Claysaba Excellent, Without a doubt!!

Mathilde the Guild Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Bob This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

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

blanche-2 With redheads Rhonda Fleming and Arlene Dahl starring in this, you just know "Slightly Scarlet" had to be in color. The male star is John Payne, the year is 1956, the director is Allen Dwan, and the great cinematographer John Alton.Based on the novel Love's Lovely Counterfeit by James M. Cain, Fleming plays June, secretary to a mayoral candidate, Frank Jansen (Kent Taylor). We first see her picking up her sister Dorothy (Dahl) from prison - third time. Dorothy is apparently a kleptomaniac, though she also seems to be a nymphomaniac.Ben Grace (Payne), who is associated with a city crime boss, has photographed June picking up her sister at the prison, hoping to sully the honest Jansen's campaign. But he falls for June and then tries to help Jansen defeat his opponent. But Ben is still playing both ends, and June and Dorothy are soon caught in the middle.There are a couple of problems romantically, too -- one is, Jansen wants to marry June, who is in love with Ben; and Dorothy wants Ben too, however she can get him.John Payne obviously saw himself as a tough guy. He couldn't get away from those Fox musicals fast enough. Here, about 10 years after his Fox tenure, he looks the worse for wear but does a good job. He loved this kind of role.The gorgeous Fleming wears outfits that show off her assets and the film's vibrant colors. She does well. Less successful for me was Arlene Dahl, whose acting left something to be desired. Her character was somewhat annoying, and I think she was going for a kittenish quality that she missed. One scene made me chuckle. She goes to put on a bathing suit and returns with a completely different hairstyle. Gotta love those glamor days when you looked good no matter what.Entertaining noir, with Alton's magnificent cinematography an added plus.

bkoganbing A tale of two redheaded sisters. Good Sister Rhonda Fleming who is the secretary/girlfriend of reform Mayoral candidate Kent Taylor. Bad sister is Arlene Dahl who's a combination nymphomaniac/kleptomaniac who has a yen for everything in trousers.The girls' performances are good, but wasted in this muddled mess of a noir film. Muddled mostly by the ill defined role that John Payne has. He's a wheeler dealer publicity agent who works the fringes of both sides of the law. Gangster Ted DeCorsia slaps Payne around and humiliates him at the beginning of the film. Payne decides to get some vengeance more out of pique than anything else. Pique is not a motive to get the viewer interested in Payne's manoeuvrings. John Payne has played unsympathetic parts and played them well. But in Slightly Scarlet you just don't develop any rooting interest in him even though Ted DeCorsia is one nasty villain.The girls are good, especially Dahl. Probably one of the most amoral women put on screen, very much like Martha Vickers in The Big Sleep.Too bad a really great group of players didn't get a better story.

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.

SonOfMoog "You're not good; you're not bad. You're a chiseler, out for anything you can get."So, says Solly Kaspar, crime boss of Bay City, of Ben Grace, the anti-hero of this story, adapted from James M. Cain's Love's Lovely Counterfeit. What holds our interest in this story is we're never quite sure what to make of Grace.There's an upcoming election and crime boss Kasper does not want the reform candidate to win, so Kasper strongarms the newspaper publisher backing him, and in the process kills him.Grace exposes Kasper, forcing Solly to flee to Mexico, and insuring the election of Frank Jansen, the reform candidate. He uses his influence with Jansen to get an honest police lieutenant friend of his appointed Chief of Police.Good guy, right?Then later in this movie he's seen giving orders to Solly's men, going over Solly's books, and positioning himself as Solly's successor. He calls his friend,the chief of police, and demands that his girlfriend's sister who was recently arrested be released without being charged, and so we begin to believe we've misjudged ol' Ben. He's just a hood, a little brighter than most, a little smoother than most, but in the end, no different from Solly Kasper.Bad guy, right?Well, we're not sure, because Grace isn't sure. Reform mayoral candidate, soon to be mayor, Frank Jansen has an assistant, June Lyons. On a 1 to 10 scale, Ms. Lyons, with her flaming red hair, and blazing headlights (think Good Girl art) is an 11. Rhonda Fleming never looked better, and Arlene Dahl as her sister, Dorothy Lyons, was equally stunning. But, back to Grace. He is falling for June, and June is a thoroughly decent girl, whose better nature seems to affect him.In the end, however, Grace's schemes come to naught. Jansen who really is a reform candidate orders Dorothy be tried for her crimes. Solly Kasper returns wanting to take over as rackets boss, and Ben Grace is forced to run. Here's where we see his true character, when he scrounges as much of Solly's money as he can and invites his girlfriend to go on the run with him (she declines).Solly Kasper was right all along. He really is just a chiseler, out for whatever he can get. Major disappointment, as in the end, Ben Grace disappoints not just his girlfriend, but the audience as well.This is a beautifully photographed movie in full technicolor. The sets are a wonderful amalgam of art deco - rococo excess. Others here have pointed out how garish everything looked. I didn't find it so. I thought it was beautiful. Certainly, the eye candy was stunning. There aren't any two actresses today who could team as good girl - bad girl siblings the way Fleming and Dahl did. Maybe Julianne Moore and Debra Messing, but they wouldn't look as good. The movie's high marks for visual style are undermined by its low marks for aimless, meandering story. 6 out of 10.