Slightly Scarlet (1956)

User Rating:

6.7/10   

Director:

Allan Dwan

Writers:

James M. Cain (novel)
Robert Blees (screenplay)

Release Date:

29 February 1956 (USA)

Genre:

Crime | Film-Noir | Drama

Tagline:

James M. Cain's scorchingly frank expose of the operators behind big-city graft

Plot:

Kleptomaniac Dorothy Lyons is paroled from prison in custody of her sister June, secretary to "reform" political candidate Frank Jansen...

Plot Keywords:

Beautiful Woman | Based On Novel

Cast

John Payne	...	Ben Grace
Rhonda Fleming	...	June Lyons, Jansen's Secretary / Girlfriend
Arlene Dahl	...	Dorothy Lyons
Kent Taylor	...	Frank Jansen, Mayoral Candidate / Mayor of Bay City
Ted de Corsia	...	Solly Caspar (syndicate boss)
Lance Fuller	...	Gauss
Buddy Baer	...	Lenhardt, Caspar Goon

Runtime:

99 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.00 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Sound Recording)

Certification:

Canada:PG (Ontario) | Finland:K-16 | Sweden:15

Company:

Benedict Bogeaus Production

A hothouse flower from James M. Cain

James M. Cain's first Hollywood fusillade went off in the mid-1940s, with Double Indemnity, Mildred Pierce and The Postman Always Rings Twice, all adapted from his books, helping to set the tone and the parameters for the noir cycle just getting up steam. In the mid-50s, he had a second wind, with Serenade and, from Love's Lovely Counterfeit, Allen Dwan's Slightly Scarlet. While not one of Cain's better works or one of the better movies made from them, it has its ample fascinations. Legendary noir director of photography John Alton works in color here, and startlingly enlivens his customary dark trapezoids with bursts of lime green, flame orange and orchid. (The rare films noirs done in color seem even more decadent: see Leave Her to Heaven and Desert Fury). John Payne reprises his solid, sullen self as a fence-straddling minor mobster who sees his chance to take control of the machine in a mid-sized midwestern city. His twin carrot-topped temptations are sisters Rhonda Fleming, as the mayor's gal Friday, and Arlene Dahl, who has just been released from prison -- she's a loony, man-devouring klepto (and Dahl does her proud. There's even a scene when Fleming finds the message "Goodbye Sister" scrawled in lipstick on her bedroom mirror). Too bad there was a lot of (unnecessary) rewriting of Cain's story; the ending is sourly ambiguous. But this is late noir in garish overdrive, and movies aren't much more fun than that.