When a painter gets involved with some criminals, things take a super dark turn in this gritty noir.

Banned

1946
- New York - The New York State Censor Board banned Scarlet Street, relying on the statute that gave it power to censor films that were "obscene, indecent, immoral, inhuman, sacrilegious" or whose exhibition "would tend to corrupt morals or incite to crime."
- Wisconsin - The Motion Picture Commission for the city of Milwaukee banned the film as part of a new policy encouraged by police for "stricter regulation of undesirable films."
- Georgia - Christina Smith, the city censor of Atlanta, argued that because of "the sordid life it portrayed, the treatment of illicit love, the failure of the characters to receive orthodox punishment from the police, and because the picture would tend to weaken a respect for the law," Scarlet Street was "licentious, profane, obscure and contrary to the good order of the community." ... Universal was discouraged from challenging the constitutionality of the censors by the protests of the national religious groups that arose as the Atlanta case went to court.

Sources

Bernstein, Matthew (Autumn 1995). "A Tale of Three Cities: The Banning of Scarlet Street". Cinema Journal., pp. 27-52.

Lang, Fritz (dir.) Scarlet Street. Universal Pictures, 1945.

"Dances and Dames." Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/