Slightly Scarlet

Film noir is bathed in the look of 1950s melodrama in Allan Dwan’s James M. Cain adaptation, shot in vivid SuperScope Technicolor by John Alton.

Introduced by James Bell, Senior Curator of Fiction, BFI National Archive, and Sonia Genaitay, Curatorial Archivist, BFI National Archive

  • Director

    Allan Dwan

  • With

    Arlene Dahl, Rhonda Fleming, John Payne, Kent Taylor

  • USA 1956. 99min

  • 35mm

  • Certificate

    12A

Stepping out of the California state prison for women after serving a stint for jewel robbery, kleptomaniac red-head Dorothy Lyons is met by her sister, the equally-red-headed but good June, the secretary to and fiancé of mayoral candidate Frank Jansen. Does this confluence of characters offer a ripe opportunity to smear Jansen’s campaign? Crime boss Solly Caspar and mobster Ben Grace certainly think so. Adapted from a James M. Cain short story by sometime Douglas Sirk screenwriter Robert Blees, Dwan’s film is pure noir in its double-crossing, conspiring individuals, but here the shadows are cast in SuperScope Technicolor by the great Alton. The opulent, lurid results beg to be seen on the big screen. The film screens from an original 1955 Technicolor print, which is slightly scratched in places, but resplendent nonetheless.

James Bell