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# The Return of an "Indecent" Fritz Lang Film About a Painter and a Gold-Digger
- URL: https://hyperallergic.com/scarlet-street-metrograph-amy-sillman/
- Published: 2018-02-27T22:48:21.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-24T15:55:52.000Z
- Description: Artist Amy Sillman will introduce Lang's previously censored film Scarlet Street (1945) at Metrograph.
- Author: Elisa Wouk Almino
- Tags: Art, Amy Sillman, Events, Metrograph, #wp, #wp-post, #image-position-hidden, #Import 2025-11-18 14:37 (2018)

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2018/02/scarletstreet.jpg)

Katherine ‘Kitty’ March (Joan Bennett) and Christopher Cross (Edgar G. Robinson) in Fritz Lang’s Scarlet Street (image courtesy Library of Congress)

[Artist ](http://metrograph.com/film/film/752/scarlet-street?ref=hyperallergic.com)[Amy Sillman ](https://www.amysillman.com/pages/index.php?ref=hyperallergic.com)[calls](http://metrograph.com/film/film/752/scarlet-street?ref=hyperallergic.com) [*Scarlet Street*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scarlet%5FStreet?ref=hyperallergic.com)“the best and most tragic artist movie ever made.” Directed by [Fritz Lang](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritz%5FLang?ref=hyperallergic.com) in 1945, the film has an unlikely premise: a gold-digger after the money of an ordinary middle-aged painter. (For the art nerds and critics in us, we even get to see the painter at work.) While the plot may sound rather unexciting at first, *Scarlet Street* takes some jarring and thrilling turns, including a scheming boyfriend and vicious murder. At the time the film was released, it was [censored](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scarlet%5FStreet?ref=hyperallergic.com) [by New York State](http://www.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9900E1DD1339E53ABC4D52DFB466838D659EDE?&ref=hyperallergic.com) for being “indecent” and “immoral.”

The film returns this weekend to the Lower East Side’s arthouse cinema [Metrograph](http://metrograph.com/film/film/752/scarlet-street?ref=hyperallergic.com), where [Sillman ](https://www.amysillman.com/pages/index.php?ref=hyperallergic.com)will introduce the screening with personal, painterly insights of her own. She will also be signing copies of her new book, [*The ALL-OVER*](https://www.amazon.com/dp/0998632627/?tag=hyperallergic-20&ref=hyperallergic.com), which surveys her large-scale abstractions, animations, and more.

**When:** Sunday, March 4, 1:45pm  
**Where:** Metrograph (7 Ludlow Street, Lower East Side, Manhattan) 

*More info* [*at Metrograph*](http://metrograph.com/film/film/752/scarlet-street?ref=hyperallergic.com)*.* 

**Correction:** *A previous version of this article misattributed a quote by Amy Sillman to Robert Smithson. This has been amended.*