Edward G Robinson. What an actor - a squat, ugly bullfrog of a man, whose face could scowl with malevolence or, occasionally, crinkle with kindliness.
In the space of three years he appeared in three very different roles: stealing the show in Double Indemnity as the insurance investigator, rattling off dialogue like the machine gun in his gangster years; whispering obscenities into the ear of Lauren Bacall as the loathsome Rocco in Key Largo; and, in contrast, the mild, pathetic and tragic Chris Cross in Scarlet Street, which I have just watched for the third time.
Story
SPOILER ALERT
In Scarlet Street (directed by Fritz Lang) Robinson portrays a middle-aged bank clerk, married for convenience to a shrewish widow and repenting that error of judgment while washing the dishes clad in a rather fetching pinnie. When not out shopping for nice pieces of liver and slicing it wistfully with a spotlit carving knife, he retires to the bathroom to indulge his hobby of painting.
On the night he is wined and dined by the bank, humbly appreciative of the gold watch presented in honour of his long service, he find himself going to the aid of a woman (Joan Bennett) being beaten in the street and takes her for coffee. Coffee becomes a drink, and somehow she gets the idea that he is a successful artist. We worldly viewers realise she is a hooker, but Edward G gets the idea that she is a struggling actress. So far, so normal.
But Eddie is smitten and soon he is setting her up in an apartment, using money stolen from his wife, unaware of the relationship between Joan and Dan Duryea, who whines and sneers in his usual manner. An extra benefit of the apartment is that he can paint there.
Joan and Dan try to sell some of Eddie’s work, and a critic of modernist views decides it is touched with genius, and painted in a strangely masculine way for a woman artist. For somehow he too is under a misapprehension.
The crisis is reached when the bank discovers his embezzlement and his wife’s husband returns from the dead. The unemployed Eddie is now free to fulfil his dream of marrying Joan, but she turns him down in a somewhat cruel manner and he kills her. As you do. It’s now the police’s turn to get the wrong end of the stick and Dan Duryea is executed for the crime.
The film ends with a guilt-stricken Edward G, down–and-out and compulsively confessing his crime to incredulous mockery. The film ends as he passes an art gallery where his portrait of Joan Bennett is displayed, now a valuable self-portrait by a brilliant artist savagely cut off before her promise was fulfilled.
Comment
If my review of this film’s plot seemed a little jaundiced, it’s because I just don't understand why so many others consider it a masterpiece of ‘noir’, when I find it slow, stagey and unbelievable.
When I first saw it I was surprised to find it was made in 1945 and not 10 years earlier. It could be my DVD transcription that accounts for the grainy look of the film, but not the static camera, cardboard sets and contrived story-line. Duryea is good at what he does; Bennett is good at looking the way she does; Robinson, brilliant as he is, cannot overcome the pitiful stupidity of his character. The fact that a film is based on a good idea does not make it a good film.
However, the last five minutes are undeniably powerful and some of the most despairing I've ever seen in a Hollywood movie.
Now, away from the screen, Edward G was a very civilised man, who spent his earnings on building up one of Hollywood’s finest art collections. The sort of man who would like cricket, I like to think. Unlike the tribal savages at the Cup Final yesterday, booing some of the great names of the game because they’d played for the wrong team. Had he been privileged to experience them, Eddie would have appreciated a flowing cover drive or a brilliant slip catch, no matter who performed the feat.
Which brings me on to the fourth day at Lord’s, when England made hard work of dismissing West Indies and had to indulge in a run chase to set up a winning position. Which they did, it has to be said, with Cook posting a place-retaining 60-odd, Shah effectively losing his place and Pieterson knocking off his hundred and getting out, as per usual.
As I’d expected, the Windies proved they’re no mugs, with some brilliant batting against indifferent bowling, Monty apart. Shot of the day has to be when Daren Powell strolled down the pitch to an appalling Harmison and casually swotted him to the boundary. ‘I’ve never seen that before,’ said one commentator. ‘What do you call a shot like that?’ ‘Contemptuous’ came the reply.
But England are 400 ahead and therefore, normally, should win. But normally, we have more than one bowler. And it looks like rain.
In the space of three years he appeared in three very different roles: stealing the show in Double Indemnity as the insurance investigator, rattling off dialogue like the machine gun in his gangster years; whispering obscenities into the ear of Lauren Bacall as the loathsome Rocco in Key Largo; and, in contrast, the mild, pathetic and tragic Chris Cross in Scarlet Street, which I have just watched for the third time.
Story
SPOILER ALERT
In Scarlet Street (directed by Fritz Lang) Robinson portrays a middle-aged bank clerk, married for convenience to a shrewish widow and repenting that error of judgment while washing the dishes clad in a rather fetching pinnie. When not out shopping for nice pieces of liver and slicing it wistfully with a spotlit carving knife, he retires to the bathroom to indulge his hobby of painting.
On the night he is wined and dined by the bank, humbly appreciative of the gold watch presented in honour of his long service, he find himself going to the aid of a woman (Joan Bennett) being beaten in the street and takes her for coffee. Coffee becomes a drink, and somehow she gets the idea that he is a successful artist. We worldly viewers realise she is a hooker, but Edward G gets the idea that she is a struggling actress. So far, so normal.
But Eddie is smitten and soon he is setting her up in an apartment, using money stolen from his wife, unaware of the relationship between Joan and Dan Duryea, who whines and sneers in his usual manner. An extra benefit of the apartment is that he can paint there.
Joan and Dan try to sell some of Eddie’s work, and a critic of modernist views decides it is touched with genius, and painted in a strangely masculine way for a woman artist. For somehow he too is under a misapprehension.
The crisis is reached when the bank discovers his embezzlement and his wife’s husband returns from the dead. The unemployed Eddie is now free to fulfil his dream of marrying Joan, but she turns him down in a somewhat cruel manner and he kills her. As you do. It’s now the police’s turn to get the wrong end of the stick and Dan Duryea is executed for the crime.
The film ends with a guilt-stricken Edward G, down–and-out and compulsively confessing his crime to incredulous mockery. The film ends as he passes an art gallery where his portrait of Joan Bennett is displayed, now a valuable self-portrait by a brilliant artist savagely cut off before her promise was fulfilled.
Comment
If my review of this film’s plot seemed a little jaundiced, it’s because I just don't understand why so many others consider it a masterpiece of ‘noir’, when I find it slow, stagey and unbelievable.
When I first saw it I was surprised to find it was made in 1945 and not 10 years earlier. It could be my DVD transcription that accounts for the grainy look of the film, but not the static camera, cardboard sets and contrived story-line. Duryea is good at what he does; Bennett is good at looking the way she does; Robinson, brilliant as he is, cannot overcome the pitiful stupidity of his character. The fact that a film is based on a good idea does not make it a good film.
However, the last five minutes are undeniably powerful and some of the most despairing I've ever seen in a Hollywood movie.
Now, away from the screen, Edward G was a very civilised man, who spent his earnings on building up one of Hollywood’s finest art collections. The sort of man who would like cricket, I like to think. Unlike the tribal savages at the Cup Final yesterday, booing some of the great names of the game because they’d played for the wrong team. Had he been privileged to experience them, Eddie would have appreciated a flowing cover drive or a brilliant slip catch, no matter who performed the feat.
Which brings me on to the fourth day at Lord’s, when England made hard work of dismissing West Indies and had to indulge in a run chase to set up a winning position. Which they did, it has to be said, with Cook posting a place-retaining 60-odd, Shah effectively losing his place and Pieterson knocking off his hundred and getting out, as per usual.
As I’d expected, the Windies proved they’re no mugs, with some brilliant batting against indifferent bowling, Monty apart. Shot of the day has to be when Daren Powell strolled down the pitch to an appalling Harmison and casually swotted him to the boundary. ‘I’ve never seen that before,’ said one commentator. ‘What do you call a shot like that?’ ‘Contemptuous’ came the reply.
But England are 400 ahead and therefore, normally, should win. But normally, we have more than one bowler. And it looks like rain.
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