Femme Fatale: Cinema's Most Unforgettable Lethal Ladies by Ursini James & Mainon Dominique

Author:Ursini, James & Mainon, Dominique [Ursini, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780879107253
Publisher: Limelight Editions
Published: 2009-10-01T07:00:00+00:00

Even smiling, Barbara Steele looks sinister, in Federico Fellini’s 8?

Muriel (Barbara Steele), restrained with her lover David (Rik Battaglia), berates her captor, husband Dr. Arrowsmith (Paul Muller), in Lovers of the Outer Tomb.

In 1963 a true lover of femmes fatales as well as extraordinary actresses, director Federico Fellini, chose Barbara Steele for a part in one of his films—8?, his surreal, autobiographical tale of a director struggling to make a movie while meditating on his complicated relationship with dominant women.

In 1964 Steele returned to her bipolar roles in Antonio Margheriti’s moody, dreamlike The Long Hair of Death. Steele plays the daughter—Helen—of a condemned witch who is to be burned alive more for her refusal to submit to the corrupt Humboldts—the lords of a fifteenth-century manor—than for any alleged acts of sorcery. In the opening sequence, we see Helen submitting to the sexual advances of the obese and slavering Count Humboldt (Giuliano Raffaelli) in order to save her mother. But, as the Count services her orally, she hears cheers of the crowd below and rises to see her mother burning to death in an execution chamber made of wood. Her mother curses the Humboldts as she dies. Humboldt then murders Helen, as defiant as her mother, by casting her into a running river below a cliff.

Over the next decade, a plague spreads throughout the Humboldt land. Both the Count and his son Kurt (George Ardisson) descend into debauchery and petty bickering, impotent to stop the pestilence. Kurt like his father falls for one of the daughters of the witch, Elizabeth (Halina Zalewska). He first tries to force his lust on the daughter but like her sister and her mother before her, she defies him, biting his lip savagely. Kurt then convinces his father to order Elizabeth to marry him and thereby whitewash his lust.

Into all this melodrama glides the dark, vampiric figure of Mary (Steele also)—the spitting image of the dead Helen. She first appears during a storm, backlit by thunder and lightning. When the old Count sees her, he falls to the ground and dies of a stroke. Mary, not missing a beat, then sets about seducing Kurt. In one scene she takes him to bed while a curious Elizabeth watches, adding another perverse level to their lovemaking. Eventually Mary inspires her lover to plot the death of Elizabeth so they can rule together. Their plan seems to succeed when they drug the wife and bury her alive in a coffin.

Ultimately, however, the plan backfires as Kurt begins to see evidence of his “dead” wife everywhere. Whether it is his conscience reifying his guilt in the form of hallucinations or whether indeed his wife has survived, we are not sure. The ironic twist of the movie occurs when the filmmakers reveal that Mary is indeed Helen resurrected from the grave. In conjunction with her sister, Elizabeth has constructed this ruse to destroy the Humboldts as their mother wished. After showing Kurt her rotting corpse, the corpse he—in reality—made love to, Mary/Helen forces him outside and into a sacrificial wicker man.

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