{"id":19334,"date":"2019-06-16T13:48:45","date_gmt":"2019-06-16T17:48:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=19334"},"modified":"2019-06-16T13:50:06","modified_gmt":"2019-06-16T17:50:06","slug":"dvd-slightly-scarlet-1956","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=19334","title":{"rendered":"DVD: Slightly Scarlet (1956)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Film<\/strong>: Excellent<\/p>\n

Transfer<\/strong>: \u00a0Very Good<\/p>\n

Extras<\/strong>: Good<\/p>\n

Label:\u00a0<\/strong> VCI<\/a><\/p>\n

Region:<\/strong>\u00a01 (NTSC)<\/p>\n

Released:<\/strong>\u00a0 February 26, 2002<\/p>\n

Genre:<\/strong>\u00a0 Film Noir \/ Melo-Noir \/ Suspense \/ Crime<\/p>\n

Synopsis:<\/strong>\u00a0The lives of a kleptomaniac, her saintly sister, a mob boss and his hungry rival collide in this part noir, melodrama, and gangster thriller.<\/p>\n

Special Features:<\/strong>\u00a0 Audio Commentary by mystery author Max Allan Collins \/ Theatrical Trailer.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Review:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Director Allan Dwan may have felt the censors imposed too many restrictions to adapt James M. Cain\u2019s novel Love\u2019s Lovely Counterfeit<\/strong> (1942) for the big screen, but novelist and DVD commentator Max Allen Collins (Road to Perdition<\/strong>) is 100% right in pegging Slightly Scarlet<\/strong> as one of the most underrated film noirs of the fifties, if not a maligned and marginalized work Cain biographers brand as \u2018the worst film based on a weak Cain novel.\u2019<\/p>\n

Adapted with slick precision by Robert Blees (The Glass Web<\/strong>, Magnificent Obsession<\/strong>, The Black Scorpion<\/strong>), Scarlet<\/strong> is a strange amalgam that shouldn\u2019t work so well, being part noir, melodrama, and crime film, and yet everything hums to an almost perfect rhythm in a constantly swirling tale of June Lyons (Rhonda Fleming) picking up her jailbird Dorothy (Arlene Dahl) upon release, and discovering her little sister is an unrepentant kleptomaniac with an utterly unbridled sex drive for bad boys.<\/p>\n

June\u2019s efforts to help Dorothy transition back into society as a good girl are quickly shot down when the latter skips an appointment with a shrink and plays hooky with Ben Grace (John Payne), a versatile but underappreciated thinker in Solly Caspar\u2019s mob. In his superb and full-running commentary, author Collins explains Blees\u2019 smartest move was to bring in Dorothy at the onset instead of the novel\u2019s midpoint, thereby seeding Dorothy’s jealousy of her sister’s attraction to Ben, and the widening rift between co-dependent sisters.<\/p>\n

Even after trimming the novel’s material to appease stuffy censors, there\u2019s still a lot<\/em> of inflammatory elements which go much farther than Dwan\u2019s subsequent noir, the similarly underrated The River\u2019s Edge<\/strong> (1958). The standout costumes flatter the actresses’ considerably stunning figures, and Dorothy\u2019s nymphomania and hunger for Ben remain potent due to some sly direction: when Ben visits the Lyons household, Dorothy is seen stroking a pillow in close-ups, but in a wide shot where she’s out of focus on the patio, it\u2019s obvious Dorothy is stroking her nether regions while Ben and June chatter in the living room.<\/p>\n

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The American P.R. campaign, with gorgeous colours, overlaping geo-shapes, and an obvious emphasis on skin.<\/p><\/div>\n

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RKO’s promo book emphasizing the actresses in costumes they do wear in the film – a rare moment of accuracy amid the standard P.R. hype and outright lies.<\/p><\/div>\n

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Alternate key art in the long-form poster, with Superscope always present.<\/p><\/div>\n

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And the German poster featuring a moment that doesn’t exist, and two oddly content heroines above the title ‘Street of the Broken’ or ‘Morally Busted!’<\/p><\/div>\n

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Dahl seemed to recognize Dorothy had to be a constant foil, distracting and annoying everyone at hand; it\u2019s a fine physical performance of looks, walks, and leg action which entice or ensnare her targets, and the character’s bold sense of humour signals simmering desires and selfish actions. Dorothy isn\u2019t clueless to her \u2018sickness\u2019 \u2013 in a great moment of sibling hatred, she tells June how much she liked stealing and upsetting her at a young age, and like a spoiled brat, feigns fear and outrage when the police initially drag Dorothy to jail for stealing a pearl necklace. Dorothy’s constantly performing to maintain her worst habits and behaviour, and June becomes part of the acts when she initially lies to the store detective to keep Dorothy safe.<\/p>\n

Ben is just as fascinating, working people for his own benefit and resorting to violence only when necessary, versus Solly\u2019s cruel approach to confronting his target, telling him how he\u2019s going to mangle him, and then tossing the body out of a window like dirty laundry. Solly has plenty of willing henchmen, but he likes the hands-on, personal approach which Ben eschews in favour of Iago-styled maneuvering..<\/p>\n

Ted de Corsia played a gang leader in Columbia\u2019s 3D thriller Man in the Dark<\/strong><\/a> (1953) and (incredibly) walked away with dignity from the John Wayne debacle The Conqueror<\/strong><\/a> (1956) after playing lead Mongol chieftan Kumlek. Although his filmography is packed with many small roles in feature films & episodic TV, Scarlet<\/strong> is one of his best; we feel bereft when Solly disappears from the screen for much of the midsection and are delighted when he returns for the memorable finale that involves money, sex, and a harpoon gun.<\/p>\n

Whether by design or pure luck, Scarlet<\/strong> also benefits from fantastic set designs by Van Nest Polglase (Citizen Kane<\/strong>, Suspicion<\/strong><\/a>, Gilda<\/strong>) that may be studio-bound, but their ludicrous, vast square footage celebrate the angular glory of mid-century design, as do the striking costumes which delineate the good-bad sister schism, and enabled provocative moments the censors couldn’t conceal.<\/p>\n

If the sexy & charismatic cast, meticulous sets, stunning convertible sedans, and twisting plot are the main attraction, then John Alton\u2019s cinematography is secondary. Alton uses low angle, high contrast lighting to create shadows and stark profiles, and in spite of being his first colour film, you could argue Alton lit the film like a moody B&W thriller, yet nonetheless expanding layers of light to capture colour spectrums within wafting cigarette smoke, animated shadowplay, and hard facial edges from flicking a TV screen.<\/p>\n

The weakest element is Louis Forbes\u2019 score which tries to address the classic noir elements while boosting the melodrama of the weird dual love triangles of Dorothy-Ben-June, and June-Ben-Frank Jansen (Kent Taylor), the latter June\u2019s long-suffering boyfriend & boss who refuses to give up on marriage. The score\u2019s main theme is an especially drippy romantic ode which owes more to a Douglas Sirk drama than noir, but it adds to the film\u2019s weird blend of emotions and characters with wildly differing morals in what could be pegged as melo-noir<\/em>, a subset of film noir.<\/p>\n

VCI\u2019s DVD features an old and flawed transfer from an adequate print; there aren\u2019t breaks and nicks and nasty wear, but DNR is significantly cranked up to smoothen film grain and soften coarse details. The colours are pastel but seem rather muted. There’s also an aberration when Ben visits June\u2019s house: the image flickers, much like a finger fumbling behind a projector\u2019s lens. The mono sound mix is a bit low but average, and the transfer was made from a 1.77:1 matted Superscope print.<\/p>\n

Extras include a trailer gallery and short text bios, but Collins\u2019 love for the film translates into a fine commentary in which he compares novel and film, offers bio material on Cain, cites prior film adaptations and common themes within the novels, and Collins’ own love for the moody, lurid genre. Scarlet<\/strong> is one of the late colour noirs of the fifties, and part of the last wave of productions released by RKO before it went bust under Howard Hughes\u2019 destructive ownership.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also one of 10 \u00a0films directed by Dwan for prolific indie producer Benedict Bogeaus, which include Cattle Queen of Montana<\/strong> (1954), Passion<\/strong> (1954), Silver Lode <\/strong>(1954), Escape to Burma<\/a><\/strong> (1955), Pearl of the South Pacific<\/strong> (1955), Tennessee\u2019s Partner <\/strong>(1955), Slightly Scarlet <\/strong>(1956), The River\u2019s Edge <\/strong><\/a>(1957), Typee<\/strong> (1958), and The Most Dangerous Man Alive<\/strong> (1961).<\/p>\n

Slightly Scarlet<\/strong> is a very<\/em> strange film \u2013 the Main Titles have oddly-placed freeze-frames, and a sprawling, red film title reprised in the End Credits \u2013 but this film shows a cast & crew in top form, including director Dwan, whose career spanned nearly 60 years and hundreds of short and feature films with varying budgets.<\/p>\n

Arlene Dahl would appear in the titillating British suspense-dramas Wicked as They Come<\/strong> (1956) and She Played with Fire<\/strong> (1957), and endear herself as the prim widower Carla Goteborg in the fantastical Jules Verne classic Journey to the Center of the Earth<\/strong><\/a> (1959). John Payne would star in Dwan\u2019s Silver Lode<\/strong> with Lizabeth Scott, and Tennesee\u2019s Partner<\/strong> with Rhonda Fleming.<\/p>\n

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\u00a9 2019 Mark R. Hasan<\/p>\n

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