Tag: Joan Bennett
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Pure noir exposes crime films’ darkest, most pessimistic core
Noir comes in a number of hybrid varieties, including gangster films, heists, police procedurals and private detective stories. But some noirs don’t use standard crime film types as their foundation. Pure noirs, told from the point of view of characters who are neither career criminals nor law enforcers, plainly reveal the genre’s darkest tenets: that…
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‘Scarlet Street’ at 80: Flirtations with a femme fatale can often lead to trouble — and sometimes murder
At her service. Joan Bennett, Edward G. Robinson, ‘Scarlet Street’ (1945). Contains spoilers When “Scarlet Street” premiered 80 years ago this month it was not uniformly praised by critics, and several cities outright banned it due to its dark content. The film hinted at such taboo topics as sex out of wedlock and prostitution, and…