The femmes fatale has become one of the classic characters of cinema. She’s a sultry seductress who will do anything to get her way, and leads the hero astray with her femine wiles, causing him not to think with his brain but instead with other parts of his anatomy. While both cinema and society have changed drastically over the years, the femmes fatale remains.
With the modern noir Give ‘Em Hell Malone arriving on DVD on Monday, we look back over some of the greatest femme fatales in movie history, from Elsa Pataky in Malone to Marlene Dietrich in Devil Is A Woman.
Evelyn in Give ‘Em Hell Malone (2009)
Played By: Elsa Pataky
Character: Evelyn is a sultry lady in red who plays the damsel in distress when her brother is captured and she turns to Malone for help
Story: The search is on for a suitcase and its mysterious content. Evelyn teams up with Malone (Thomas Jane), a former private eye turned gun for hire. They are pursued by cutthroat baddies including a crimelord Whitmore, his bodyguard Boulder (Ving Rhames) and his super-creepy pyromaniac sidekick, Matchstick
Outcome: Evelyn is a femme fatale with a sharp tongue and even sharper survival instincts who lied about having a brother. She double crosses Malone and leads him to the enemies. In a show down where her identity is revealed, she shoots Malone but he takes her hostage. Whitmore shoots Evelyn saying nobodys worth that much to me
Fox in Wanted (2008)
Played By: Angelina Jolie
Character: Fox – A ruthless and seductive assassin
Story: Angelina Jolie plays Fox, who deceives Wesley (James McAvoy) into believing his father was murdered. She uses seduction to keep him on side and attempts to get him to kill his father, who is actually still alive
Outcome: Wesley is saved by his father who then shoots him, but before he dies he tells Wesley who he is. Wesley gets his revenge on the Fraternity (who he and Fox work for) for lying about his fathers identity. Angelinas character Fox eventually kills the Fraternity including herself
Bridget Gregory in The Last Seduction (1994)
Played By:Linda Fiorentino
Character: Seductive, cheerful lethal femme fatale Bridget Gregory. An ultra-aggressive woman who knows exactly what she wants
Story: Bridget steals $700,000 from her drug-dealing ex-husband and tries to persuade her lover Mike to kill him by pretending he is someone else. When the plot is foiled, a complicated double-crossed plan is hatched
Outcome: Bridget kills her ex-husband and Mike is stitched up and convicted on rape and murder charges. Bridget escapes with the money
Catherine Trammell in Basic Instinct (1992)
Played By: Sharon Stone
Character: Catherine Tramell is a crime novelist. She is an openly bi-sexual, alluring and seductive character with a risk addiction, who has meaningless affairs and gets bored easily. She manipulates everyone and and loves to play games, and having published a best-selling crime novel it is suggested that she’s acted out the killings in the story in real life and is using her novels as alibis
Story: Nick Curran is a detective in charge of handling investigating the brutal murder of a rock star, in which Catherine Tramell is the lead suspect. She may have brutally murdered two lovers with an ice pick and two others with a gun. She is also suspected of killing her parents and her fiancé
Outcome: Through her cleverly planned seduction, men become blind with lust and get into dangerous situation.s The final shot features a pick axe under the bed, suggesting she has indeed gotten away with murder
Jessica Rabbit in Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1990)
Played By: Kathleen Turner (voice)
Character: Voluptuous cartoon character Jessica Rabbit is the sexy wife of obsessed hero Roger Rabbit, she is also a constant temptation to detective Eddie Valiant. A sultry character with mock innocence and extremely curvy, she famously says “I’m not bad, I’m just drawn that way”
Story: Eddie shows Roger photographs of Jessica cheating on him by playing patty-cake with Marvin Acme. Roger becomes distraught and runs away. Jessica knocks Roger unconscious and stows him in the trunk of her car
Outcome: Jessica maintains she knocked Roger out to keep him from getting hurt. Following capture and rescue by their friends, Roger and Jessica are reunited. In March, 2009, a UK newspaper voted Jessica Rabbit the sexiest cartoon character of all time
Matty Walker in Body Heat (1981)
Character: Matty Walker
Story: A ruthless woman plotting to murder her wealthy husband, Edmund (Richard Crenna,) and collect his entire estate. She convinces seedy Ned, a guy who is obsessed with her after they start an affair, to commit the murder
Outcome: Matty is killed in an explosion (identified by dental records) and Ned is imprisoned for the murder
Madeleine & Judy in Vertigo (1958)
Played By: Kim Novak
Character: The mysterious, dreamy and possibly suicidal Madeleine, before Novak becomes the more down-to-earth Judy
Story: John “Scottie” Ferguson beomces hooked under Madeleines mysterious spell and falls in love with her enigmatic beauty after being hired by old college friend Gavin Elster to trail her. Novak singlehandedly drives all round movie nice guy Jimmy Stewart insane with lustful fury
Outcome: Obsessed with Madeleine, after her death be becomes depressed and haunts the places she visited. He meets Judy, who looks like his lost love, and tries to make her into Madeleine.
Cora Smith in The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946)
Played By: Lana Turner
Character: Bored, married housewife Cora Smith
Story: Married Cora and drifter Frank Chambers have an affair. The lovers plan to kill the woman’s husband, after Cora plants the idea of murder into Franks head so that they can be together
Outcome: Cora dies in a car accident. Ironically, although it’s an accident, the circumstances seem suspicious enough that Frank is wrongly convicted of murdering her and sentenced to death
Gilda in Gilda (1946)
Played By: Rita Hayworth
Character: A hedonistic, flirtatious and auburn-haired woman called Gilda
Story: This is a dark complex noir film about a love triangle between, Gilda, who sexually manipulates her husband, and his best friend. The most famous scene is when Rita performs a seductive striptease where she only removes long black satin gloves. She becomes the object of a tension-filled, love-hate relationship between the two sexual rivals. As her ex husband put it, “I hated her so, I couldn’t get her out of my mind for a minute. She was in the air I breathed, the food I ate…”
Outcome: An eventual reconciliation with her ex husband after many months of an explosive relationship
Phyllis Dietrichson in Double Indemnity (1942)
Played By: Barbara Stanwyck
Character: A sultry performance as a greedy, two-faced and totally irresistible Phyllis Dietrichson. Stanwyck invented the modern femme fatale and even to this day is incredible sexy and dangerous
Story: Walter meets Phyllis during a routine house call. He falls in love with her and she persuades him to kill her husband
Outcome: Walter finds out that she is having an affair. He says Goodbye Baby and shoots her. Walter says he is going to go to Mexico rather than be arrested for her murder but collapses before he can reach the lift
Concha Perez in The Devil Is A Woman (1935)
Played By: Marlene Deitrich
Character: A beautiful yet elusive and heartless woman called Concha Perez. She is a seductive femme fatale that no man can resist
Story: During a busy carnival in Spain, a young revolutionary named Antonio is attracted to Concha. His friend Don Pasqual, a respected military man, also fell in love with Concha. He gave her money, but she taunted him and finally ran out on him forever. Antonio is so moved by this story that he decides to return to France alone, but he cant resist seeing Concha one more time
Outcome: It is a dreamlike story of frustrated, lost romance, spoken in the past tense, and is never really resolved