Scarlet Street

Fritz Lang - 1945
I watched this on a remarkably poor print. It gives an inky, dirty tone. Edward G. Robinson is pathetic. This is not just the beleagured artist at the whims of capitalism (though it is that); Robinson is an old fuddy duddy, reckoning photography is mud. Yet he paints those seethingly repressed pictures (snakes and woman? Paging Dr Freud...).
He is a man desperate, but who can't accept it. She is a philistine. Their isn't a lot of let-up. He, for all his gentility, is in a hateful relationship, has every intention of stealing cash, and is, as she says, 'a caveman'. There's no getting away from it; he hires her as a prostitute. Lang gives us an overhead view on these events.
The ending is a little tiresome, asking for the censor-approved absolution, but Lang surely is more interested in showing how Robinson is not punished at all.
Awash with great little details, the constant rain (as in 'Ministry Of Fear'), some exceptionally beautiful shots of the streets, of barrooms.