Not every Femme Fatale is a Femme Fatale

The Femme Fatale is a character who turns up rather a lot in the noir era.

Ava Gardner tempted Burt Lancaster to his doom in The Killers.


Barbara Stanwick persuaded Fred MacMurray to commit a murder in Double Indemnity.


Jane Greer dominated Robert Mitchum and Kirk Douglas in Out of the Past.


Claire Trevor dominated, well, everybody... in multiple films.


And just wait till we get a chance to see Lizabeth Scott in action (spoilers!).



Men Act; Women Appear (unless they're evil).

John Berger famously said that "Men look at women; women look at themselves being looked at."

Men look at women. Women look at puppies.

Laura Mulvey took Berger's ideas and developed them into an entire branch of film analysis (which she dubbed The Male Gaze) based on the idea that men in cinema are the subjects, while women are the objects.

"Men look at women. Women look at themselves being looked at..."

There are certainly plenty of examples of women being objectified in popular culture, but the image of the Femme Fatale in noir is interesting because it often reverses the Male Gaze.

...or vice versa.

Femmes Fatale are many things, but they are never passive. Yes, they are often the objects of man's desire, but in noir, that desire has been weaponised, and they have learned how to get what they want (or need) by manipulating every man they come across. 

Laura Mulvey would probably argue that this is why they are often portrayed as evil. There is nothing more dangerous (apparently) than a woman with an agenda.

This is what makes this week's film so interesting.


Phantom Lady was released in 1944 and is based on a novel by Cornell Woolrich. It tells the story of an unhappily married architectural engineer who comes home one evening to find his wife murdered. He is inevitably the prime suspect, and his only hope of an alibi is an anonymous woman he had met that evening. But no one can track her down, and no one seems to remember seeing them together...

Notice her hat. It's important.

Phantom Lady, however, isn't actually about any of that - at least not directly. Instead, the film centres itself around the efforts of his secretary (Ella Raines) as she tries to complete the investigation that the police had failed to conduct.


To get to the truth, it is necessary for her to take control of the narrative, and (quite literally in several instances) turn her gaze on the various men in the story.


Turning the "male gaze" back on itself is usually the role of the Femme Fatale, and Ella Raines demonstrates that she is quite willing to assume that role, should the situation call for it.


But in this instance, she isn't a man-eater. She's the detective. And she is quite happy to go anywhere and do anything (to anyone!) in her pursuit of justice.


Phantom Lady is generally considered the first noir to be directed by Robert Siodmak (who directed The Killers, and who will be showing up again in the coming weeks). 


And as with The Killers, Siodmak's cinematographer in this film was Woody Bredell, who gives the film its distinctive nightmarish atmosphere.


The film's producer, Joan Harrison, was Universal Studio's only female producer, and had started her career as a screenwriter with Alfred Hitchcock (she wrote Rebecca and Saboteur, amongst others) so she was no stranger to suspense. Or to strong female characters, for that matter!


Phantom Lady is quintessential noir, but it's also a reminder that every once in a while, the Femme Fatale... isn't.


We will screen Phantom Lady at 7.30 on Thursday, the 13th of March at the Victoria Park Baptist Church.

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