SHORT VERSION:
Christopher Cross (Edward G. Robinson) is a lonely cashier married to a nagging widow Adele (Rosalind Ivan). Painting is the only thing that brings him joy. After a party celebrating his 25 years on the job, he sees Kitty (Joan Bennett), a comely young woman, being accosted by Johnny (Dan Duryea). Chris knocks Johnny out. Later Kitty gets Chris to open up to her and Chris admits that he paints pictures. Kitty assumes he is a highly paid artist because he seems so knowledgeable yet humble. Johnny and Kitty, it turns out are partners and Johnny talks Kitty into extorting money from Chris. Chris, a cashier, sees his relationship with Kitty in idolized and romantic terms, unable to see her as the grafter she is. He sets up Kitty in an apartment and keep his paintings there as a studio, but to obtain funds he embezzles money from the company he works for. When Janeway (Jess Barker), an influential art dealer discovers Chris's canvasses, he is told Kitty is the creator, and Johnny facilitates and encourages the collusion. When Adele's first husband (Charles Kemper) turns up alive, an ex-police detective taken for dead in the line of duty, Chris sees a way out and sets up the ex-cop to reunite with his wife. Chris sees this as a way to go to Kitty permanently but discovering her in the arms of Johnny, Chris does something impulsive, and his future days are affected by his actions in the most dramatic ways.
LONGER VERSION
Chris Cross, (Edward G. Robinson), has worked as a cashier for a brokerage house for 25 years. At a party honoring him, Chris is given an engraved gold pocket watch studded by diamonds by his boss J.. J. Hogarth (Russell Hicks), for his loyal and dedicated service for the firm.
We learn that Chris may be superstitious when Chris's boss lights his cigar as the third on the same match, and a quick aside shows him crossing his fingers to ward off evil.
The boss leaves the party early, and is seen getting into a car with a gorgeous young blonde. This triggers envious comments from Chris and fellow employees.
On his way home Chris sees a man beating a young woman Kitty March (Joan Bennett) and runs to her rescue, knocking the drunk assailant down with his umbrella. Kitty insists on getting away without calling police, so Chris escorts Kitty back to her apartment. They stop at a bar for drinks, where they chat.
After she sees the diamond studded gold watch, and because he was well dressed for the party, when Chris modestly tells Kitty that he paints for fun, she assumes that he is a wealthy artist. Chris enjoys her admiration and is too embarrassed to tell her that he's only a cashier. He talks eloquently about how he creates a painting, sometimes in one day, sometimes in a year, in a way that confirms her notion that his paintings could sell for hundreds of dollars in the art market, maybe up to fifty thousand. As they part at the door to her building, he shyly asks for her phone number. She says she has no phone and he says he will write.
The next day, a friend from work comes to visit Chris, and his horrid domestic life, ruled by a bullying wife Adele (Rosalind Ivan), is revealed. Adele idolizes her late husband, a policeman drowned while trying to save a woman, and constantly complains that Chris is less. He must pursue his hobby in the bathroom, out of sight from Adele, and he must also put on an apron to clean the kitchen even after his friends arrival. Adele complains Chris is too stingy to buy her a radio, so she must go downstairs to listen to "The Happy Family Hour," while Robinson sits at the dinner table and buries his head in his hands. He acts like a meek servant both at home and at work, where he spends hours inside a cashier's cage.
At her apartment a few days later, when a letter from Chris arrives, also learn
that the attacker was Johnny, Kitty's violent boyfriend Johnny Prince (Dan Duryea), with whom she was arguing over money. Johnny convinces Kitty to pursue a relationship with Chris, in order to extort money from him. Johnny has a habit of smacking her around and is also a con artist. We learn that Kitty is a lazy slob as she flips her cigarette butt into a sink piled high with dirty dishes.
Soon, Chris becomes enamored of her. He believes that Kitty is an actress and that Johnny is the boyfriend of Kitty's ex-roommate. Kitty also sees in the love-sick Chris a real patsy who may have loads of cash that she can dip into. With a sob story, Kitty inveigles Chris to give her money to rent an apartment, one that can also be his art studio. Kitty and Johnny take a fancy apartment in Greenwich Village formerly used by Mexican mural painter Diego Rivera.
To finance this, Chris takes cash from his cashiers box. He also locates bonds that Adele got from her late husbands life insurance. Chris has a big problem in Adele, who is more like a jailer than a wife to him. Adele berates Chris constantly, and hates the very sight of the many paintings in their apartment, threatening to give them to the junk-man. Chris moves all his paintings to the studio.
Chris eventually steals $1,200.00 to give to Kitty. Johnny, who gambles, soon gets the idea of selling Chris' paintings for cash. He takes two to a street painter in Greenwich Village, who criticizes the work for incorrect perspective but agrees to sell them for $25.00 apiece. To his surprise Johnny finds out that famous art expert and columnist David Janeway (Jess Balker) has bought them and is completely agog over the paintings, and says they might bring as much as $5000.00. He convinces Kitty that Chris is a goose that lays golden eggs with the comment "He's too dumb to be a phony".
Janeway is so taken with the paintings that he tails Johnny to the apartment accompanied by art dealer Dellarowe. He says he can get high prices for the paintings but must meet the painter in person. Johnny quickly says Kitty painted them. Kitty goes along after a private conversation in which Johnny tells her since she wanted to be an actress, now was the time to prove herself.
Kitty charms the critic by repeating words she heard from Chris in their first chat at the bar. Janeway promises to represent her, and soon her paintings are on display at the exclusive Dellarowe Art Galley. Dellarowe arranges for exhibitions and Kitty quickly becomes a much sought after modern artist.
Meantime, Chris has no idea of what's been happening to his paintings. Kitty orders him around viciously, getting him to paint her toenails, demanding that he paint more and more. But he is so amazed at having a young pretty woman tell him that he is loved, that just to bask in her presence is enough.
He paints a portrait of Kitty to be passed off as a self portrait. Critic Janeway describes it as a Mona Lisa without the smile. [ASIDE: It much resembles a self portrait by Frida Kahlo, wife of Diego Rivera, who commands astronomical prices sixty years later] Johnny pushes Kitty to take up a relationship with Janeway as well as Chris.
One afternoon Adele sees in the window of the ritzy Dellarowe Art Gallery paintings she recognizes, selling for $500, with Kitty March's name on them. Adele rushes home to berate Chris for being a copycat with no talent, browbeating him while he is wearing a woman's ruffled apron and has a sharp knife from cutting liver pointed at his terrific nag of a wife. The way he stabs the knife on the cutting board suggests he imagines stabbing Adele.
Chris goes to the studio apartment to find out that many of his painting are gone. Still Chris forgives Kitty for selling them and even gives her credit for them being as valuable and famous as they are because of her looks. Chris grasps that he can sell his paintings under Kitty's signature, and happily lets her be the public face of his art.
Meanwhile Adele's first husband detective Sgt. Higgins (Charles Kemper) reappears and seeks Chris out. He explains he had not drowned, but had stolen money from the woman he supposedly was saving. He faked being dead for years before to keep from going to jail for police corruption. He wants Chris to pay him off to keep quiet, and not ruin his marriage to Adele. Higgins doesn't realize that Chris doesnt want to save his marriage to Adele, and much prefers that his marriage should be invalidated when he confronts his wife with her live former husband.
Chris tricks Higgins into coming to the apartment using Adeles life insurance bonds as bait, and exposes his fake death.
Free from Adele, Chris goes to the apartment to tell Kitty her the good news and to propose marriage, only to see her passionately kissing Johnny.
Shocked, he waits for Johnny to leave, and as he enters, Kitty says "Johnny?" out loud before she sees him. Chris confronts Kitty, but still wants her to marry him. She taunts him in reply, telling him that he is a jerk and unattractive moron who is too stupid to know it for himself.
Furious, Chris loses control, then attacks and stabs Kitty multiple times with an icepick.
Johnny is accused, convicted, for Kitty's murder, despite his attempts to implicate Chris, who goes unpunished. At the trial, Chris insists he copied Kittys pictures. Johnny screams "For cat's sake, he's lying" to no avail. With this lie, Chris callously allows the cocky boyfriend to be condemned to die. A neighbor had testified to have heard Kitty say Johnny! just as someone entered the apartment just before the stabbing.
Meantime Chris's embezzlement is discovered and although the boss decides not to press charges, Chris is fired. With tears in his eyes and a look of profound shame and defeat on his face, he leaves the workplace.
Posthumously, Katherine March is recognized as a great artist.
On the day of Johnny's execution, Chris is riding a commuter train and hears some newsmen, on their way to Sing Sing to witness the execution, discuss the case and the criminal mind. In their theory even unpunished murderers eventually self destruct because of constant fear of discovery and their guilt, as there is a higher power that makes up for mistakes in human justice.
At the hour of the execution, Chris, in his flat, haunted by thoughts of Kitty and the realization he has murdered two people, goes beserl and attempts to hang himself. He is rescued, tries to confess but is assumed to be crazy, and becomes a poor man with no way of claiming credit for his paintings. He is constantly haunted by hearing the voices of Kitty and Johnny, together for eternity, loving each other. The guilt and torment leaves Chris a cold, soulless figure prowling the squalid streets of the city, forever a prisoner of his conscience.
