Femmes Fatales of Film Noir
Femmes fatales weren’t invented in the 1940s, but movie makers of that era may have perfected the characters.
By Alan Herrmann
MOVIE CRITIC
While writing my piece on two versions of Hemingway’s To Have and Have Not last week, I briefly described the roots and influences of the film noir genre. It got me thinking how much I love film noir and how it still influences contemporary films such as Christopher Nolan’s Memento and The Dark Night. As a result, I’m dedicating the month of January to film noir using a different subtopic each week.
There are many themes included in film noir like crime, desperation, betrayal, greed, and obsession. There are also many cinematic elements like visual contrasts, usually in black and white, with the strong use of shadows and urban settings. Noir films have dramatic music scores and complex writing with sharp, edgy dialogue. There are a variety of characters, often conflicted and damaged, who may otherwise be decent human beings.
And then there is often the femme fatale: a woman who will do just about anything to get what she wants – including lying, cheating, stealing, and even murder to achieve her ends. Femmes fatales are not exclusive to film noir, in fact we can trace them back to the Bible and ancient Greek mythology and drama – think Delilah, Salome, Electra, and Medea. But the advent of film noir brought about the most complex and dangerous versions of these woman of the post-World War II era. There is no exact starting point for when this cinematic phenomenon began but probably around 1940 when Mary Astor’s Brigid O’Shaughnessy tried to pull a fast one on Humphrey Bogart’s Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon.
I have selected five examples of femmes fatales from the noir world in the heyday of the genre, which is the immediate post-war era, 1945-1947. For the most part, they are complicated characters who live in a male-dominated world of deceit and violence where often women are assigned roles and have little choice in how they live their lives. Femmes fatales are often created by circumstances where women learn to be deceitful and use sex and violence to achieve their desires just as their male counterparts have for centuries.
Out of the Past (1947 - now streaming on Amazon Prime) – This is one of the best films of its type and has a very complicated plot with many twists and turns, but it is the chemistry between Robert Mitchum and Jane Greer that keeps our focus. Kathie Moffat (Greer) is beautiful, smart, passionate, and extremely convincing as a woman on the run from her criminal boss boyfriend Whit (Kirk Douglas). Jeff Bailey (Mitchum), who’s hired by Whit to search for Kathie, finds her in Mexico but immediately falls for her. It’s understandable, his first look at her walking into a café dressed in a white summer dress takes his breath away. He knows he will not take her back to Whit. Kathie and Jeff seem to enjoy life even as they have to evade Whit. But the couple is found by a blackmailer who Kathie shoots with cold determination and a very unsettling look Jeff has not seen before. From that point on, we see what she is really capable of. What makes Kathie such an effective femme fatale is how sincere she seems. Jeff believes her -- hook, line, and sinker-- and so do we.
Double Indemnity (1944 - no streaming on Internet Archive) – Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck) is an alluring woman, complete with very blond hair and iconic ankle bracelet, who also happens to be bored, desperate, and very dangerous. She’s trapped in a loveless marriage to an older man and has a stepdaughter who hates her guts. But opportunity knocks by way of a young insurance agent named Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray) who’s also bored and very attracted to Phyllis. Phyllis lures him in quickly, which isn’t a chore since Walter is very happy for the chance and together, they plan to kill her husband to be rid of him and collect on his life insurance policy. But money is the biggest motivator for Phyllis and a double cross compounded by another double cross leaves these schemers to the fates they deserve. The end of the movie is a shocker and it’s easy to see why this Billy Wilder film is often cited as being the best noir ever made, with much of the credit going to Stanwyck’s femme fatale.
Scarlet Street (1945 now streaming on Internet Archive) – In this classic Fritz Lang-directed noir, Kitty March (Joan Bennett) is a raven-haired beauty who oozes sexuality and is very streetwise, but unsophisticated and manipulating. She is also damaged by her toxic relationship with her boyfriend/pimp Johnny Prince who slaps her around from time to time. Mild mannered bank cashier Chris Cross (Edward G. Robinson) happens to witness such an altercation on his way home one rainy night. Chris, emboldened by a few drinks, hits Johnny with his umbrella and is thanked by Kitty for coming to her rescue. They strike up a conversation where Chris describes himself as an artist and Kitty an actress. Both of these claims are gross exaggerations, of course, and lead to further deceit, jealousy, betrayal, and death. In Fritz Lang’s noir world, justice may be served but nobody comes out a winner.
The Killers (1946) – Kitty Collins (Ava Gardner - find streaming at JustWatch) is a classic gangster’s moll who uses her striking beauty to achieve what she desires, mostly money and high living. While the gang of robbers is constantly trying to figure out whose woman she is, Kitty bounces where she is most comfortable and well cared for. Most of the time that comfort lies with Jim Colfax, the leader of the gang, until she meets the Swede (Burt Lancaster), a boxer whose Adonis-like good looks and puppy dog devotion win her over. Swede will do anything for Kitty, including a three-year stretch in prison for a theft she committed. Over time, Kitty will deceive and double cross the Swede, resulting in his death, no spoiler alert needed because he dies early on in the flashback-laden film. Kitty is eventually caught but not until she leaves a trail of broken dreams and death behind her.
Leave Her to Heaven (1945 - find streaming at JustWatch) – Ellen Berent (Gene Tierney) is dazzlingly beautiful with porcelain skin, perfect red lips, and ocean blue eyes all captured in glorious technicolor. She is wild and adventurous. Unfortunately, she is also obsessive and scheming and will do anything to get and keep what she wants. She is the queen of daddy issues and is obsessed with Richard Harland (Cornel Wilde), whom she believes has a strong resemblance to her late father. Ellen’s unwillingness to share Richard with anybody else leads to death by non-intervention. This unique and twisted method of homicide looks more like a tragic accident, with the perpetrator viewed as an innocent bystander. Tierney’s performance is stellar, particularly when she seems to go into a trance and her face becomes a mask, a mask that hides an abundance of evil intentions.
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