Slightly Scarlet is a 1956 American crime film starring John Payne, Rhonda Fleming and Arlene Dahl.

The ruthless and uncouth Solly Caspar, the crime boss of Bay City (a fictional town near San Francisco), wishes to defeat a campaign by multimillionaire mayoral reform candidate Frank Jansen.

Ben follows Jansen's secretary and girlfriend June Lyons to a women's prison to photograph her collecting her sex-starved kleptomaniac sister Dorothy, a multiple ex-con.

He instead gives June an audiotape recording that proves that Caspar killed a crusading newspaper owner who had supported Jansen.

Rhonda Fleming and Arlene Dahl, both redheads who had previously competed often for film roles, reportedly feuded on the set.

The women insisted upon separate makeup and wardrobe assistants and flipped a coin to determine who would receive top billing for the film.

[3] In a contemporary review for The New York Times, critic Bosley Crowther wrote: "Two red-headed women and one fat-headed man are the principal characters ...

For it is an exhausting lot of twaddle about crime and city politics, an honest mayor, his secretary-mistress, her kleptomaniacal sister and the fellow who wants to get control of the gang.

[4] Critic and filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard included Slightly Scarlet in his list of the best films of 1956 in Cahiers du Cinéma.