Laikals The greatest movie ever made..!

Tyreece Hulme One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

Married Baby Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?

Guillelmina The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

mark.waltz The garish pastel colors in this mostly unexciting political crime expose overtake all of the melodrama of the two red-headed sisters (Rhonda Fleming and Arlene Dahl) of differing personalities to make for a dull confection. The writer of "Double Indemnity", "Mildred Pierce" and "The Postman Always Rings Twice" (James Cain) wasn't as well represented on the screen here, and even with a promise of some delicious female bitchery, it is never delivered fully intact. We're supposed to believe that kleptomaniac Arlene Dahl is in her early 20's here, as a cop who follows her to sister Rhonda Fleming's house describes her to be from a description he got from a salesgirl who identified Dahl as the thief of some valuable pearls. She's already recently out of prison for similar crimes, and while it is obvious that she is mentally ill, she is never made to be an interesting psychotic case.Poor Rhonda Fleming, too; Her character is so one-dimensionally goody two-shoes that you forget about her Maureen O'Hara like looks which in earlier films had her delightfully hot-tempered and feisty. Most of her scenes have her fretting over younger sister Dahl and bemoaning the circumstances which got Arlene in trouble in the first place. Today, we'd just call her an enabler, but here, she just seems stupidly naive and used. John Payne is the ruthless politician whom Fleming works for and Dahl sets out to seduce. The only really exciting scene comes when Dahl and Payne are obviously heading for a rendezvous when a hit man all of a sudden corners them in Payne's enormous ocean hilltopped "cottage" after Dahl has pulled the trigger "accidently" on a fishing spear she found on his wall.The other real problem with the film is that it never sets its mood or where it wants to lay the conflict, with Dahl's "bad" sister (who is honestly just boring) or the political mayhem caused by Payne, his cohorts and many rivals. This makes the film sag throughout, and in spite of the colorful layout, it never really meets up with the melodramatic mood promised by its over-the-top musical score. This leads it to be one of the weaker "bad girl" movies made throughout the 50's, where at least a camp element would make it somewhat entertaining.

Spikeopath Slightly Scarlet is directed by Allan Dwan and adapted to screenplay by Robert Blees from the novel Love's Lovely Counterfeit written by James M. Cain. It stars John Payne, Rhonda Fleming, Arlene Dahl, Kent Taylor and Ted de Corsa. A Technicolor/SuperScope production, music is scored by Louis Forbes and cinematography by John Alton. June Lyons (Fleming) is "secretary" to anti-crime campaigner Frank Jansen (Taylor), so with Jansen in the running for mayor, mob boss Solly Caspar (Corsa) looks for a way to smear Jansen. The chance arises by way of June's sister, Dorothy (Dahl), a Kleptomaniac just released from prison. So Caspar puts his main man on the case, Ben Grace (Payne), but bossing Grace around and then putting him in the middle of two fire- cracker sisters could prove detrimental to all. The story is altered from Cain's source and in truth what reads like a tricky plot, actually isn't all that it can be. Yet it's a feverish Technicolor noir, proof positive that in the right photographic/director hands, noir can thrive away from the monochrome. It plays out its tale in a whirl of simmering passions and wonderfully lurid suggestions, sparkled by eye scorching photography and a deliriously devilish production design. Psychological smarts are in the mix, with no easy answers put forward to character's outcomes, while in true noir fashion all principal characters are hard to like or are intriguingly flawed. John Alton is the key hand here, he brings rich colours to the fore whilst ensuring that light and shadow techniques are not compromised. Macho conversations are spun out in darkened rooms, the colour black prominent, foreboding like, while the home of the two flame haired sisters is adorned with purposely garish blues, reds, oranges and greens. Clothes are important to the sexuality pulsing in the piece. The girls dressed up in a number of fetching (colourful obviously) ensembles, with wide V necked sweaters, figure hugging skirts, bullet bras, leopard skin bikini and see-thru nighties! While a couple of phallic symbols form part of the art design just in case you need reminding that sex is a big issue here. Suggestive scenes are within, usually involving Dorothy who mixes Kleptomania with an obvious kink for Nymphomania. Watch how she strokes a pillow in the background as her sister engages Ben in heated conversation, how she looks as she holds a Harpoon Spear Gun in her hands (in that leopard skin bikini), or a quite delicious sequence on a couch, legs akimbo and a back scratcher used to tantalising effect. Wow! It has flaws for sure, mind. The Kleptomania/Nymphomania angle is not fully explored (ineviatbly for the period), Corsa barely convinces as the head villain, Forbes is not sure how to score it! And there are missed opportunities unbound as regards triangles involving Ben, June and Frank and also Ben, June and Dorothy. But this is still a delightful Technicolor noir, lush, lurid and deftly sordid. 8/10

LouisaMay With the same title. You might think Slightly Scarlet is about Ben Grace: did he change or not? Then again you might think the movie is about June Lyons: did SHE change or not? SPOILERSIf the movie's about June Lyons, the ending isn't ambiguous, and Ben Grace is a hero in more ways than one. And yes, she changed, and definitely for the better.June's been in what we now lovingly call a co-dependent relationship --with her sister. Crazy Dorothy needs professional help, and June's been trying all her adult life to help her, successful only in being manipulated by Dorothy's psychotic reasoning. June keeps trying to do the impossible: make Dorothy's life better. Dorothy's a prop (a McGuffin, except we know a lot about her) She moves the plot. She's the agent of Ben's meeting and falling in love with June, and the cause of his becoming a hero. She's always at the wrong place at the right time. Dorothy shows us Ben's true attraction to the good sister through his rejection of her, even at her most seductive in a bathing suit. Dorothy claims she and Ben are alike. Ben shows they're not by his attraction to June. Even when Arlene Dahl steals a scene, as she sometimes does, her Dorothy reminds us of June's worries, June's hopes. We see Ben sinking into villainy, except in his relationship to June and Dorothy, which remains consistent and sincere throughout.June's unable to have a relationship with a man because of Dorothy. June, so loyal, so caring, so worried, doesn't have time even for the man she loves, although that man needs her more than Dorothy does. Dorothy, remember, needs a psychiatrist, not a worried sister.And so, as gorgeous June moves closer and closer toward a hideous spinsterhood devoted to the care of semi-conscious Dorothy, events take a turn for the worse AND for the better. Ben undergoes horrible torture to save June and Dorothy. He's still alive at the end, but we don't know certainly that he'll survive. We do know, in that last glance June gives Janson who's patting Dorothy reassuringly, that June's chosen her man over her sister. June smiles back at Janson and Dorothy (and Janson smiles knowingly at June), as June walks away behind the stretcher. There's someone who needs her and can benefit from her care, someone with a legitimate claim on her love and attention, and June follows him. June has been steadfast in her ethics, although her attention was misguided. We know if Ben lives, she'll help him. If he doesn't live, she's freed herself from her bondage to Dorothy.This engrossing film has a lot of action, both physical and psychological. It's easy to watch but not simple. Oooh, that magnetic energy (great direction) between Ben and June. They can barely keep their faces apart in any interaction. Ben tries to be bad, but isn't making it. In the end he succumbs fully to love. A hero because he not only saves the women's lives, but also because he's rescued June from Dorothy. Could there be such a thing as a noir, chick flick? I think so.

ny1mwd26 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.