why are the bad girls so good?

I moderate a mailing list for Dallas movie geeks and the question came up as to whether anyone nowadays can match someone like Rita Hayworth in Gilda for sexiness and charm. I got so caught up in my response I wanted to document it here.

I recommend Gilda and The Lady from Shanghai.

I think part of the Rita Hayworth mystique comes from these two femme fatale roles. In my opinion the role she played has helped cement her as an icon more than any of her natural talents. Look at the list below and I think you’ll agree that all these women meet or exceed the Rita Hayworth standards for sexiness and charm. And I think the reason for that is due to the femme fatale roles that enhanced their popularity.

Gilda is an essential film noir, but why settle for Rita Hayworth. 1946 was an exceptional year for hot actresses in femme fatale roles. What about Veronica Lake in The Blue Dahlia (Who had helped pioneer the femme fatale type in 1942’s The Glass Key)? Ingrid Bergman did Notorious (although not typical femme fatale), Lana Turner did The Postman Always Rings Twice, Lauren Bacall did The Big Sleep and Ava Gardner did The Killers. Just staying inside the film noir genre you also get incredibly performances from Barbara Stanwyck in Double Indemnity (1944) or the long suffering Maxine Cooper from Kiss Me Deadly (1955).

By the way, I highly recommend Kiss Me Deadly. In my opinion it’s one of the highlights of the genre. It’s influence on the French New Wave, in particular Godard and Truffaut, lives on as a testament to its excellence. An excellent primer on Kiss Me Deadly can be found here:

http://www.bighousefilm.com/reviews/kiss_me_deadly.htm

Heck you can look at film makers today and see the influence. That suitcase in Pulp Fiction sure looks and acts a lot like the suitcase in Kiss Me Deadly.

Oh and since I brought up all this film noir stuff, Coen Brothers fans should watch The Glass Key and Miller’s Crossing, The Postman Always Rings Twice and Man Who Wasn’t There and The Big Sleep and The Big Lebowski. It’s a fun way to deepen your appreciation of the Coen Brothers movies. Listening: Paranoid Android - Radiohead