Laurie from Gun Crazy (1950) can easily slip into the mold of femme fatale, joining many other noir women who exude beauty and danger. Laurie, in fact, fills the mold completely; she does not become a femme fatale through the events of the film, she is not revealed to have secretly been a femme fatale all along, she is a femme fatale from the moment she appears on screen. Whereas other femmes fatales are shrouded in mystery, obscurity, and deception, Laurie’s wile is evident from the start. There isn’t a moment where the audience or her male counterpart have doubts about her femme fatale status, unlike with Brigid O’Shaugnessy or Phyllis Dietrich or any other number of leading women. Any ‘doubts’ Bart may have are purely of his own deluded creation because, from the carnival owner’s own mouth, we are told explicitly that Laurie is beautiful and dangerous. From that moment forward, the indicators and symbols of her ferocity and power do not let up.
One image sequence that I find so emblematic, as it shouts to the audience, and to Bart, of her lethality, is the match crown sharpshooting scene. First, Bart puts the crown on his head and goes to stand at the wall. At this point, the camera is behind Bart’s head and directed on Laurie. Every time she shoots, the angle shows she is shooting at the viewer as well. Laurie manages to light most of the matches on Bart’s crown, but they are blown out when she lights the second to last match. She misses the last shot, so the matches on Bart’s head are never lit at the same time. When it is her turn to play the target, the camera angle switches to keep her in the spotlight. We watch as match after match is lit by Bart’s shooting, until all the matches are lit and she is wearing a literal crown of fire. The camera lingers here for a moment as an eerie way of expressing her devilishness.
There is nothing oblique about her status as a lethal woman— it is even verbally expressed several times. The clown tells Bart as much, saying, “She ain’t the kind to make a happy home.” Laurie responds to Bart’s disclosure about going to a reformatory school with her own dark truths. She can only try to be good, but she knows it won’t stick. She even warns Bart, saying, “You aren’t getting any bargain.” This is notable because the power of so many other film noir femmes fatales comes from their covert ability to pull men’s strings, all the while letting these men hang on to the illusory hope that these women might actually love him. Laurie lays no such trap. Her status in a masculine and lethal profession as a sharpshooter gives her no room to play the “Oh, darling, you don’t think it was me, do you?” card. She even wears pants for most of the film, brushing away any lingering assumptions about the fairer sex and revoking the traditional image of womanhood. While Laurie definitely qualifies as a femme fatale, she is unusual in how openly she wears that status. Most femmes fatales dress as wolves in sheep’s clothing; Laurie is a wolf in wolf’s clothing.
This is part of a series of posts I wrote for a film noir class I took in graduate school. You can find the rest of my film noir posts here.