Backstage, Adrienne delivers a sermon on her philosophy of love and life to Peggy/Daisy (Viola Barry), a corn-fed innocent stumbling her way through the decadent life of the chorus girl. She takes her under her wing and saves her from drunken lotharios by infusing her with a sense of her own worth. She in fact mentors her: teaching her to look for stability and wealth, to develop a style and a diva-like attitude. Little does she know that her mentee will ultimately be her undoing and precipitate the central irony of the movie.
The dramatic centerpiece of the movie is the discovery by Overman’s wife (Myrtle Stedmen) of her husband’s love nest. She visits Adrienne, contentedly lounging about in lingerie in her luxurious apartment, with the intention of retrieving her husband. Adrienne, of course, holds her ground, telling the wife that she has lost her man and now she possesses him. While they are arguing, the husband enters with flowers for his mistress. Humiliated, Mrs. Overman leaves both the apartment and her husband.
But Adrienne, unlike most of Bara’s femmes fatales, has a yearning for domesticity. In this, the writers add a very human layer to the character. Seeing that Overman will never marry her, she marries rich playboy Dave Wallace (played by actor/director Irving Cummings), hoping to change his ways. She is unable to and soon he takes up with Adrienne’s former protégé, Daisy.
Toward the end of the film, the filmmakers construct a powerful scene that mirrors the earlier humiliation of Mrs. Overman. Wallace has rented Adrienne’s old apartment for his new mistress Daisy. Adrienne, dressed in a conservative black outfit resembling the clothes Mrs. Overman wore when visiting her, confronts Daisy. Dressed in lingerie like Adrienne had worn in the earlier scene, she throws Adrienne’s philosophy back in her face (reprised in a flashback to the backstage scene).
Fulfilling the role of the femme fatale, Adrienne of course does not take this humiliation quite as passively as Mrs. Overman did. She grabs a letter opener and threatens Daisy but loses her nerve. When Wallace enters the apartment to greet his mistress, the irony is complete. Adrienne disappears from the scene, appropriately sailing away on a Blue Star liner in a blue-tinted night, alone and forlorn. Unlike Bara at the end of A Fool There Was, who was victorious over her foolish lover, the vamp here has received her comeuppance. The Christian Victorian values of early-twentieth-century America are safe, at least for the moment.
Alla Nazimova
—The Art Nouveau Vamp
Russian theatrical star Alla Nazimova was among the first actresses who benefited from Hollywood’s interest in importing its femmes fatales rather than home-growing them as they had done with Bara and Glaum. To Americans at the turn of the twentieth century, Europe represented the decadent Old World, filled with debauchery and corruption. One can see this reflected clearly in the novels of American writers like Henry James. It was, in addition, the birthplace of the femme fatale in literature. So why not take advantage of this perceived ethos, as well as Europe’s own highly developed and artistic worlds of cinema and theater?
In 1915 producer Lewis J. Selznick enticed Nazimova from the stage, where she had been incarnating strong modern women in the plays of Ibsen and Chekhov. In Hollywood Nazimova continued her portrayal of complex women in movies like Revelation (1918) and The Brat (1919). By 1919, she was making more money per film than America’s curly-haired sweetheart, Mary Pickford.
Always seeking to expand her creative control, Nazimova began to participate in the writing and production of her films. In 1921, with assistance of noted writer June Mathis (the mentor of the film’s male star: Rudolph Valentino) and art director Natacha Rambova, Nazimova produced her own stylized version of the Alexander Dumas (fils) world-renowned tale of femme fatale Marguerite/Camille and her “regeneration” through the power of love: Camille.
The first meeting between the future lovers of the film—Armand (Valentino) and the courtesan Marguerite (Nazimova)—is at the opera, where she is surrounded by fawning men, including the wealthy Count de Varville (Arthur Hoyt), with whom she “plays” as she does other wealthy benefactors. Armand falls immediately under her spell, but when he tries to approach her, she ridicules him: “A law student? He’d do better to study love.” As she sweeps down the staircase, Armand’s eyes fill with tears, signifying his sensitivity.
The art nouveau designs for Camille clearly on display in this scene with Camille and her retinue of hangers-on.
They meet again at a party in her art nouveau house. During a fit of coughing (which introduces the audience to her illness: tuberculosis), he falls on his knees before her, passionately declaring his devotion in no uncertain terms: “I wish I were a servant ... a dog ... that I might take care of you.”
The lovers do eventually escape the pressures of their respective lives and establish a love nest in the idyllic country. But even there they are pursued by the tentacles of society: debt, disapproving associates, and finally the imposing father of Armand. Only this paternalistic figure can change Marguerite’s mind and persuade her to release her lover from her loving leash so that Armand and his family will not be destroyed socially and financially. Marguerite leaves the country and returns to her old life and the Count de Varville.
The famous death scene from the play, performed by many prestigious actresses onstage throughout the decades, is somewhat novel in this version. Marguerite is surrounded by creditors who like vultures are examining her possessions, including her deathbed. The only possession they leave untouched is the book Armand gave her, Manon Lescaut by Abbé Prévost. As the film flashes back to happier days under the trees with Armand, Marguerite expires, alone.
This shot reeks of sentimentality and romanticism—the femme fatale Camille’s undoing.
Nazimova projects the erotic appeal of Wilde’s “bad girl” Salome, even though the actress’s age undercuts the character’s teenage allure, from Salome.
Designer Natacha Rambova was always daring in her costuming and art direction, from Camille.
Nazimova’s cinematic Waterloo was her 1923 adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s decadent play Salome. Based on the Biblical story of the teenage vixen, her seduction of her uncle Herod, and her obsession with the beautiful but pure John the Baptist, Wilde’s play had been met only with derision and legal action during its early performances. Nazimova adapted the play with Natacha Rambova (who also designed the costumes and sets), remaining faithful to the decadent spirit of the piece. The designs were largely inspired by art nouveau illustrator Aubrey Beardsley’s drawings for the publication of the play and were dazzling, but possibly too bizarre for American audiences.
In addition, Nazimova was moving into middle age and probably not the best choice for the role of the petulant and lustful teenager Salome. The film was a financial and critical failure. This fact, combined with the changing tastes of modern Jazz Age audiences, gently pushed Nazimova into retirement from the screen. She continued, however, to express her creativity and business sense in turning her meticulously designed villa on Sunset Boulevard—The Garden of Allah—into a decadent hotel/nightclub that became the scene of many notorious Hollywood parties and the watering hole for the glitterati of the town. Ironically, she made a comeback of sorts in 1941 in another classic femme fatale film, Blood and Sand, but this time as an aging señora—not the fiery Doña Sol (that role was reserved for the femme fatale of a new generation: Rita Hayworth).
Pola Negri
—The Comic Vamp
Pola Negri is unique among early vamps in that many of her roles in Germany and later in the United States, where she immigrated with her with mentor and director Ernst Lubitsch, are primarily comic. Even her more serious femme fatale roles like Bella Donna in 1923 always have a touch of humor to them, or what critic Molly Haskell in her book From Reverence to Rape called, “large measures of irony and understanding . . . .”
Negri, like many early stars of the cinema, grew up in grinding poverty, in her case on the streets of Warsaw. Her break came when she moved to Berlin and began to collaborate with Lubit
sch at Germany’s premiere studio: UFA. While there she came to the attention of Hollywood chiefly through two films: Carmen, a.k.a. Gypsy Blood (U.S. title), in 1918; and Madame Du Barry, a.k.a. Passion (U.S. title), in 1919.
Carmen, one of the most adapted femme fatale stories, gives Negri a role into which she can project her natural exuberance and sense of humor as well as her darker need to control men sexually. Lubitsch, the director, followed the outline of Prosper Merimee’s story while lifting a few scenes from Bizet’s world-famous opera. The direction seems none too inspired, unlike Lubitsch’s other works, but that matters little as it is Negri’s enthusiastic performance which sells the film. The viewer can see immediately why men so desperately want to worship this fiery cigarette girl. Two scenes in particular illustrate how captivating Negri’s performance is.
Pola Negri could project that sultry look needed for a full-blooded vamp.
Pola Negri could also be more playful.
The first scene occurs when Carmen comes up with a plan to divert the upright Don José (Harry Liedtke), who is guarding the gate and thereby allow her gang of thieves to pass with their stolen goods. Carmen approaches Don José while he is minding the gate. She lures him away from his post. Within a few minutes, he is on his knees worshipping her. Even though he is aware that the smugglers are slipping through the gate, he cannot stop. His heart sinks in despair and he says, “Lower and lower! I am no longer a soldier to be trusted!” Carmen then says to him, “Grieve not—tomorrow will bring sweet reward!” She then makes love to him violently.
The second scene is when Carmen decides to help Don José escape from prison, where he is being held for aiding her. She brings a loaf of bread with a file inside and tells the jailer innocently that it is for José, her cousin. The jailer is reluctant to pass on the food, fearing a trick. So Carmen begins teasing and mocking him by sticking out her tongue and shaking her head. She then converts her little-girl tactics into more womanly ones. She jumps onto his lap, caresses his face, and kisses him on the lips. This does the trick, and the bread is immediately delivered.
Lubitsch’s epic Madame Du Barry combines historical sweep with intimate passion in a commercial product that confirmed Lubitsch’s international reputation as a first-rung director, as well as assuring Negri’s status as an international star. Based loosely on the life of the milliner who became the powerful mistress of Louis XV, Negri again brings her vivacity to the part. She plays with the men in her life like a cat with mice. In the first scenes she has an older admirer carry her belongings to the abode where she is to meet her young, virile lover Armand (Harry Liedtke again). While flirting with Don Diego (Magnus Stifter) at the opera, she accepts the advances of the roué Count Du Barry (Eduard von Winterstein). When her young lover Armand arrives, this inevitably leads to a duel in which Armand runs Diego through with a sword. Du Barry tries to save her lover but is lured away by the wealth Du Barry offers her. As Negri plays her, she is an ambitious young girl who cannot resist the smell of money and the allure of controlling powerful men.
Her control over Du Barry soon fades, however, as he begins to use her for his own ambitions, sending her off to the court to present petitions for money he believes the king owes him. Du Barry uses her wiles for her own purposes and eventually Louis (Emil Jannings) becomes enamored with her. Soon he is kissing her feet as she languishes in her canopied bed, and later manicuring her nails as she petulantly upbraids him for leaving her side to meet with his ministers.
Intent on showing a softer, romantic side to Du Barry, Lubitsch and Negri give the lady a soft spot: her love for Armand. She saves him from execution and then has him promoted to an officer in the king’s guards. Although she desperately desires him as a sexual partner, he refuses, angry that his “sweet” milliner has become the notorious sybarite known to the rebellious masses as Madame Du Barry. Armand does eventually reveal his love as he tries to save her from the guillotine, dying in the process.
One particular scene has a curious prophetic quality in the film, as art seems to foreshadow life. After the death Louis XV from smallpox, Du Barry, now in the hands of her enemies, sees the coffin of Louis being carried out. She runs to it and falls to her knees, crying hysterically. Negri repeated this scene in real life seven years later at the funeral of her purported lover Rudolph Valentino. Many considered this over-the-top demonstration of her grief to be a publicity stunt; and it was one of the many factors that brought to an end her career in Hollywood.
1921’s Sappho, a.k.a. Mad Love (U.S. title), is probably one of Negri’s most controversial femme fatale roles. An engineer, Georg de la Croix (Alfred Abel), suffers a nervous breakdown due to the unfaithfulness of his lover, Sappho (Pola Negri). His brother, Richard (Johannes Riemann), wants to avenge him but instead falls in love with the captivating and decadent Sappho (her name hints at possible bisexuality).
Negri overpowers her victims in this lushly photographed and designed film with her enthusiastic and predatory sexuality, recalling Bara at her height. In addition, her magnetism radiates an ironic tone so typical of this lethal lady.
Nita Naldi
—The Intellectual Vamp
“On the vamp matter, I just don’t happen to look like an ingénue, and that’s why they cast me for the vampire, which is wrong again, because the real vampire is the little baby doll with the liquid eye. Every time. A man is scared to death of a woman who looks as if she might have a couple of thoughts. He wants to know it all. That’s men. The girl with the curls is the real vampire. I found that out when I was in the chorus. It was the blonde cutie that did all the damage to the front row.”—NITA NALDI
Nita Naldi, like so many of early American cinema’s “glamour girls,” was elevated from the chorus line, in this case the Ziegfeld follies. Actor John Barrymore handpicked her for the part of the prostitute /entertainer in his production of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1920). Her dark, sultry looks and lustful, zaftig body (a trademark of the early vamps like Bara and Glaum) made her the perfect femme fatale for Robert Louis Stevenson’s world-famous tale. She is the dark Mediterranean woman who incarnated for the Victorian period the “fatal woman” archetype. She is even, in the film, tied to the unjustly vilified historical figure of Lucrezia Borgia via a flashback telling the story of her poison ring.
With the introduction of Gina, the name of Naldi’s character, the sexual dimension of Stevenson’s story is made patent. The overt link between “evil” and “sex” is one that Barrymore (as Hyde) emphasizes in his scenes with Naldi. When he visits Gina, he paws her with his elongated fingers and bites her with his vampire-like teeth. There is no doubt in the mind of the viewer that the beast Dr. Jekyll has unleashed with his potion is “lust.”
In 1922, Naldi received her most significant break when she was cast opposite rising star Rudolph Valentino in Vicente Blasco Ibáñez’s Blood and Sand. As in Dr. Jekyll, Naldi’s character—Doña Sol—is introduced via an allusion to a historical femme fatale, here Cleopatra. After watching, in an obviously aroused state, the bullfighter Gallardo (Valentino) stalk and kill his prey, Doña Sol throws a handkerchief to her hero. When he opens the handkerchief, he finds an ornate ring with the design of a snake. She later explains to him that this once belonged to Cleopatra and that he should wear it, obviously as a mark of her ownership of him.
Gallardo, married to the good girl of the piece, Carmen (Lila Lee)—struggles to resist Doña Sol’s considerable erotic charms. She first seduces him subtly with more traditional techniques. But when he tries to bolt and go back to his wife, she appeals to the sadomasochism at the base of their relationship, first glimpsed in the bullfight she witnessed. She bites his hand like a wild animal and he slaps her down, like she has asked him to. As she lies on the ground, her hair loosened, her gown torn, she laughs hysterically, knowing that she still has him by the short hairs.
Keeping him on a short leash, she follows him when he tries to find some respite from her in a hideaway. There she confronts Carmen, staring
her down and laughing at her purity. But like any true vamp, Doña Sol grows tired of her muscular bullfighter. She attends his final bullfight, accompanied by a new benefactor, ignoring Gallardo. When Gallardo is gored by the bull, Doña Sol shows little emotion, having moved on in her life and loves.
In 1923 producer/director Cecil B. DeMille cast Naldi as Sally Lung, a Eurasian who seduces and infects the corrupt contractor Dan McTavish (Rod La Rocque) in his epic The Ten Commandments. DeMille first reveals Sally on a ship in San Francisco harbor. Covered by a black veil, she cuts her away out of a bag of grain; and like some preternatural insect, she crawls forth to make her way into the city. The title cards and a later newspaper article tell the viewer that she came from a leper colony, implying she is carrying a disease (in Hollywood code, read “syphilis” for leprosy).
This scene not only reinforces “yellow peril” fears of Americans, who were reacting against increased immigration from Asia, but connects Sally to the priestess of the Golden Calf in the Biblical episode which precedes the modern story (in fact, Naldi plays both the priestess and Sally in the film). As the priestess incited the Israelites to worship the Calf (a female deity based on Isis as can be seen by the horns and disk on the idol’s head), dancing half-naked while her acolyte tells her she will be a goddess to them all, Sally incites Dan and then infects him. Her apartment is a lair of exoticism and orientalism—incense, Chinese idols, Asian servants, elaborately designed silk garments. Dan, much like Gallardo in Blood and Sand, tries to break free after the death of his puritanically religious mother. But Sally informs him of his infection. In a fit of madness he shoots her and wanders off into the city to meet his comeuppance.
Femme Fatale: Cinema's Most Unforgettable Lethal Ladies Page 2