Dangerous dames
Subtitle: women and representation in the Weimar street film and film noir
By: Jans B. Wager.
Publisher: Ohio University Press
Published: 1999
Place of publication: Athens
Language: eng
Number of pages: 159
Subjects: Femmes fatales in motion pictures; Film noir -- United States -- History and criticism; Film noir -- Germany -- History and criticism; Street films -- Germany -- History and criticism
Description: Both film noir and the Weimar street film hold a continuing fascination for film spectators and film theorists alike. The female characters, especially the alluring femmes fatales, remain a focus for critical and popular attention. The antithesis of the femme fatale, which Wager calls the femme attrapee, has received considerably less notice.

Unlike most theorists, Jans Wager examines these archetypes from the perspective of the female spectator and rejects the persistence of vision that allows a reading of these female characters only as representations of unstable postwar masculinity. Instead, she suggests that the woman in the audience has always seen and understood these characters as representations of some aspect of her own existence.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 135-148) and index.