Femme Fatale - Film Noir

Film Noir is a reflection of, and reaction to, the world within which it was created. With the majority of the films shot from mid-40s through to late 50s, Film Noir is a lens into the fears and values of that time and society. With the world coming to terms with the horror of what human did to human in World War II, the genre also had to deal with how the world at home had changed. We can see in the basic conventions of the genre these fears and realisations. Corrupt society, flawed men riddled with angst, and powerful and dangerous women: these characters work outside the law because they no longer trust its authority or effectiveness. This all reflects that state of mind of the people and their need to re-establish order. Femme’s fatales had to be brought to justice in the end because society was not ready for a world where the ‘good wife’ does not win out. The femme fatale is to be seen as a dark warning of what happens when the family unit is corrupted. All men that fall into her web of seduction are also punished and held up for example. The society needed these examples to scare the ‘little lady’ back into the kitchen.
Phyllis Dietrichson from Double Indeminity (1944) is a classic example. She infiltrated her way into the Dietrichson family by winning the trust of Mr Dietrichson, murdering his ‘good’ wife, and then seducing him to secure her place as his wife. She is not comfortable with the role of wife and merely sees it as a means to securing her future and disposing of his daughter. This is the worst type of corruption because she is using the traditional role of wife and in some way making a mockery of it to manoeuvre into being a widow and inherit his fortune. Because of this, she must be punished; and she is. An audience of the time was not ready to have a woman like her in the role of wife. They needed to be reassured that women like her were not able to survive and prosper from their ‘evil’ ways. Human life as merely a casualty of crooked commerce