“The dark lady, the spider woman, the evil seductress who tempts man and brings about his destruction is among the oldest themes of art, literature, and mythology in Western culture. She is as old as Eve, and as current as today’s movies…” (Place 35). It is the movies that have given us some of the most memorable images of these women, modern Circes who trap men, use and ultimately destroy them. The beautiful and treacherous woman of classic film noir, the femme fatale, and the equally dangerous and deadly silent vamps are creations of threatened men’s imaginations; they are fantasies of destructive female sexuality as seen through male eyes, but they also become figures of female empowerment. They are strong, independent, self-serving and deceptive women removed from their “proper place” and submissive role in a patriarchal society, and thus challenge the social order. But while the silent film seductress, played most famously by Theda Bara, was a type, her cinematic descendant, the femme fatale, developed a fuller, sometimes ambivalent, more clearly drawn and individualistic personality. The women of films like The Maltese Falcon, The Big Sleep, Double Indemnity, The Postman Always Rings Twice or The Lady from Shanghai were not caricatures of male fear projected unto the collective consciousness of the screen like the vamps, but fully blown, empowered women.
