Scarlet Street

A middle-aged cashier who has sat at the same desk for years likes to paint and is unhappily married. One night he rescues a woman in the street, and she takes him for a famous painter. He does not correct her. From there the film keeps reversing who is using whom; she and her lover strip him, and he goes further to sustain his lie. The narrative gives nobody a way out. Fritz Lang directed, with Edward G. Robinson and Joan Bennett. It is a remake of a French film and was banned in several cities on release. A real warning: despite the censorship rules of its period the film tells of a crime that goes unpunished, and its ending is hopeless. For anyone arriving with expectations of classical Hollywood it is unexpectedly dark.