Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .

Expected more

Blistering performances.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

If one wanted to define pulp Allan Dwan's 'Slightly Scarlet' probably would serve as an excellent epitome what movies are concerned. While watching I sometimes couldn't help but wonder how this would look on a printed page and in doing so I couldn't picture it on anything else but on cheap paper as part of a paperback novel with one of those typical, endlessly intriguing, vibrant artworks on the cover. Every character is pretty much defined by one goal and beyond that they have no self-doubts or really any past (unless maybe a scene calls for it). Characters are very much driven by the plot rather than the other way around. Just to name one more blatant out of about a thousand examples, a young car mechanic asks the male lead if he can borrow his undoubtedly expensive car to impress a girl. The two don't seem to be close (although such a thing is always difficult to tell in this film) but without batting an eye he throws over the car keys which, to me, really didn't seem like something this character would do, but knowing what kind of film I was dealing with I waited to see what they were setting up with this scene plot-wise. Sure enough only seconds later the young man starts the engine and the car explodes, this little out-of-character moment saved the leading man's life and it established that the bad guys are after him.It's certainly melodramatic but not sentimental. The dialogues are alright and overall fun but given the potential they are relatively mundane, they don't have a real zing to them. The ongoings are pretty sleazy for a film made during the time of the Hays code, especially considering that the sleaze is mostly direct instead of being cleverly encoded in innuendo like many of the great films of that time did that dealt with sexual material. The performances are all pretty reasonable not to say almost restrained considering the material, only Dorothy actress Arlene Dahl fully embraces the opportunity and has visible fun with her licentious character without being overbearing.Visually it's unspectacular (especially compared to many of cinematographer John Alton's other works) but nevertheless pleasant-looking especially due to the extensive use of shadows even though it's in flaming Technicolor so the effect is very different compared to the one of movies with much more genre-typical high-contrasted B&W photography. The shadows are decidedly more expressive in the scenes with baddie Solly Caspar (I like that name) and his gang of thugs which use low angle lighting that casts big shadows while scenes with the women of course use high angles for the key light that make the actresses' hair glow to give them the conventional glamor look. The SuperScope (2.00:1 AR) is rather well used and the set design with its choice of color palette does its part in giving the film its flaming look, special mention goes to the fact that both leading ladies have red hair, not exactly a common sight.Editing is sloppy, Allan Dwan's film usually uses dissolves between sequences and especially in the first half it often seemed like the scene wasn't really played out yet with characters sometimes even being seen continuing to talk to each other (without sound) while the picture fades out. The film overall lacks much flow with sometimes long and sometimes oddly short scenes crammed in for exposition purposes, some of which I thought weren't even needed at all. 'Slightly Scarlet' certainly isn't emotionally engaging let alone clever but somehow I never ran risk of losing interest. I didn't find the content dramatically noir-ish, just extremely pulpy, and despite expressive lighting the color and the widescreen make this even visually an atypical inclusion in the film noir cannon (at least TSPDT consider it to be a film noir). I actually think that it must have been quite a crowd-pleaser with female audiences given that the female characters are neither your average submissive 50's Hollywood housewives nor typical femme fatales since they are fairly independent and philandering but never condemned for it by the film or male characters not to mention the movie's final outcome...

Noir is by definition loopy; dead protagonists narrating from inside a pool, or showing up in a police station to report their own murder, the genre usually tangles its narratives in the steaming bedsheets of an emotional hotbed. We just writhe with them. In the best noirs, we writhe with them in the effort to disentangle ourselves from the cosmic strings that pull us.This is seriously loopy stuff, albeit awkwardly incompetent compared to the searing visions of Sunset Blvd. There is a protagonist who starts out a henchman of the evil kingpin, redeems himself, only to assume his place. Eventually he runs off like a scoundrel - he just isn't carrying this in any way.There is the convoluted plot about scheming and political intrigue in sunny California. Greed and ambition, the tropes. It's a far-fetched, dimestore thing, the kind of which James Ellroy would later simply obliterate as perversely glamorous background against senseless violence.Two things that strike some spark, one is the the two flaming redheads, sisters looking through sex for an entry into the world of money and standing. One is a kleptomaniac fresh out of prison, who wants to steal the other's man. They both sizzle in skimpy shorts and revealing dresses, sultry and dangerous like cutouts from the pages of a pinup comic.And there is the architecture that upends everything and nullifies it. Two houses, impossibly large and drowned in extravagant decoration. One of them is kept by a secretary, a really curious place to be sustained at a secretary's salary. But it's precisely this that is the movie's token, the candy-colored movie fantasy where everything is so simplistically possible and the small nuance of life is sacrificed for the sake of blistering outbursts. The wild colors, curtesy of famous DP John Alton, abet the artificial passions and overwrought cruelties.

The 1956 film "Slightly Scarlet" at first glance looking back from our sophisticated perspective today seems to be a bit of a tongue-in cheek joke.Directed by Allan Dwan from a Robert Blees screenplay adapted from James M. Cain's novel "Love's Lovely Counterfeit", the 99-minute film is a great combination of color and art direction in a film noir.Not a highly regarded film noir, in Technicolor and Superscope its palette utilizes a wide range of color to support the individual themes and characterizations.Our main characters have color scheme that establish them and develop with the story.Arlene Dahl as Dorothy wears black as she is released from prison and even sports a black bathing suit later in the film.Rhonda Flemming as June initially appears in Spring-like colors of off-white and yellow, with colors matching her mood as the film progresses. She wears white and blues when she meets Ben Grace for the first time, then black and off-white when they kiss and she begins to fall in love with him. When Dorothy is arrested Rhonda wears a grey sweater and skirt but by the end of the film June wears the same black color as Dorothy emphasizing her relationship to her bad sister.Although the pivotal action of the film rests on Ben Grace, it is through June that we understand the important elements of the story, and the value of good and bad in this noir world as well as our own.A study in duality, it falls short by not delivering what it promises but only shifts the pivotal actions onto the male character in the film.In more than one scene characters tell Ben Grace that he is taking advantage of the situations around him to unfair terms.Police man Dietz (Frank Gerstle), who Grace gets put into a high-ranking position accuses Ben of playing both ends toward the middle.A great line from Sole Caspar to Ben Grace sums up his character completely: "Genius you're just a chiseler out for a soft spot. You're not crooked and you're not straight. You take what you can get where you can get it but you don't want any trouble. You'll die at age 66 with three grand in the bank but you'll never be an operator." Looking back its moments of plot change create humor because of the style of acting and the overall writing in the script.But there is still ample example of real noir elements despite the color of the film.The title suggests the slightly scarlet is a pun on the pure heart of the lead female as measured against the overall 'sick' nature of her sister, the one who steals.The quality of the motivation to steal of the second female lead as compared against the organized mob activities of the lead crook is an interesting one. There is the opportunity foe the woman to become the girlfriend of the mob boss, and she seems perfectly matched for the role.

Any story by James M. Cain should automatically command one's attention. Though probably not as famous as his other stories, this one manages to hold the viewer's interest. A curious thing to me is that, once again, the male lead is playing a far from sympathetic character (Ben). John Payne does a good good job, though sometimes it is not easy to figure out what Ben is up to or why. The success of the film rests upon the performance of the two female leads, Rhonda Fleiming and Arlene Dahl, especially the latter, whose acting was way beyond what I expected and almost carries the film, the ending of which might be a bit surprising. A tad slow in spots, 'Slightly Scarlet' nevertheless is a pretty entertaining film.