If Valentine cards are too lame and saccharine for your taste, then maybe you need something a little more hard-boiled for this lovers’ holiday. Perhaps, “What do I call you besides stupid?” or “We go together like guns and ammunition” are more in line with the romantic sentiments you’d like to express to your gumshoe or femme fatale. If that’s the case, then here are some lethally attractive film noir romances with the cynical bite your cold heart craves.
Marriage vows state, “till death do us part.” But in noir, that death is very rarely of natural causes. I mean, there’s a reason women in noir are referred to as femme fatales – they can be deadly.
Here’s a list of the 10 best classic American films noir to celebrate with on Valentine’s Day.
SPOILER ALERT: If you haven’t already figured it out, I will be revealing the endings to these films, and everyone dies… well almost.
1. Double Indemnity (1944)
The couple: Barbara Stanwyck, Fred MacMurray
Collateral damage: Tom Powers
James M. Cain’s novel offers a classic noir triangle: a sexy young wife (Barbara Stanwyck); an old husband (Tom Powers) married for money and convenience; and an attractive man (Fred MacMurray) who presents an opportunity for change.
The attraction is purely sexual between Stanwyck’s Phyllis Dietrichson and MacMurray’s Walter Neff, and it steams up the screen. But in Walter, Phyllis also spies a useful tool to advance her ambitions. Once they kill Phyllis’ husband, they are bound by their crime and fear the other will betray them. Phyllis explains to Walter, “Nobody’s pulling out. We went in this together and we’re coming out at the end together. It’s straight down the line for both of us.” How romantic, right?
Here’s what makes Double Indemnity the perfect cynical, hard-boiled noir romance: Phyllis’ confession of true love (if anything in noir can be trusted as true) only comes AFTER she shoots Walter. The shot is not fatal and Walter taunts her with, “Why didn’t you shoot again, baby? Don’t tell me it’s because you’ve been in love with me all this time.”
Phyllis replies: “No, I never loved you, Walter, not you or anybody else. I’m rotten to the heart. I used you just as you said. That’s all you ever meant to me. Until a minute ago, when I couldn’t fire that second shot. I never thought that could happen to me.”
Of course, Walter isn’t buying it and as the two embrace, he fatally shoots her. Then he confesses all to his boss at the insurance company and ends up in the gas chamber. Now that’s what noir romance is all about.
2. Out of the Past (1947)
The couple: Jane Greer, Robert Mitchum
Collateral damage: Kirk Douglas
In Jane Greer’s Kathie, Out of the Past gives us perhaps the most perfect example of a femme fatale who brings down multiple men without batting a single luscious lash. Robert Mitchum’s Jeff is a private detective hired to track her down after she has shot Kirk Douglas’ Whit and stolen $40,000. But Jeff is immediately attracted to Kathie and instead of turning her in, he decides to run off with her. When she tries to explain her past, Jeff just dismisses it with, “Baby, I don’t care.” He’s no victim to her femme fatale wiles but rather a man surrendering to his fate. The book the film is based on is called Build My Gallows High and Jeff knows where this relationship will end.
Jeff passes on the love of a good woman, not because he is in love with Kathie but because Kathie threatens to frame him for multiple murders, plus he knows exactly what she is and feels a responsibility to deal with her. They die together when they face a police roadblock and Kathie shoots Jeff, and then the police riddle the car with bullets.
Mitchum, along with MacMurray and later you will see John Garfield, represent the noir lovers sort of redeemed by death. They take responsibility for their bad deeds, don’t really blame the femme fatales for leading them down a dark path, and accept death as their appropriate punishment.
Here’s your perfect noir sentiment for Valentine’s Day from the film. Kathie pleads, “Can’t you even feel sorry for me?” And Jeff replies, “I’m not going to try… Just get out will you, I have to sleep in this room.” And of course, Mitchum delivers that retort with hard-boiled perfection. Yes, this is love noir style.
3. Criss Cross (1949)
The couple: Yvonne DeCarlo, Burt Lancaster
Collateral damage: Dan Duryea
Unlike Mitchum and MacMurray who knowingly enter the lethal embrace of a femme fatale, Burt Lancaster is a naïve lovesick sap who is genuinely shocked when he’s double-crossed by Yvonne De Carlo. Lancaster’s Steve falls hard for De Carlo’s gorgeous Anna and believes she loves him with the same romantic passion as he loves her. But when an injured Steve comes to get Anna so they can run away with some stolen money, she reveals her true colors and devastates him. With wounded puppy dog eyes, he disbelievingly asks if she is really going to leave him. Anna, who only ever thinks of her own survival, says of course and then lists the practical reasons that his injury would slow her down and that it would be better if she got away with the money and only he got caught.
Steve, still trying to hold on to his romantic image of her, says, “All those things you said to me, you weren’t lying, you meant it. I know you meant it; you loved me.” To which the cold-blooded Anna replies, “Love, love… you have to watch out for yourself. That’s the way it is. What do you want me to do, throw all this money away… you don’t know what kind of a world this is… People get hurt I can’t help it.”
Steve starts to see with clear eyes for the first time and confesses, “I never wanted the money, I just wanted you… I just wanted to hold you in my arms and take care of you. It could have been wonderful, but it didn’t work out. What a pity it didn’t work out.”
Anna’s mobster husband finds them and shoots them both dead before the cops gun him down. Anna’s body lies draped over Steve. Fade out on another noir love story.
4. Gun Crazy (1950)
The couple: Peggy Cummins, John Dall
Gun Crazy is the precursor to the violent love on the run neo-noirs of Bonnie and Clyde and Badlands. Peggy Cummins’ Laurie reels in John Dall’s Bart with femme fatale precision. In fact, as a carnival sharpshooter she literally aims her gun at him and fires. It’s early in the relationship so it’s just blanks. She lures Bart into a crime spree that can only end one way, and that’s in a shoot-out. But while the earlier films on this list end with the lovers double-crossing or turning on each other, Gun Crazy is more of an us-versus-the-world vibe. When Laurie and Bart are on the run at the end, they are still in love. As dire as their situation is, Bart proclaims, “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
It is only when the police corner them and Laurie threatens to kill the cops that Bart shoots her and then the cops riddle both with bullets. The film ends with them lying dead together, and the final music leaves us with a sadly romantic feeling. This might be as close as a noir romance gets to a happy ending.
5. The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946)
The couple: Lana Turner, John Garfield
Collateral damage: Cecil Kellaway
We are returning to James M. Cain country with The Postman Always Rings Twice so brace yourself for some savage noir romance. When Lana Turner’s platinum blonde Cora enters, we know that John Garfield’s Frank is hooked. He may act tough and try to assert his dominance over her, but he’s a goner. As with Phyllis and Walter, the sexual tension is palpable on screen here.
Cora uses love as Phyllis does to advance her ambitions. She has married for convenience and wants to shed her hubby but keep his business, which means divorce is out of the question. So, she suggests an alternative idea to Frank.
Cora says, “I love you Frank, and I want you, but not this way. Not starting out like a couple of tramps… Do you love me so much that nothing else matters?.. There’s one thing we could do that would fix everything for us.”
Frank gets her drift and initially tries to resist but eventually helps her murder her husband (played by the likable Cecil Kellaway). Now the classic noir bond comes into play as Frank points out “we’re chained to each other, Cora.”
Fear of a double cross drives their relationship until Cora dies in a car crash where Frank was driving, and he gets sent to the gas chamber. Frank wants to fight the charges because he insists he did not kill Cora; it was an accident. The lawyer explains that even if Frank dodged this murder rap, they would come get him for the murder of Cora’s husband. It is only at that point that Frank accepts his fate. It’s okay to be executed but he just doesn’t want it to be for killing Cora because he loved her… didn’t trust her but did love her. That’s noir love till death do them part.
6. Too Late for Tears (1949)
The couple: Lizabeth Scott, Dan Duryea
Collateral damage: Arthur Kennedy
This one is a doozy, and Lizabeth Scott’s Jane gives Greer’s Kathie a run for her money as noir’s femme fatale high priestess.
Jane just wants more. So, when a bag of money is literally thrown in her lap, she wants to keep it while her upstanding hubby (Arthur Kennedy) wants to turn it in to the police.
Enter Dan Duryea’s Danny, the crook who wants his money back. But Jane has other plans. First, she tries to play tough with Danny and delivers the great line, “What do I call you besides stupid?” But then she changes tacks and sweet talks Danny into helping her kill her annoyingly decent husband and then split the money.
Jane’s laser-focused drive to keep the money no matter what the cost soon scares even tough guy Danny who assesses – and correctly – that she’s more of a killer than he is. Danny soon realizes resistance is futile and gives in to her desires knowing full well that she will likely dispose of him when he is no longer useful. As the doomed partner, Duryea has some of the best lines. He tells Jane, “You know, Tiger, I didn’t know they made ’em as beautiful as you are, and as smart or as hard” and “Don’t ever change, Tiger. I don’t think I’d like you with a heart.”
She casually kills him with a celebratory drink laced with the poison he bought – now if that’s doesn’t say noir love I don’t know what does. She then heads south of the border where she is tracked down. When confronting the authorities, she draws a gun and as she backs up on the balcony, she trips and falls to her death with the money swirling around.
7. Angel Face (1952)
The couple: Jean Simmons, Robert Mitchum
Collateral damage: Herbert Marshall, Barbara O’Neil
OK, this is a bit of a repeat of Out of the Past and Robert Mitchum should know better by now. Jean Simmons’ Diane gives Mitchum’s Frank one look, and he breaks a date with his goody-two-shoes girlfriend. Diane wants to get rid of her stepmother – and along the way her own weak father – so she can get to her money, and she tries to seduce Frank into helping her.
When Diane, like Kathie, plays the innocent, Frank responds, “Diane, look, I don’t pretend to know what goes on behind that pretty little face of yours – I don’t want to. But I learned one thing very early. Never be the innocent bystander – that’s the guy that always gets hurt. If you want to play with matches, that’s your business. But not in gas-filled rooms – that’s not only dangerous, it’s stupid.”
But once again, Mitchum plays a smart, tough guy who knowingly enters a doomed relationship because he just can’t help himself. Murder and arrest simultaneously drive the couple apart and force them into marriage. When Frank decides to leave, he clearly understands that letting Diane drive him to the bus station will be the last ride he will ever takes since he knows Diane rigged the car crash that killed her stepmother and father. Diane decides that if she can’t have Frank, no one can so she drives them both over a cliff to their death. Till death do us part, baby.
8. The Strange Loves of Martha Ivers (1946)
The couple: Barbara Stanwyck, Kirk Douglas
Collateral damage: Judith Anderson
Barbara Stanwyck gets to play a less dynamic femme fatale here as she tries to escape the cruel clutches of a wealthy aunt (Judith Anderson). As Martha Ivers, Stanwyck accidentally kills her aunt and then is forced into a marriage with Walter (Kirk Douglas) because Walter’s father is blackmailing her over her aunt’s death.
This film has a second set of lovers in Van Heflin’s Sam and Lizabeth Scott’s Toni who complicate things. Heflin plays the now grown-up boy Martha loved as a child and wanted to run away with. Scott, getting to bat for the good (bad) girls, has just been released from jail and is trying to turn a new leaf. She offers Heflin true love with no strings attached. The best scene in the film is with Stanwyck, Heflin, and Scott laying out the sexual and power dynamics in a few terse lines. Martha professes her lifelong love for Sam and almost reels him back in. But her love is now tainted by her fear that Sam too is trying to blackmail her. Sam resists Martha’s urging to kill Walter so they can marry. His decision allows him to escape with Toni to lead perhaps a normal but much duller life.
Walter ends up killing Martha and then shooting himself, and they die in each other’s arms. So goes love and marriage in noir.
9. Murder My Sweet (1944)
The couple: Claire Trevor, Mike Mazurki
Collateral damage: Miles Mander
The main character here is Philip Marlowe (Dick Powell) and while high society dame Helen (Claire Trevor) tries to sink her talons into him, he never becomes one of her victims – although she does attempt to kill him, and he takes a good beating for her.
Helen has a past life as a nightclub performer named Velma. Moose (Mike Mazurki), whose name sums up his hulking stature, was completely smitten with his Velma and only wants to find his lost love so he hires Marlowe. Marlowe pieces together that Helen and Velma are one and the same, and that Helen has been up to no good.
Helen has married Leuwen (Miles Mander), a sugar daddy old husband. Leuwen’s daughter assesses her stepmom perfectly: “Beautiful, expensive babes who know what they’ve got… all bubble bath, and dewy morning, and moonlight. And inside, blue steel, cold, cold like that only not that clean.”
When the film comes to its messy conclusion with a pile of corpses, of course it is Helen who is responsible. She is shot by Leuwen whose daughter has opened his eyes to Helen’s true nature. Then the lovesick and enraged Moose busts in, and he and Leuwen shoot each other. Moose is the sweetly tragic figure here. He is so consumed by love that would do anything for his Valentine Velma. And that should make you feel all warm and fuzzy.
10. Niagara (1956)
The couple: Marilyn Monroe, Joseph Cotton
This is a rare noir shot in color, but when you see Marilyn Monroe in that pink dress you understand why. The film plays two marriages off each other. First, you get the adorable couple of Ray and Polly (Casey Adams and Jean Peters) vacationing at Niagara Falls on a delayed honeymoon. Then we meet Rose (Monroe) and her shell-shocked husband, George (Joseph Cotton). Rose is obviously more woman than poor George can handle, and she knows it and rubs his nose in it. At one point she taunts him with, “Sure. I’m meeting somebody, just anybody handy, as long as he’s a man! How ’bout the ticket seller himself? I could grab him on the way out or one of the kids with the phonograph. Anybody suits me. Take your pick.”
Rose plans to dump George, but her plans get disrupted. George realizes that his only option is to kill her. His decision is fueled both by his jealous love for her and his fear that she will kill other people. After an elaborate and gorgeously shot chase, he strangles her and tells her lifeless corpse, “I loved you, Rose. You know that.” And in this case, it is the truth. So, he takes a boat to the edge of Niagara Falls and plummets to his death. How much more romantic can you get for Valentine’s Day?
Bonus pick: Needed to drop one homme fatale here, They Won’t Believe Me (1947). Robert Young plays a cad who charms women and marries for money. He plays a role in the death of two women (Susan Hayward, Rita Johnson), and leads another (Jane Greer getting to play the good girl) on. He really can’t hold a candle to the femme fatales on this list in terms of ruthless manipulation and body count, but he deserves mention.
The ending of this film is great. Young, on trial for Hayward’s death, is convinced the jury will never believe he did not murder her, so he attempts to jump out the courtroom window to commit suicide but is shot dead. Then the jury enters to read their verdict of not guilty. You gotta love noir!
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