Scarlet Street (1945).

Scarlet Street (1945). Film noir. Director: Fritz Lang. Based on a French novel La Chienne by Georges de La Fouchardière. Cast: Edward G. Robinson, Joan Bennett, and Dan Duryea, they also performed together in, The Woman in the Window(1944), also directed by Fritz Lang.

Christopher Cross, a banker and hopeful painter, is at a dinner honoring him for twenty-five years of service. On his way home, he helps Kitty, who is being attacked by a strange man. Soon, he becomes attracted to her.

Because of Christopher's knowledge of art, Kitty believes him a wealthy painter. It turns out that the attacker was Johnny, Kitty's pimp who she was arguing over money. Johnny talks Kitty, into going after Cross and his money. Kitty convinces Cross, to rent an apartment for her, with the thought that he can also use it as his art studio. Cross, begins to steal money from the bank in order to keep her in the expensive apartment.

Johnny, is out trying to sell some of Cross's paintings and attracts the interest of a famous art critic. Kitty, pretends she painted them, charming the critic, who decides to represent her. When Cross's wife, sees her husband's paintings in a art gallery as the work of Katherine March, she accuses them of copying March's work. Cross, is happy his paintings are being shown, even though Kitty's signature is on them. Cross's shrew of a wife's first husband, who they thought had drowned, suddenly reappears from no where. Will Cross be free to marry Kitty, or will he find out who she really is?

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Scarlet Street, is definitely not a predictable film. The powerful psychological mind games is one of the best I have seen on film. I believe this film is a "gotta see", and I don't think you will be disappointed.

Margaret Lindsay (September 19, 1910 - May 9, 1981). She was best known for her supporting work in films of the 1930s and 1940s such as: Jezebel (1938) and Scarlet Street (1945) and her leading roles in lower-budgeted B movie films: Ellery Queen series at Columbia in the early 1940s. Critics regard her portrayal of Nathaniel Hawthorne's Hepzibah Pyncheon, in the 1940 film, The House of the Seven Gables, as Lindsay's standout career role.