Looking into the film noir void: Lang’s Scarlet Street (1945).

Edward G. Robinson opposite Joan Bennett in SCARLET STREET (1945).

Scarlet Street is one of the blackest films noir in pretty much any film fan’s canon (yes, even by 1945 standards and the puritanical rules made up by our old friends at the Hays Production Code office). It is a tale of con artistry, the theft of artistic ideas (literally), jealousy, grifting, domestic rot, unrequited love, murder, and the theme I will touch on more than others in…