Femmes Fatale Are Deceptively Charming, Dangerous and Often Lethal; But One Among Them Tips the Scales When It Comes to Evil Doings — And She’s Probably Not The One You’re Thinking Of

Elisha Cook Jr., Marie Windsor, “The Killing” (1956).

By Paul Parcellin

Be forewarned: Many spoilers are included throughout the text below.

Sure, Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck), the husband liquidating murderess of “Double Indemnity” (1944) might be your go-to gal whenever the term “femme fatale” is mentioned. She’s as coolly detached and methodical as a hangman, and wily enough to nudge her fall-guy, insurance salesman Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray), into killing her husband, and she even makes him think that the whole thing was his idea.

Cunning shapeshifter Brigid O’Shaughnessy (Mary Astor), who almost puts one over on private eye Sam Spade (Humphrey Bogart) in “The Maltese Falcon” (1941), is skilled at stitching together tissues of lies that disarm and misdirect the circle of men who orbit her. She’s after a prized jewel-encrusted falcon statue and will use lethal means to get it. We’re not sure until the very end of the film whether or not Spade, the role model for filmdom’s hard boiled shamuses, is buying her act. Anyone would be well advised to do so at his or her own risk. 

Speaking of trench-coated private dicks, in “Out of the Past” (1947) Jeff Bailey (Robert Mitchum) tries to leave behind his checkered past. He used to snoop for crime kingpin Whit Sterling (Kirk Douglas). The mobster’s henchman drags him back into the life he’s tried to shake off. Jeff’s former lady friend, who happens to be Whit’s current squeeze, Kathie Moffat (Jane Greer), is expert in playing both men as pawns, even as Whit tries to frame Jeff for a murder. It doesn’t occur to the erstwhile detective exactly how deadly Kathie can be until he finally sees he at her worst. And by then it’s too late.

In “The Killing” (1956), George Peatty (Elisha Cook Jr.) makes the costly error of telling his unfaithful wife Sherry (Marie Windsor) about a big score he’s in on. George is supposed to keep his lips zipped, but he tries to impress the drifting Sherry in a futile attempt to keep her from wandering. Trouble is, she’s got a boyfriend, and the two of them decide to grab a piece of the loot George and his partners aim to snatch in a racetrack stickup. George, the milquetoast racetrack cashier, is unaware of the evil steps Sherry will take to stuff her pockets with greenbacks and blow this crummy town — the femme fatale’s credo if there ever was one.

Gloria Grahame, “The Big Heat” (1953).

Many others deserve honorable mention for their underhanded onscreen efforts. This is hardly an exhaustive list, just a few of my favorites, including Peggy Cummins, the bank robbing sharpshooter of “Gun Crazy” (1950); Lana Turner, who, with John Garfield, deep-sixes her husband in “The Postman Always Rings Twice” (1946); Gloria Grahame enters a tempestuous romance with Bogie in “In a Lonely Place” (1950), and was gangster Vince Stone’s (Lee Marvin) moll in “The Big Heat” (1953) — it has the scene where Vince serves her a faceful of scalding coffee. Grahame’s other noir performances include “Crossfire” (1947), “Macao” (1952), “Sudden Fear” (1952), “Human Desire” (1954) and “Odds Against Tomorrow” (1959); Joan Bennett tormented Edward G. Robinson in two Fritz Lang films, “The Woman in the Window” (1944) and “Scarlet Street” (1945). In both, she conspires with Dan Duryea to fleece him for all that he’s worth. Other noirs she also appeared in include “The Scar” (1948) and “The Reckless Moment” (1949).

I’d be remiss to leave out Lizabeth Scott, Joan Crawford, Marilyn Monroe, Rita Hayworth, Gene Tierney, and especially Ann Savage, the spitfire hitchhiker in “Detour” (1945) whom Tom Neal wishes he never met. (For an in-depth look at the women of noir, check out an excellent book, “Femme Noir: Bad Girls of Film Noir,” by Karen Burroughs Hannsberry.)

But among the high priestesses of noir there must be one who reigns supreme. She may not be portrayed by the most accomplished actress, yet she makes others pale in comparison. The top femme fatale — my personal favorite — displays breathtaking wickedness. She has no redeeming qualities — none. Her maniacal quest for dirty loot and her Arctic-cold acts of pure mayhem are so over the top I laughed out loud the first time I saw her American screen debut. 

The worst of the worst femmes fatale simply must be Margot Shelby (Jean Gillie), the cold-blooded double crosser of “Decoy” (1946). Other murderous dames offer stiff competition, but for sheer cruelty and her outsized zest for sadism, Margot stands out among noir’s most treacherous females. Others may leave a greater number of stiffs in their wake. Some even look their paramour, boyfriend or husband in the eye and coolly pull the trigger. 

Edward Norris, Jean Gillie, Herbert Rudley, “Decoy” (1946).

But there are three reasons why the others cannot hold a candle to the “Decoy” star:

1) She pulls off a murder that is as hideous as any committed by woman or man onscreen at the time. In her crazed pursuit of a $400,000 stash of loot, she disposes of an accomplice in a most chilling of manners. Motoring toward the site where the money is allegedly hidden, their car gets a flat. One of the two men riding with her changes the tire. As he lowers the jack beneath the front bumper, Margot slams the car into forward gear and runs over the unsuspecting sap, who happens to be a cold-blooded killer, himself. She hops out, rifles through the dead man’s pockets, grabs the tire changing tools and gets back behind the wheel …

2) Once she's in the driver’s seat, Dr. Craig (Herbert Rudley), who has been hoodwinked into aiding in Margot’s scheme, sits shell-shocked in the passenger seat. He mutters to her, “I’d like to kill you.” Without hesitation, she hands him a loaded revolver. He points the weapon at her — Hippocratic Oath be damned — but can’t summon the moxie to pull the trigger. She takes back the gun and they drive off. Margot knows that Craig is a broken man and likely would not shoot. But she wants to demonstrate her dominance over the hapless physician. It’s a sizable gamble on her part, but she willingly risks her life just to rub his nose in the dirt, which leads us to …

3) The last and perhaps most badass gesture on Margot’s part, assuring her top placement in the Legion of Film Noir Femmes Fatale: She’s been shot and is on her death bed. Police Sgt. Portugal (Sheldon Leonard), who has been trailing Margot and her hoodlum associates for a while, stands over her. She asks him to come down to her level. It’s an odd request, but he crouches down to oblige, bringing his face closer to her’s. We expect an intimate, soul-baring moment. She’s about to unburden herself and express regret for all she has done, we think. But the mood is abruptly dashed. With her dying breath she cackles hysterically in his face. A ring of police officers looks on as Portugal blushes, realizing he’s been had. She uses her last gasp to con a policeman and leave him humiliated in front of his peers. She can now leave this mortal coil, warmed by the fact that she’s had the last laugh at another in a long line of suckers. With her rotten-to-the core exit, Margot is the very model of a film noir femme fatale.

‘L.A. Confidential’: Wounded Cops Take On the System

From left, Det. Ed Exly (Guy Pearce),
Det. Bud White (Russell Crowe) and Det. Jack Vincennes (Kevin Spacey).

"L.A. Confidential" just had its 25th anniversary and that makes us look anew at the astounding saga of police corruption in the City of Angels, circa 1953. A quarter of a century later the film’s authentic retro look, snappy musical soundtrack and motley selection of characters still make the story hum.

Two of a Kind
Deep wounds make great characters, and two of the film's protagonists, Bud White (Russell Crowe) and Ed Exly (Guy Pearce), are both emotionally scarred, yet polar opposites. 

White is a thug who beats up bad guys when enlisted to do so by his boss, Capt. Dudley Smith (James Cromwell). But he's also a staunch protector of women. Turns out his dad used to beat his mom, so Bud has a soft spot in his heart for battered females, but not for much else.

Exly is a self-consciously ethical cop who wants to follow in his father's rather large footsteps. His dad was a policeman killed in the line of duty, allegedly by a purse snatcher. But given the corruption and lawlessness of the L.A. Police Department in that era, the story of the senior Exly's demise is questionable. Was he bumped off for not turning a blind eye to his fellow officers' malfeasances? In a telling moment Smith tells Exley to get rid of his steel framed glasses, saying he can't think of another man in the department who wears them — another way of warning him to not look too closely at the goings on around the station house. 

Both White and Exly are flawed characters, too. White pummels out-of-town gangsters looking for a foothold in L.A. and looks the other way when unsavory activities take place. Exly is a polished social climber who never misses an opportunity to advance himself. He's more than willing to rat out brutal cops who beat up Mexicans being held in the station jailhouse. But in return for his testimony he demands to be bumped up to lieutenant. He knows that he’ll be hated by the other cops, but that doesn’t matter to him. He’s like the smart nerd in high school who gets tripped and wedgied in the hallways, but takes solace in the fact that he’ll someday be his antagonists’ boss.

Jack the Joker

There’s also Det. Jack Vincennes (Kevin Spacey), the police consultant on “Badge of Honor,” a TV show that is a stand-in “Dragnet.” Police brass removed him from the show as payback for bad behavior and he hopes that solving a nasty murder case will put him back in the department’s good graces. But his freelance investigation takes a high toll on him. A bit of a jokester, a gag he plays on his boss turns out to be a genius bit of black humor that also plays a major role in the plot. 

As Exly and White begin to understand how corrupt the department is, it's their wounds that make them want to rout out the rot of lawlessness that surrounds them. In White's case, he's become involved with a call girl, Lynn Bracken (Kim Basinger), who belongs to a cadre of ladies of the night who have been given plastic surgery to make them resemble movie stars — she looks like Veronica Lake. She's in danger of being chewed up by the corrupt men pulling the strings who routinely use and discard people who have outlived their usefulness. White is intent on protecting her, and to do that he must bring down the big boys.

A Substantial Sacrifice
Exly has been cited for bravery in killing a group of alleged kidnappers and rapists, but he later learns their guilt is questionable and proof exists that they were framed. Then a plot to bump him off goes awry and he’s convinced it’s time to act. By calling out the corrupt forces within the department he will lose the prestige he’s earned and perhaps his lieutenant bars. Despite his political instincts, he’s willing to tear it all down “with a wrecking ball.”

There are a number of plot twists that grab us, all of which lead to an extended shootout in a decrepit abandoned motel on Victory Blvd. It’s the perfect setting for the wrap-up. It’s the place where Dudley Smith takes undesirables and Bud White beats them. The building’s shabbiness reflects the systemic rot that dominates the police department. It’s also a relic of California’s tourism boom. Unlike the sunny picture postcards shown as the opening credits roll, the state’s image as a windswept paradise is a phony public relation gimmick, and like the motel, is rotten on the inside.

The conclusion manages to avoid crime film clichés. Instead, we see the grim choices that one faces when taking on institutionalized corruption. It’s not a clean sweep of bad guys, but a blow to departmental abuse of power — at least in this instance. Of course, there’s a coverup of what actually took place behind the scenes, and that’s to be expected. It’s a story about the L.A. Police Department, after all.

Red Scare Noir: Communists on the Waterfront

Janis Carter, John Agar and Thomas Gomez in ‘The Woman on Pier 13’ (1949).

‘The Woman on Pier 13’ (1949)

When the Berlin Wall went up in 1961, my first-grade teacher, Miss Berzetz, marched into the classroom and scared the bejesus out of us. To hear her tell it, this was the end of life as we knew it.

Soviet tanks would, no doubt, soon visit our small community to steamroll over our humble homes. Communists would appear and force us to leave school, perform menial labor and force us to speak Russian. At least, that’s what I got out of her overheated rant. 

I weighed the pluses and minuses of a communist dictatorship’s takeover versus life as a pupil in Miss Berzetz’s class. Which would be worse? It was a close call.

I was reminded of this tidbit of Cold War history while viewing “The Woman on Pier 13,” a film noir whose world view makes Miss Berzetz seem almost reasonable in comparison.

The story begins after World War II, when anti-communist sentiment rose to a fevered pitch in America, and Reds became the designated boogiemen du jour. The Korean War was on the horizon, Red-baiter Sen. Joe McCarthy was warming up in the bullpen, and in this charged, somewhat surreal atmosphere we find “The Woman on Pier 13,” an overheated, hyperventilating example of America’s burgeoning terror of an enemy within. 

The film previewed in 1949 with the straightforward but unintentionally silly title, “I Married a Communist.” RKO Pictures changed it after test audiences gave the thumbs down. Even with its new title, “Pier 13” is every bit the melodramatic tabloidesque B-picture that the original title suggests. But it reveals a lot about the country’s mood in that most unsettling era.

Its over-the-top depiction of American communists as a highly organized force of scheming, ruthless conspirators who infiltrated our institutions is a time capsule of American hysteria in the shadow of the H-bomb.  

While the Soviet Union conducted its first successful atomic test in 1949, the film came together a bit too early to press the nuclear annihilation panic button. Instead, it envisions a conspiracy of homegrown communists driving a wedge between labor and shipping industry management. 

“Pier 13” uses the communist threat in place of more typical forces of evil we see in noir — organized crime, corrupt politicians, police on the take and the like. Vast, ruthless and operating in a shadowy netherworld, these dark forces honor a rigid code of conduct, and disregarding it can have fatal consequences. Once you’re in, there’s no turning back. Like other noir heavies, the communist threat neatly checks off all of these boxes.

Richard Rober, Thomas Gomez and Robert Ryan.

As the film opens we meet San Francisco shipping executive Brad Collins (Robert Ryan), once, a card-carrying commie who labored as a stevedore in New York during the Depression. Later, he changed his name — he used to be Frank Johnson — and fled to the West Coast. A communist no more, he fits comfortably within capitalist society. But, his apparent serenity belies a dark stain on his past that won’t wash off.

Brad’s ex-flame, Christine Norman (Janis Carter), who’s secretly working for communist cell leader Vanning (Thomas Gomez), shows up unexpectedly and causes tense moments with Brad and his new bride, Nan (Laraine Day). Their whirlwind romance and quick, impulsive marriage hints at a darker core beneath an apparently shiny veneer.

Christine’s arrival isn’t a coincidence, she’s helping to put the squeeze on Brad. The local communists hold evidence that could send him to the gas chamber, and they want Brad’s cooperation. Brad labored under the misconception that he’d made a clean break with his past, but Vanning reminds him that this is folly. To underline the point, sadistic henchman Bailey (William Talman), who cackles madly as he kills (as homicidal maniacs do), disposes of an FBI informant in a particularly gruesome manner as Brad is forced to watch.

The scheme is to pressure Brad to reject dock workers’ contract demands, a move that will sabotage labor negotiations and send the industry into a tail-spin. Communists lurking within the union will arise, take power and trample loyal American workers with jackbooted feet. 

Meanwhile, femme fatale Christine, shunned by Brad, seduces Brad’s brother-in-law, Don Lowry (John Agar), while spoon-feeding him poisonous communist doctrine. Trouble is, Christine actually falls for Don. Commie boss Vanning, disgusted with her lack of resolve, chides her for being so “emotional.” Soon, pressures from within and outside of Don and Christine’s tortured relationship have grave repercussions. 

Nan gets wind of Bailey’s involvement in this web of treachery, and in an effort to collect intelligence against the killer, befriends him at the fairground where he operates a shooting gallery concession. When he’s not committing mayhem and murder, the leeringly randy communist hitman teaches attractive young ladies to shoot, all the while pawing them like a grabby uncle at Thanksgiving. 

Nan is later kidnapped, and Brad faces off against Vanning and Bailey, a duel that results in a familiar noir trope, a chase through a darkened warehouse. 

While westerns stage cowboy shootouts in the mountains, prairies or the sun-bleached dirt streets of a cow town, noir protagonists and villains, typically city dwellers, often have their last stand in steel mills, warehouses, atop train trestles or on rain-drenched asphalt — standard locations in the unforgiving heart of an industrial wasteland, where a man with a gun stands alone and overcomes unsurmountable odds — or doesn’t.

Howard Hughes, who owned RKO at the time, probably had little to do with “Pier 13” development, but we can safely assume that the film’s not-so-subtle suggestion that trade unions are peppered with communists and anarchist would appeal to the business tycoon who would have no doubt preferred that organized labor be relegated to Siberia. 

Despite, or perhaps because of, its fairly hysterical tone, “The Woman on Pier 13” may have helped nudge 1940s America toward a dimmer view of trade unions, signaling the start of their long, slow decline. 

In hindsight, organized crime, corrupt politicians and trade union officials, as well as industrialists’ propaganda probably played a more significant role in undermining their effectiveness than did the exaggerated threat of the relatively small, rather ineffectual Communist Party of the United States of America. 

These days, “Pier 13” may seem like low comedy or self-parody — the current situation in the Ukraine aside — but it neatly maps out the hot-button issues still before us, including home-grown and foreign conspirators, infiltration of government institutions, shadow governments seeking to undermine our way of life, while dishing out hefty portions of paranoia-inducing melodrama. 

The film ends on an optimistic note while serving as a cautionary tale of what might befall us if we aren’t more vigilant. That probably soothed frayed nerves back in 1949, however I’m reasonably certain that, for its reassuring sentiments and contention that justice ultimately prevails, Miss Berzetz would be loathe to take solace in it.