Can you imagine??? They are busy giving an AA or 2 to some of the dullest actors/actresses ever. Charlton Heston? George Chakiris (a nifty dancer,but...really!)? Ginger Rogers (Not at all dull, but she was a dancer! And great at it. A dramatic actress.? Yeah, sure.) Robinson, Myrna Loy, Edward Arnold. Joseph Cotten. Never a nomination. Can you imagine! That said - and I'll never get that off my chest - this film had Joan Bennett - the trampiest of them all - and Dan Duryea - the most vicious of them all - and Ed. G. doing their best ever. Not familiar with the original French film but this was so seedy in their characterizations, and left me feeling so sad for the poor sap, the the other film of it can't have been much better. (Margaret Lindsay, by the way, as Bennett's friend - never was as good as she was in this cameo. Hollywood never gave her the break she ought to have had.)
Fritz Lang worked well these sorts of stories and could draw out of his performers places they mostly never traveled to. (Although these players excelled in general.) Great city shots and photography in general. The playing over and over of the broken record at the end was a touch of genius. "Paint me," Bennett says to Robinson as she offers her foot to be nail-polished. Between this, and Lang's "Woman in the Window," an hour and a half each, are little bits of heaven.
Review of Scarlet Street
