Slightly Scarlet (1956 film)

Slightly Scarlet
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Allan Dwan
Screenplay by	Robert Blees
Based on	Love's Lovely Counterfeit by James M. Cain
Produced by	Benedict Bogeaus
Starring	John Payne Rhonda Fleming Arlene Dahl
Cinematography	John Alton
Edited by	James Leicester
Music by	Louis Forbes
Color process	Technicolor
Production company	Benedict Bogeaus Productions
Distributed by	RKO Radio Pictures
Release date	February 8, 1956 (1956-02-08)
Running time	99 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English

Slightly Scarlet is a 1956 American crime film, with some film noirish elements, based on James M. Cain's novel Love's Lovely Counterfeit. It was directed by Allan Dwan, and its widescreen cinematography was by John Alton.

The picture tells the story of Ben Grace (John Payne), a crooked cop working for a powerful metropolitan crime boss—Solly Caspar (Ted de Corsia), who uses entrapment, extortion, and blackmail to push Caspar aside and elect a “reform” mayor he exploits. Two sisters Rhonda Fleming, a self-interested “good girl” employed as a romantic interest, and Arlene Dahl, a “bad girl” ex-con providing lots of plot complications, add interest to a vibrant technicolor production.

Plot

The ruthless Solly Caspar is fighting to retain control of Bay City's criminal activities when Frank Jansen (Kent Taylor), an honest man and mayoral hopeful, begins a strong anti-crime campaign. Caspar tasks his right-hand man, crooked cop Ben Grace, to dig up some dirt on the candidate and ruin his chances of election.

Ben follows the candidate's scarlet-tressed secretary and girlfriend, June Lyons (Rhonda Fleming), to a women’s prison where she's picking up her equally redheaded and sex-starved kleptomaniac sister Dorothy (Arlene Dahl). Ben immediately becomes attracted to June.

Ben gives June incriminating evidence about Caspar, who slapped him around for not providing any dirt on June's boss. A tape Ben made proves Caspar killed a crusading newspaperman supporting Jansen, and Caspar is forced to leave the city. Ben then seduces June, steals her from Jansen, and takes over Caspar’s rackets, unbeknownst to her or the new mayor.

Meanwhile, her nymphomaniac sister is attracted to Ben. She makes a play for him at a beach house claimed by Ben along with the rest the spoils of Caspar’s empire. She determinedly tries to seduce a disinterested Ben, and becomes huffy when rejected, and wounding him, perhaps by accident, with a spear gun.

To get even for Ben’s rejections, she later tells June they had sex. June confronts Ben about this; he responds that it is she he really wants, but given the suspensions surrounding the seeming tryst, June wonders if it's really both of them he's after.

Dorothy is subsequently arrested for stealing a necklace, and June pleas with Ben to intervene on her behalf. He leans on his ex-boss, a once-stalled lieutenant whom Ben had successfully promised to elevate to chief of police, to release Dorothy and purge her record.

Jansen, who still loves June, insists that her sister must go back to jail.

Caspar returns for revenge and finds a drunken and slutty Dorothy alone in the beach house. An evident alcoholic and nymphomaniac both, she throws herself at Caspar, and later the wads of money he scatters the floor with. Caspar invites her to flee back to Mexico with him. June shows up to rescue her, and Caspar decides to execute the intruder. Instead, June shoots him with the spear gun, then several times with his own gun.

Ben arrives and wants June to go away with him and the money. She refuses. Caspar, not yet dead, wounds Ben, then gathers his men, and comes back to finish the job. Ben gives himself up on condition June and Dorothy won't be hurt, and mocks Caspar, who shoots him several times—not realizing Ben has called his friend Dietz, the chief of police, and he is just arriving on the scene with a full squad. The police enter the house and arrest Caspar and his men, breaking the gang once and for all. A badly wounded Ben is taken to the hospital, his fate uncertain, and June goes with him, leaving Dorothy with Jansen.

Cast

• John Payne as Ben Grace
• Rhonda Fleming as June Lyons
• Arlene Dahl as Dorothy Lyons
• Kent Taylor as Frank Jansen
• Ted de Corsia as Solly Caspar
• Lance Fuller as Gauss
• Buddy Baer as Lenhardt
• Ellen Corby as June Lyons' Maid (uncredited)
• Frank Gerstle as Detective Lt. Dave Dietz (uncredited)
• Myron Healey as Wilson - Caspar Thug (uncredited)

Background

The film was made when prolific director Allan Dwan was seventy years old. Dwan directed 386 films in his long career and his first work was the silent short Strategy, produced in 1911.

Noir cinematography

According to critic Blake Lucas the film was made with a modest budget, and yet the film is richly colored and well decorated and is one of the best of the Dwan-Alton pictures. Lucas wrote, "Alton's imagination in lighting is as distinctive in color as it is in black and white." Alton uses extensive shadows and large black areas, and he accentuates an array of pinks, greens, and especially the color orange. The end result is a startling effect in many of the scenes, all in Technicolor.

Critical reception

Bosley Crowther, film critic for The New York Times, was caustic about the casting and the adaptation of Cain's novel, and wrote: "Rhonda Fleming and a laughably kittenish Arlene Dahl, are a couple of on-the-make sisters, and the fellow, played by John Payne, is an on-the-make big-time gangster. In the end all their faces are red. So, we say, should be the faces of the people responsible for this film, which is said to have been taken from a novel (unrecognizable) of James M. Cain. For it is an exhausting lot of twaddle about crime and city politics, an honest mayor, his secretary-mistress, her kleptomaniacal sister and the fellow who wants to get control of the gang.

Critic and filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard was kinder to the film, placing it fifth in his list of the best films of 1956 in Cahiers du Cinema.

See also

• List of American films of 1956

External links

• Slightly Scarlet at IMDb
• ‹The template AllMovie title is being considered for deletion.› Slightly Scarlet at AllMovie
• Slightly Scarlet at the TCM Movie Database
• Slightly Scarlet film trailer on YouTube