Scarlet Street

New York, 1934. Cashier Christopher "Chris" Cross is honored at a dinner for 25 years of service; his boss hands him a gold watch, then leaves with a beautiful young mistress on his arm, and Chris admits to a colleague how badly he wants to be loved that way. Walking home in his tuxedo, he sees Katherine "Kitty" March being roughed up by a drunk and drives the man off with his umbrella — not realizing the assailant is Johnny, Kitty's own boyfriend. Kitty mistakes Chris's talk of painting for the hobby of a wealthy artist, and at Johnny's urging she strings him along and gets him to bankroll her — which means Chris stealing from his wife and from his employer. When art dealers turn out to be genuinely interested in his canvases, the pair persuade Chris to let Kitty sign them as her own. It ends in the kind of place Lang's films end.