Cherchez La Femme
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

To get to the heart of film noir, cherchez la femme. Over the next four weeks, “Essential Noir” presents 34 treasures of shadows and light, masterful mood pieces, whether grade A or B, of anxiety, sin, and sex. Some of the best-known take their titles from their distaff protagonists: “Mildred Pierce” (screening December 26, 27 & 28) takes its name from Joan Crawford’s Oscar-winning role; “Laura” (December 5 & 6) and Charles Vidor’s “Gilda” (December 12 & 13) dispense with surnames. Sometimes the appellation is simply a nom de noir, as in “The Phantom Lady” (December 5 & 6), “The Lady From Shanghai” (December 10 & 11), “The Woman in the Window” (December 15 & 16).
The femme in these films isn’t always fatale; occasionally she is une femme douce. In Robert Siodmak’s 1944 “Phantom Lady,” Carol Richman (Ella Raines) plays Nancy Drew to prove her wrongly convicted boss’s innocence. In Henry Hathaway’s 1947 “Kiss of Death” (December 7 & 8), Nettie (Coleen Gray) stands by her man, yardbird Nick Bianco (Victor Mature). But it’s the gritty gals we remember best, especially those in the adaptations of James M. Cain’s masterful pulp novels, all set in Los Angeles: Billy Wilder’s 1944 “Double Indemnity” (December 26, 27 & 28), Michael Curtiz’s 1945 “Mildred Pierce,” and Tay Garnett’s “The Postman Always Rings Twice” (December 10 & 11).
Cain’s ladies make quite a first impression. When insurance salesman Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray) sees indolent middle-class housewife Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck) in her two-story Los Feliz home in “Double Indemnity,” she’s dressed in nothing more than a towel and an anklet. When she finally puts some clothes on (not just any old duds but Edith Head-designed finery), Phyllis is even more lethal. In “The Postman Always Rings Twice” drifter Frank Chambers (John Garfield) gets an eyeful of shapely gams during his first encounter with hash slinger Cora Smith (Lana Turner), turned out in matching white shorts, halter, open-toe pumps, and turban. When we first meet hardworking, self-abnegating restaurateur Pierce, she sports a fur and ladylike gloves – sartorial semaphore for enterprising capitalist.
Phyllis, Cora, and Mildred form a noir sorority, but Mrs. Dietrichson and Mrs. Smith share an evil twinship. Far more venal and manipulative than the virtuous Mrs. Pierce, these platinum blonde temptresses itch to cash in on spousal life insurance policies. Their plan: off their inconvenient husbands, and sweet-talk their lovers into doing the dirty work. Amour fou becomes folie a deux: “It’s you and me, Walter, straight down the line,” Phyllis purrs to the cunning salesman, who’s gaga over his siren but still smart enough to realize they’re both headed straight to hell. “Guess we’re chained to each other, Cora,” Frank sheepishly mumbles.
Noble, long-suffering Mildred doesn’t require a man for her money-making schemes: She stands up to her dead-beat, two-timing husband, fends off the advances of hubby’s masher business partner, and gives her snooty gentleman friend the heave-ho (temporarily, anyway). She’s got salty gal pal Ida (Eve Arden) to help her with her pie-baking emporium, but she’s hopelessly in love with her monstrous social-climbing teenage daughter Veda (Ann Blyth, described by James Agee in his review of “Mildred Pierce” as “a little girl whose name I can’t find who is as good an embodiment of all that is
most terrifying about native contemporary adolescence as I ever hope to see”).Whatever Veda wants, Veda gets: piano lessons, dresses, a car, a mansion, even Mommy Dearest’s boyfriend. Locked in a sadomasochistic bind, Mildred both hates her bratty, condescending child (“Get out, Veda. Get out before I kill you”) and passionately reveres her (in Cain’s novel, they even share an open-mouthed smooch). When the prodigal daughter returns, the mother-and-child reunion spirals into an even more fatal attraction.
Queens of noir can be found outside of Los Angeles, of course. The tagline for the masterwork crowed: “There never was a woman like Gilda!” Was there ever a woman quite like Rita Hayworth? In Buenos Aires, the hair tossing, guitar-strumming, bumping-and-grinding seductress marries for money even though she’s still crazy about her ex, Johnny Farrell (Glenn Ford). Slowly peeling off her long black gloves, she quickens our pulse and his during her “Put the Blame on Mame” number.
But she’s got a funny way of expressing her ardor: “Would it interest you to know how much I hate you, Johnny? I’d destroy myself to take you down with me.” Two years later, Hayworth showed up as the more languorous vamp Elsa Bannister, the titular Lady from Shanghai in then-husband Orson Welles’s hall-of-mirrors jewel.
The lady vanishes, but the lady reappears, beguiling and betraying all the time – just like the best of her noir sisters.
Until December 23 (209 W. Houston Street, between Sixth Avenue and Varick Street, 212-727-8110).