Many accounts of ‘film noir’ only see a bleak cityscape in which (the) man is threatened by (a) woman — frequently defined as a femme fatale (even when this is inappropriate), and the language used to describe her is often even stronger than her supposed ubiquity:

here is a world where it is always night, always foggy or wet, filled with gunshots and sobs, where men wear tuned-down brims on their hats and women loom in fur coats, guns thrust deep into pockets. (Higham and Greenberg, 1968: 20)

Most uncertain of all is the commitment of the central female character, who may prove true to him [the morally equivocal hero of the thriller] ... or false ..., but who will almost certainly sexually enslave him. ... The Circe figure quite often entices the hero by her song, ... or by her dance. ... The dissembled passion of the femme fatale is characteristic of the film noir. (McArthur, 1972: 46)

The world of the film noir and its heroes did show the seamy side of a section of American life: the poor detectives operating from shabby offices, insurance embezzlers, scheming and unfaithful wives, neurotic femmes fatales, impassive hired killers, frightened little men, and corrupt police officers. These people are the negation of the American dream and Hollywood-made optimism. Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe are expressions of the powerlessness of the honest and decent individual against the nightmare world of crime and corruption and an anonymous social system. (Karimi, 1970: 148; my emphasis throughout these quotes.)

here is no room here to go over the theoretical debate between the ‘textual spectator’ and actual spectators, though it is an important one in relation to feminist writing on ‘film noir’ but I have to admit a tendency towards sympathy with the latter. At the same time, I entirely recognise that without the kind of work conducted by Helen Taylor on Gone With the Wind (Scarlett’s Women, 1989) and Jackie Stacey on female audience responses to Hollywood stars in the 40s and 50s (Star Gazing, 1994), one cannot do more than imagine what the responses to 40s pulp fiction films were. However, what I want to do now is look briefly at two films — Laura and Gilda — in the context of women’s centrality behind and in front of the camera, while bearing in mind the following kind of comment (about Gone With the Wind) from Pat West, a trainee nurse ‘trying to impress both sides of the family by following in the two most admired aunts’ footsteps’:

I saw Scarlett O'Hara enter that barn, take one look at the wounded men — and walk out! That was a real turning point in my life. I realised in an instant that you could walk away from illness and from what everyone expected of you. (Taylor, 1989: 38)

There had to be something in these films noirs for female spectators — whether it was the treat of seeing women giving as good, if not better, than they got; the idea that men and women can be equally evil or equally innocent; confirmation of the existence of masculine perversity; or, simply, the refreshingly life-size image of male fallibility.