SLIGHTLY SCARLET (director: Allan Dwan; screenwriter: from a story by James M. Cain "Love's Lovely Counterfeit"/Robert Blees; cinematographer: John Alton; editor: James Leicester; cast: John Payne (Ben Grace), Ted de Corsia (Sol Caspar), Arlene Dahl (Dorothy Lyons), Rhonda Fleming (June Lyons), Kent Taylor (Frank Jansen), Lance Fuller (Gauss), Buddy Baer (Lenhardt), Frank Gerstle (Dave Dietz), Roy Gordon (Norman Marlowe); Runtime: 99; RKO; 1956)
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
A convoluted minor film noir story whose main distinction is that it is one of the few filmed in color from the 1950s. It's about two redheaded sisters: one an honest secretary, June Lyons (Fleming), and the other a kleptomaniac, Dorothy (Dahl), both of whom get involved with a petty criminal, Ben Grace (Payne), who takes over as a crime boss in an unnamed California city. The story is slight, it's implausible, is melodramatic, and has action that is violent for violent's sake. It results in a film that distances itself from the audience, as there's not one character worth caring about. It's loosely based on a novel by James M. Cain "Love's Lovely Counterfeit," which covers corruption in a big-city.
The millionaire reform candidate Frank Jansen (Kent Taylor) is trying to unseat the current corrupt mayor, who is controlled by the ruthless mob boss Sol Caspar (Ted de Corsia). June is Frank's secretary, and he's asked her to marry him. She thinks he's a kind man, but she turns him down because she's not in love with him and puts him off with the excuse that her mentally unbalanced and immoral sister, Dorothy, has just been released from prison and has to be taken care of by her.
Ben does some spy work for Solly by using his camera, but he can't get any dope on June to smear Jansen with. This leads to an argument between the two where Solly verbally insults him by calling him 'Bright Boy,' someone who went to college but has no guts to be a big operator like him. He then slaps him in front of the other mobsters, and embarrasses him for not wanting to take part in going after a TV reporter, Marlowe (Gordon), who is a Jansen supporter and lambasts the current adminstration as a criminal one while on the air.
June receives an anonymous call from Ben, warning her that Marlowe will get it tonight. But she fails to tell Jansen about this. Solly kills Marlowe and his boys dump the reporter's body out the window. The corrupt police chief and DA refuse to investigate, but Ben comes over to June and gives her an incriminating tape involving Solly and two of his boys in the killing. This is enough to get Jansen elected and make Solly flee to Mexico to avoid prosecution.
In an unbelievable manner Ben is running the syndicate, has hand-picked the police chief he thinks he can control, David Dietz (Gerstle), and stirred up some romantic passion in both sisters. But Dorothy is as nutty as a fruit cake, so he sticks with June. She in return can't keep her eyes off him, and when her sister gets bagged for stealing a necklace from a department store it's Ben who gets her sprung. But the mayor reverses that, and Ben, realizing the game is up, decides to steal all of Solly's money and tries to talk June into running away with him.
The finale takes place in Solly's beach house, where a shootout between Solly and Ben takes place as the sisters cling to each other. The batty Dorothy is a prime candidate for a nut house, while June is caught between a man who has both a rotten and soft side to him and a sister whom she feels compelled to protect no matter what.
The most interesting thing about this flick, was the cinematography of John Alton. He managed to make the SuperScope color have noirish shadows even though it is filmed in a hideous shade of garish colors. Otherwise, there's not much else memorable about this low-budget film, except for how ordinary and inane it is.
REVIEWED ON 9/27/2001 GRADE: C-
Dennis Schwartz: "Ozus' World Movie Reviews"
http://www.sover.net/~ozus
ozus@sover.net
© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED DENNIS SCHWARTZ
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