Deadlier Than the Male: Femme Fatales of 1960s and 1970s Cinema

by Douglas Brode

THEY'LL LOVE YOU TO DEATH! James Bond's bad girls. Wicked queens of ancient myth. Bisexual vampire women. Teenage temptresses. Deadly dinosaur dames in fanciful fur bikinis. Golden princesses of porn. And many, many more. They were the wicked women of the 1960s and 1970s. While there have always been femme fatales in films, no one had ever believed anything like this pop-culture revolution could be possible, as overnight the 'new freedom of the screen' came into being. Censorship was out. Nudity was in. The golden age of the wicked woman lasted for two full decades. During that time, B-movies and exploitation flicks, as well as Hollywood A-movies and international cinema, played host to a remarkable array of deliciously deadly females who had two things in common: They were all drop dead gorgeous and they promised devoted fans "the desired death." Rich with rare photos, filled with previously unknown details from the private lives of the very real women who incarnated these fantasy femmes, here is the ultimate encyclopedia of their on- and off-screen adventures. DOUGLAS BRODE is a novelist, graphic novelist, screenwriter, playwright, and multi-award-winning journalist. He created and taught the Film Classics program at Syracuse University until his retirement in 2013.