“Christopher Cross” sounds almost absurdly wholesome and upright—a perfect name for a man whose desire, vanity, and self-deception gradually destroy him. Lang loved this kind of bitter irony, where ordinary people become trapped by forces they barely understand.
#TCMParty #ScarletStreet ^JW
…yet Lang still punishes him. Instead of prison, Chris receives psychological torment, guilt, madness, and homelessness.
#TCMParty #ScarletStreet ^JW (2/2)
#SummerOfDarkness
Who is the most guilty person in #ScarletStreet: Chris, Kitty, Johnny, or the art world?
#TCMParty #ScarletStreet ^JW
#SummerOfDarkness
Breaking a major Hollywood moral rule, a murderer effectively escapes legal punishment. That was shocking in an era when the Production Code usually demanded explicit justice.
#TCMParty #ScarletStreet ^JW (1/2)
#SummerOfDarkness
Crueler than most noir, the wrong man is executed while the real killer wanders free. Few studio films of the period are this merciless.
#TCMParty #ScarletStreet ^JW
#SummerOfDarkness
Chris is forever a damaged man. Kitty and Johnny’s deaths. That damn painting. The guilt.
#TCMparty #ScarletStreet #SummerofDarkness
Modern critics often cite the film as one of the purest expressions of noir fatalism.
#TCMParty #ScarletStreet ^JW
#SummerOfDarkness
