance. Then when we cut back to her, we see her looking offscreen left. Edward g. Robinson and the cop, of course, dont see which way the guy went cause she kind of recovers and brushes off and picks something up. They come back. She says, oh, he ran off. Screen right. So from this point on, well have suspicions about kitty that chris cross is not going to have. The femme fatale, then, is a seductress. Its a very beautiful woman whose beauty bedazzles the male hero and who uses her beauty and the bedazzling of the male to achieve her usually evil ends. Listen, baby. You got him right where you want him. Hes on the hook and cant get off. He can walk out, cant he . Hes got a wife, hasnt he . Just drop a hint that his wife might find out about this apartment and hell shell out fast. Thats blackmail. Its only blackmail, baby, when youre dumb enough to get caught. Whats very interesting about kitty as a femme fatale is her subservience to johnny. Her femme fatale nature is brought out by johnny. knocking on door is that him . I told you i heard the doorbell. Get rid of him. Its very clear its specifically sexual prowess that keeps kitty tied to johnny. We dont actually see any sexuality, but its clearly indicated that they are involved in sex and leisure and pleasure. This scene seems to be heavily encoded. Theres a whole underlying sense of them belonging to a particular demimonde. Why . Dont you answer doorbells . Thought you were mad at me. Peace offering scotch. Thanks, honey. I didnt think you were out. Its only 10 past 12. Millie showing up with a bottle of scotch. Its just noon. Kitty rarely is able to rouse herself sufficiently to put on anything more than a robe over her slip, calling kitty a working girl. Youre doing all right for a working girl. Dont start that again. The suggestion is that kitty has elevated herself from the street to being a kept woman. Dont tell me hes under the sofa, too. No, bright eyes. We do have the only positive woman, really, in the sociological analysis now, and its millie. And millie is, indeed, an independent working girl. Shes smart. You can come out, johnny. Shes witty. All you have to do is call, funny face. Shes a very important contrast to kitty. You must have made a killing in wall street, mr. Prince. Could be. The last time i saw johnny, he was talking about going to hollywood. I might try it yet. Why, i read in a movie magazine about a fella who landed in hollywood stonebroke and cleaned up a million, no experience, either. All he had was looks, and he worked in a drugstore. If he worked, johnny, he didnt look like you. So shes wise to johnny. They kind of spar quite a bit. And theres this, uh, veiled dislike between them, but because theyre both hooked up with kitty, theyre not gonna come to blows. Kitty, meanwhile, cant engage on this level, at all, of wit. You two stop fighting. Im not fighting, baby. She just doesnt know my speed. Why, i hear of movie actors getting 5 10,000 a week. For what . For acting tough, for pushing girls in the face. What do they do i cant do . If youre so clever, why dont you do it . I might, funny face. I might. knocking on door shes putty to johnny, and then shes a femme fatale in relation to chris. So shes really a split. Chris ive brought over some of the my things, kitty. Ill bring some more tomorrow, the rest on saturday. Film noir is a world of duplicity. People lie to each other. Oh, you have company . Just millie and johnny. Joh. . You know, millies boyfriend. The denizens of this world just lie to him without a second thought. And johnny prince. Glad to know you, mr. Cross. Johnny is dangling chris on a string through kitty. So that that puts the viewer in the position of knowing that cross is really a dupe, which is a weak a very weak masculine kind of position. He accepts everything at face value, and yet hes still disturbed. How do you do . It seems to me ive seen you before somewhere. Could be. Could be, mr. Cross. Yes. I, uh, i just dont seem to remember. Maybe im mistaken. Could be. Edward g. Robinson is kind of lost in these taller peoples bodies. So when he enters, he doesnt take over the room. Hes almost like an intruder. Ill go with you, sweetheart. Oh, dont bother, johnny. I wouldnt think of lettin you go alone, darling. You might get run over by a street car. Each character has a rhythm of how they speak. Goodbye, mr. Cross. Its most markedly different between johnny and chris. Johnny speaks almost only in statements of fact im going to do this. Only if you get caught. Even when hes teasing, it has a point to it. You might get run over by a street car. Theres no hesitation in anything he says. Hes very at ease with himself. Whereas chris, everything is hesitant. Even his sentences always kind of start and stop. Whats the matter, chris . I i dont think i like that young man shes in love with. Oh, johnnys all right. Oh, i know he is or he wouldnt be your friend. But theres something about him that shes crazy about him. Uh, would you, uh would you like to see my pictures . Not yet. Come sit down, chris. You happy . What he is is a guy who is an eternal victim, and hes an easy mark. Adelle is pretty much of a monster. Shes kind of an escapee from a w. C. Fields movie. Shes the kind of wife who goes humph a lot and does go out of her way to be mean just to him. Let me back up. We first see her in the street, but its a very different ichnography of the street than the street kitty was in. Kitty was in a midnight street with everything dark and shadowy. Adelle is on the street, but shes shopping and its broad daylight, so its a very permissible street for a woman to be out in when she sees the pictures. And she knows that its supposed to be chriss, but its got kitty marsh, and so she comes home to yell that hes just copied and that hes no good. The scene unfolds like a nightmare. Hes, in effect, cheating on his wife. She shows up. Hello, adelle. I dropped over to the butcher shop like you told me to. I got a nice piece of liver. Even the idea that his idea of dinner would be a nice piece of liver is something that tells you something. You can almost smell the dankness of this apartment. Hes in a frilly apron. Hes in the kitchen doing the womans role. Hes making dinner. He also his language says, ive just stopped by the butcher shop as you told me to, adelle. In the background we see this big oval picture of the ex, missing, dead possibly dead cop husband. Its very high up on the wall, so its very, very dominant, not just that hell never live up to this guy, but that its the law. Its almost always in between them in the background. How long have you known kathryn marsh . Answer me hoberman its a very ironic moment. I dont know what youre talking about. Hes exposed in this scene for his double life, and yet hes not exposed. How long have you known her . Now, dont get excited, dear. Let me help you off with your coat. Youre the one thats excited. And get away with that knife do you want to cut my throat . She articulates his unconscious desire do you want to cut my throat . And, of course, he does, although he hasnt fully realized it yet. How long have you known her . So were starting to think oh, my god, is he going to kill his wife . And then his wife keeps pushing him and pushing him and saying nasty things to him while hes got a big butcher knife in his hand. And you just think thats it. Hes already stolen from her. He hates her guts. Shes gonna push too far and hes gonna knife her. So this has been used to plant in our mind that hes got murder in his heart. I dont know what youre talking about. Dont lie to me you copy her work. Pretending you painted those pictures out of your own head. I bet youre at delerose every day making notes. Where . Delerose art gallery on 57th street. Theyve got a window full of paintings by kathryn marsh. Youre talking crazy. She gets 500 for for a single picture. Shes a genius. No wonder i used to think sometimes there was something in your work. If you ever do any more painting around here, i swear ill write that woman a letter telling her youre stealing her ideas. Weve already seen chris in the domestic sphere with his shrewish wife, completely emasculated and clearly impotent. Youre a thief weve seen him struggling to become a man and at each point the women have blocked him. You have a situation where chris is being accused of a crime that he didnt commit. He did not plagiarize the paintings its his work just as by the end of the movie, he will have eluded punishment, or at least punishment by the state, for a crime that he did commit. laughing thats love, honey. glass breaking whispering here he is now. Goodbye, hon. Hello, johnny. Come on, johnny. I heard you. She is lounging like a chocolatecovered cherry in a candy box there, with all that light and all those fluffy pillows and the mirror and everything like that. And in comes this guy who looks like death on a soda cracker. Usually hes quite tentative. This time he seems dangerous. When he begins speaking to her, he again wants to make excuses. Hes placating and so on, but something seems to have snapped in the character, so that he is, in a way, taking possession of that space. You lied to me, kitty. It was him, wasnt it . Can i help it if im in love . No. Its just an infatuation. You couldnt love a man like that, kitty. Hes evil. He wouldnt let you alone. Isnt that right . I wanted to kill him, but thats wrong. Theres these mirrors on the side of the bed, which are always very useful in staging you know, in a kind of literal way. She is literally twofaced. Whyd you come here . To ask you to marry me. What about your wife . I havent any wife. Thats finished. Her husband turned up. Im free. laughing or crying dont cry, kitty. I know how you feel, but thats all over now. We all make mistakes. I dont care whats happened. I i can marry you now. I want you to be my wife. Well go away together, way far off, so you can forget this other man. Dont cry, kitty, please. To get that mirror shot, she actually had to cheat her face toward the mirror. So shes probably looking at him like this, so that we get a good, almost full frontal shot of her in the mirror. And weve got a threequarters of edward g. Robinson on the other side of the screen, and you didnt have to move the camera or cut into whats a kind of a twoshot, dramatic scene. Im not crying, you fool. Im laughing kitty. Oh, you idiot how can a man be so dumb . Kitty . laughing continues i wanted to laugh in your face ever since i first met you even though shes really chewing the scenery, she doesnt stand up and tower over him. So she doesnt really take over this time. We can worry about her future in that shes still down there. Youre old and ugly, and im sick of you kitty, for heavens sake. You kill johnny . Id like to see you try why, hed break every bone in your body hes a man you want to marry me . You . Get outta here we dont cut to him first moving toward her, and then cut back to her saying, what are you doing . We see her lose steam in the middle of her tirade. Get out get away from me chris get away from me chris chris murder is very often at the center of film noir. An otherwise innocent or respectable man becomes a murderer. Lang turns this into a blatant sex crime with him stabbing her on the bed originally seven times. Its this kind of cathartic, um. Horrible moment where their relationship is at last consummated. Cross is trying to find masculinity in this relationship with kitty. You can forget this other man. Dont cry, kitty. Please dont cry. Im not crying, you fool. Im laughing its almost unbearable for the woman he loves to turn on him and berate him for being old and ugly. You kill johnny . Id like to see you try why, hed break every bone in your body its the second time. Homers been the real man. Johnnys the real man. Hes nothing. Get away from me chris chris get away from me he goes towards her as he had gone towards adelle, but, of course, hadnt completed the action with the knife. Its his third phallic weapon, we could say, the umbrella being the first, the knife the second. He simply releases his rage and he murders her. Get away from me chris chris this is very much a male perspective. I mean, im honoring its incredible ability to produce this insight about masculinity. But in order to do that, lang has to sacrifice the female roles. Billy wilder could have made this movie, and it would have ended up a comedy. He would have skipped the stabbing and probably chris and kitty would have ended up being married at the end, and in the same exact relationship. And johnny would have continued to have his affair with her, and chris would have thought he was the luckiest guy in the world. Theres the odd footnote of Walter Wanger going to prison some years after this movie for shooting the agent of his wife, joan bennett. So its hard now to distinguish, you know, one sense of joan bennett from her appearance as a femme fatale. narrator you must see scarlet street. dramatic music playing captioned by realtime captioning van nuys, california. 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