Femme fatale stars of 1940s and 1950s silver screen film noir classics
Not since its heyday, from 1940 to 1959, has film noir been more popular than now. These captivating melodramas transport us back to a black and white world, inhabited by hard-boiled detectives and dangerous dames.
Steve Cain has compiled a list of five of the feistiest femme fatales ever to have set the silver screen smouldering.
The golden age of Hollywood was surprisingly dark.
Amidst all the magic of the musicals, with their handsome heroes and the saccharine-sweet starlets, there lurked a murkier and grittier genre populated with gun-wielding gangsters, dogged detectives, and wanton women – it was film noir.
“It manages to combine the storytelling perfection, the style and glamour of classic Hollywood, along with a cynicism and artfulness that make it still seem very current to modern eyes,” said Dr Louis Bayman, lecturer in Film Studies at the University of Southampton.
Moreover, these tales of crime and moral ambiguity have experienced something of a renaissance during the past eighteen months, with cable channels such as Great Movies: Classic dedicating an entire evening’s schedule to film noir movies.
“Perhaps the urban world of flirtation, of nightclubs and diners, of high-class milieux and underworld vice give us a certain nostalgic or heightened sense of what we lost during lockdowns,” said Louis.
“At the same time, the vision of a sick society, populated by fatally weakened or psychologically scarred men and women and dangerous, dark shadows might, in some way, connect with how we feel during a pandemic,” he added.
The allure of the mysterious and seductive femme fatale – a woman who uses her feminine wiles to achieve her villainous objectives – is integral to the narrative of most movies in the film noir genre.
Here, we reveal our top five femme fatales:
Bette Davis
Just one icy stare from those “poached egg” eyes, combined with a withering one-liner, was enough to reduce even the most formidable of foes to little more than a nervous wreck.
Bette Davis was also noted for her willingness to portray characters that were both unglamorous and unsympathetic.
In 1940, she was nominated for an Academy Award for her performance as Leslie Crosbie in The Letter.
Davis also starred in six other film noir movies – 20,000 Years in Sing Sing; Marked Woman; Deception; Beyond the Forest; Another Man’s Poison and Phone Call from a Stranger.
Her film career spanned almost 60 years and she starred in a little less than a hundred movies during that time.
She also appeared on television later in her career, most notably, perhaps, as Laura Trent, the owner of the St Gregory Hotel in the American soap opera Hotel.
Joan Crawford
Her foray into film noir began when she left MGM for rival Warner Brothers and landed the title role in Mildred Pierce, for which she earned her first, and only, Oscar for Best Actress.
In 1947, she starred in Possessed and once again was nominated for Best Actress by the Academy, losing out to Loretta Young.
Continuing to carefully select the roles she played, Crawford went on to star in The Damned Don’t Cry and Sudden Fear.
The latter brought her a third nomination for Best Actress but, for a second time, she lost out – this time to Shirley Booth. Her career then slowed until, in 1962, she co-starred with her biggest rival, Bette Davis, in the cult classic What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?
Each of these four films helped define Crawford’s career and she always seemed utterly at home in the smoky back-rooms of film noir.
Barbara Stanwyck
The doyenne of the film noir genre, Stanwyck was respected for her serious but easy going approach on the set.
She was considered to be an extremely versatile actress who could easily adapt to any role and was comfortable in all genres. However, she was, arguably, best suited to the melodrama of film noir.
Her first film noir movie, Double Indemnity, was hailed as one of the best movies she ever made.
She went on to star in a further nine films in the genre – The Strange Love of Martha Ivers; The Two Mrs Carrolls; Cry Wolf; Sorry,
Wrong Number; The File on Thelma Jordan; No Man of Her Own; Clash by Night; Jeopardy and Crime of Passion.
Later in her career, she focused on television work and played a series of formidable matriarchs in dramas including The Big Valley and The Thorn Birds before starring in the prime-time Dynasty spin-off soap The Colbys.
In a career spanning 60 years, she starred in more than ninety movies but, although she was nominated for four, never won an Academy Award.
Ingrid Bergman
The Swedish actress, regarded as one of the most influential screen figures in cinematic history, was often associated with playing strong yet vulnerable characters who were troubled by anxiety and fear.
In preparation for her role as Paula Alquist Anton in her first film noir movie Gaslight, Bergman attended a mental hospital and closely observed a particular patient, subsequently integrating certain mannerisms into her performance.
The performance won her an Academy Award for Best Actress.
She then collaborated with Alfred Hitchcock on three films, two of which – Spellbound and Notorious – fitted the film noir mould.
In 2006, the National Film Registry of the United States of America classified Notorious as being culturally, historically and aesthetically important.
Bergman’s career spanned five decades and more than fifty movies.
Rita Hatworth
She was one of the top female stars of the 1940s and was dubbed ‘The Love Goddess’
by the popular press, due to her glamorous persona.
For three consecutive years, beginning in 1944, she was named one of the top movie box-office attractions in the world.
Perhaps best remembered for her performance in the 1946 film noir Gilda, she appeared in 61 films over 37 years.
Although she gave a critically acclaimed performance in Orson Welles’s 1947 film The Lady from Shanghai, its box office failure was attributed to Hayworth’s change of image.
Her famous red hair had been cut short and bleached platinum blonde for the role of Elsa Bannister.
Nevertheless, the movie was hailed as a classic and joined the league of other epic noirs, including Double Indemnity and Gaslight.