Road of Temptation

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Movie
German title Road of Temptation
Original title Scarlet Street
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1945
length 103 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Fritz Lang
script Dudley Nichols
production Fritz Lang
music Hans J. Salter
camera Milton R. Krasner
cut Arthur Hilton
occupation

Street of Temptation (original title: Scarlet Street ) is an American film noir by the German-Austrian director Fritz Lang from 1945. The film was based on the French play La Chienne by Georges de La Fouchardière and André Mouézy-Éon . As early as 1931, Jean Renoir filmed the play under the title The Bitch .

action

New York 1934: Christopher "Chris" Cross has worked for decades as a thoroughly honest cashier for department store owner JJ Hogarth. On his 25th anniversary with the company, he receives a gold watch, his colleagues celebrate him, and his employer calls him a "friend". Chris is satisfied, although he would have preferred to be a painter in his youth. He only paints on his free Sundays in the bathroom of the apartment he lives with his strict wife Adele. He also cooks and has to do the dishes before he can read the newspaper.

On the rainy night of his anniversary celebration, Chris witnesses a young woman being beaten by a man in the street. He rushes to help and hits the man with his umbrella, who escapes undetected. After this incident, he becomes friends with an attractive woman named Kitty, who shares a small, untidy apartment in Greenwich Village with her friend Millie Ray. The honest man falls for Kitty, the only person who gives him a little affection, and eagerly breaks out of his usual life. In order to impress the unemployed actress Kitty, he makes her believe he is a successful painter. But Kitty leads a double life, she is with Johnny Prince, the man who threatened Kitty on the street. Although he beats her, takes her money, calls her "lazy legs" and orders her around, she is in love with him. The seedy Johnny now puts Kitty on the supposedly wealthy older man.

Chris finances Kitty a bigger apartment. When he meets Johnny there, she pretends to be Millie Ray's friend. Kitty expenses soon exceed Chris's income. He steals from his wife and embezzles money in the department store. Chris paints portraits of Kitty and gives her his pictures because his wife threatens to throw them in the trash. Johnny sells some pictures without Chris' knowledge. When the enthusiastic art critic Janeway wants to visit the painter, Johnny Kitty pretends to be the author. Johnny sees Christopher's pictures as a gold vein, and Kitty, reluctantly at first, plays along.

One day Adele Cross recognizes her husband's pictures in the Dellarowe gallery. They are on sale there for US $ 5,000 each and are signed Katherine March. Adele is certain that her "failure" husband faked his pictures and confronts him with this fact. At first Chris is disappointed with Kitty, but when she pretends to have sold the pictures under her name out of sheer necessity, his disappointment turns into joy. He considers himself a loser and assumes that he would never have been able to sell the pictures on his own. As soon as they are married, he even wants to take the name March.

Suddenly, Higgins appears, Adele's former husband, who was believed dead. Chris realizes that he was never legally married. The separation from his tyrannical wife is now within reach. He tells Higgins about his $ 2,000 life insurance policy, which Higgins is rightfully entitled to. Higgins believes that he wants to give him the money so that he can disappear and Chris can stay with his wife. However, Chris arranges everything so that Higgins meets his wife again. So he is free for Kitty and rushes to her. He has to realize that in truth Johnny is her friend. But he forgives her and still wants to marry her. Kitty laughs at him and tries to throw him out, whereupon Chris stabs her to death in desperation.

The next day, Chris loses his job as his embezzlement is discovered. However, Johnny Prince is suspected of murder. Chris is also questioned by the police, but successfully denies being the painter of the pictures. Because of Johnny's intrigues, everything speaks against Johnny. He is eventually executed for Kitty's murder, but Christopher's life is in tatters. Plagued by a bad conscience, he has a nervous breakdown and tries to hang himself. He is rescued and ends up being homeless on the street. He must go on living, haunted by the voices of the dead, who seem happily united in death.

background

Temptation Street premiered in the United States on December 28, 1945. In the FRG the film started on June 22, 1950 in a version shortened by twelve minutes. In 1982 it was shown in German cinemas for the first time in its entirety.

After Dangerous Encounters (1945), this was Fritz Lang's second film with Edward G. Robinson , Joan Bennett and Dan Duryea in the leading roles.

Reviews

"In Lang's production, the colportage material becomes a complex study of the petty bourgeoisie, the fears of urban people and the relationships between art and life, culture and social structure."

- Lexicon of international film

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Temptation Street in the Internet Movie Database .
  2. ↑ Alain Silver, Elizabeth Ward (Ed.): Film Noir. An Encyclopedic Reference to the American Style, Third Edition. Overlook / Duckworth, New York / Woodstock / London 1992, ISBN 978-0-87951-479-2 , pp. 247-248.
  3. ↑ a b Street of Temptation in the Lexicon of International FilmsTemplate: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used .