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Sexy Noir Dames

Posted: April 14th, 2007, 6:14 pm
by ken123
I love Joan Bennett in " Scarlett Street " & " The Woman in the Widow ". Claire Trevor was one tough sexy dame in " Murder, My Sweet ", Linda Darnell was great ( and oh so sexy ) in " Fallen Angel ", and Barbara Stanwyck was ruthless and breathe takingly alluring in Double Indemnity ". I don't want to forget Helen walker & Joan Blondell ( still very hot ) in " Nightmare Alley ", and Marie Windsor in Kubrick's " The Killing " . Are there any comment or new nominee's out there. :wink:

Posted: April 15th, 2007, 8:37 am
by Mr. Arkadin
No love for Gloria Grahame?

Posted: April 15th, 2007, 9:14 am
by SSO Admins
Mr. Arkadin wrote:No love for Gloria Grahame?
When I saw this topic she was the first one to pop into my head. She wasn't traditionally beautiful, but she just dripped sex appeal. She was an amazing actress as well. Didn't she win an Oscar?

Posted: April 15th, 2007, 9:33 am
by Mr. Arkadin
Yes. Best Supporting/The Bad and the Beautiful (1952). Great film.

Posted: April 15th, 2007, 12:46 pm
by vallo
Don't Forget Lizabeth Scott.

vallo

Females of Noirdom

Posted: April 15th, 2007, 1:22 pm
by Sue Sue Applegate
I enjoyed performances by all the ladies you mentioned, ken. I was a young teenager when I saw Lizabeth Scott, and was mesmerized by her performance in I Walk Alone with Burt Lancaster.

About the same time, I saw Gloria Grahame in The Bad and The Beautiful, Oklahoma, and DeMille's The Greatest Show on Earth. My mom had talked quite a bit about her when she was on Burke's Law and so that sparked my interest a great deal. Then I read somewhere she had been married to Bob Mitchum's brother for a time. Always enjoyed her quirky voice and interpretations of lines that she made uniquely her own.

Claire Trevor was always one of my favorites since the first time I saw her in Stagecoach, and then that showstopper in Key Largo. Geeze. Her moments in KL blew me away. Forever after, it always gave me a frame of reference for women who drank and subjugated themselves for some sort of Faustian deal which destroyed their
autonomy.

These two Trevor performances I viewed at relatively the same time, and it illustrated for me the 'periods' in the careers of actresses, and how their looks changed due to age, ability, and demands of a role.
I really owe her a debt of gratitude for that little epiphany.

Posted: April 15th, 2007, 7:06 pm
by klondike
Not that she got a lot of exposure, but I thought the (then) up-&-coming firebrand Ida Lupino made quite the strong mark in her noir outings, sort of the "cross me now, I'll kill ya later" kinda gal.

Noir Dames

Posted: April 15th, 2007, 10:03 pm
by ken123
How did I ever forget Jane Greer as Kathy in Out of the Past ? :wink:

Noir Dames

Posted: April 15th, 2007, 10:06 pm
by ken123
I really liked Gloria Grahame in The Big Heat, The Bad and the Beautiful, and Crossfire. Liz Scott best, IMHO, was Dead Reckoning. :lol:

Posted: April 17th, 2007, 7:03 pm
by mongoII
Not to forget my favorite noir dame Marie Windsor, especially in "The Killing", and "The Narrow Margin".

sexy noir dames / Jean Gillie

Posted: April 18th, 2007, 12:59 pm
by Dewey1960
I'll nominate one who many fans are probably unfamiliar with: Jean Gillie. Ms. Gillie was an Australian-born actress who came to Hollywood in the late 40s, made a few films then, sadly, died. Her masterpiece is DECOY, a 1946 B-noir from Monogram Pictures, directed by her husband, Jack Bernhard. DECOY is perhaps one of the most singularly brutal noir films ever made, largely because of Ms. Gillie's chilling central performance. It makes Ann Savage (brilliant as she is) in DETOUR seem tame by comparison. The good news: this obscure oddity will be part of Warner Home Video's next Film Noir Box Set to be released in July. For me, it will be the DVD release of the year!!! The VHS tape I have of this film was taken from (believe it or not) a Serbo-Croatian tv broadcast (complete with subtitles!!)

Posted: April 18th, 2007, 1:30 pm
by Rusty
Talking about Gloria Grahame...have you watched her in the film The Man Who Never Was (1956)? The movie is a dramatization of a bit of real World War II history...not film noir.

The reason I am asking is...Ms. Grahame looks odd in this film. I mean, her face is shiny. No one else in the movie has a shiny face. Gloria Grahame's glossy face make-up is so noticeable it is distracting. I wonder why the producers of the movie did not soften the look of shiny Gloria Grahame.

Rusty

Posted: April 18th, 2007, 1:55 pm
by movieman1957
Rusty:

I noticed that too. It's been awhile but I also wondered why she took such a fairly small part (as I remember it.) I know it's possible she was on the backside of her career. Could it have been a failed attempt to make her look younger?

I thought the idea the movie is based on is quite good. I know the early part of the film there is a bit of discussion on how to make it look authentic.