The Queen of Film Noir

I vote for Marie Windsor.

I think Barbara was the better actress at every level. But Lauren looked like THE femme fatale. She was every trashy novel cover somehow made classically elegant. Barbara could kill you with a line. But Lauren already killed you just by looking at you.

It certainly does not come down to Lauren Bacall in the top 2.

She would barely make the top 10.

Ida Lupino, Gloria Grahame, Lana Turner, Peggy Cummins, Rita Hayworth, Lizbeth Scott, Gene Tierney, Jane Greer and even Joan Crawford gave far more indelible performances in the genre.

Gloria or Lizabeth

Lana Turner?

Jane Greer?

Really?

Stanwyck took the crown with "Double Indemnity." Bacall was all show, but in a couple of them it was a great show.

My personal favorite is Gloria Grahame. Always complicated, always fucked up, always giving as well as she got.

Lee Marvin scalding her face and then getting him back in "The Big Heat" was perfect.

Off topic, "His Kind of Woman" is wonderful!

Gaby Rodgers in the ultimate noir Kiss Me, Deadly 1955

I think Bacall held her own in The Big Sleep, although it was more zero-temperature glamour than Stanwyck's mercurial poisonousness in Double Indemnity.

I think Barbara always seemed somehow desperately attainable, while Lauren could turn on an orbit that suggested the wastes of Pluto.

There is a possibly apocryphal story that someone once teasingly asked J. Edgar Hoover who he would rather be shot by - Barbara Stanwyck or Lauren Bacall - knowing he hated both women.

He allegedly responded "What makes you think they both wouldn't fire at once?"

Viv Vance.

Yes, Gloria Grahame deserves a mention, but Staynwyck is the queen of peak noir.

Stanwyck in Double Indemnity pretty much invented the quintessential femme fatale. And she was just as good in The File on Thelma Jordon.

Lizabeth. But for Laura and Leave Her to Heaven (which, though Technicolor, is noir to the core) Gene Tierney.

I think what gives Stanwyck the edge was that she was not afraid to play against her own strong good looks. I remember being surprised that her style in Double Indemnity (which I had always thought the epitome of Hollywood glamour) was intended to look trashy and unconvincing, as was her house. Bacall in The Big Sleep is an unattainable aristocrat, which I think ultimately works against the character as someone we can ever understand.

I mixed up the wrong film noirs in my post at R11. I meant to say Stanwyck was just as good as a femme fatale in The Strange Love of Martha Ivers.

"Ida Lupino, Gloria Grahame, Lana Turner, Peggy Cummins, Rita Hayworth, Lizbeth Scott, Gene Tierney, Jane Greer and even Joan Crawford"

While that may be true from a film historian's point of view, I think Barbara and Lauren and the most indelibly etched into the public mind as the faces of Film Noir.

Who now makes any reference to Jane Greer?

Lauren Bacall is not associate with film noir; she is associated with her first husband .

R5 tell me you know nothing about film noir without telling me you know nothing about film noir.

I love the poverty row noirs, with lesser stars like Vera Hruba Ralston and Adele Mara. Many of these have been released in recent years with gorgeous prints. I hope there will be more to come. It’s like a treasure trove.

out of R3 list, Lizabeth Scott is the most noir imo…the rest are more general stars

Babs was the best actress on the list, but equally known as a comedienne

[quote] I love the poverty row noirs, with lesser stars like Vera Hruba Ralston and Adele Mara

And let's not forget the greatest of all the poverty row film noir fatales: Ann Savage!

Really no contest, Bacall was merely decorative in the movies she made with Bogart (she nailed them, sure, but mostly due to her looks).

After Barbara (don’t forget Sorry Wrong Number), i second Gloria Graheme and Gene Tierney.

R21, I don't think that's entirely fair to Bacall. There was something behind those eyes in To Have and Have Not, and she was more than merely swanky in The Big Sleep.

I think if she didn't have such an awful reputation behind the scenes people would be more appreciative of her talent (which she herself admitted was limited).

Audrey Totter

^yes! Audrey Totter is another one superior in the Noir sphere to Bacall.

R16, Lauren Bacall is not associated with Film fucking Noir?

You may not like her, but she is absolutely associated with that school of film.

R22, i don’t disagree with you, but i firmly disagree with comparing her to Stanwick.

R25, i am not r16 bur though she is indeed associated with film noir, her two roles were never prominent enough, by herself, to be a seminal example of the genre. Even Joan Crawford has more credits in this respect

^much less “queen” of film noir

R17 Thanks for introducing me to poverty row noir. I'm adding some of those films to my watchlist.

I vote Stanwyck as the best, but who can forget Lana in "The Postman Always Rings Twice"?

Russian facebook is where all the old movies are at. I use a download program to save them for posterity

And where is Veronica Lake?

Lizabeth Scott

Colleen Gray

Helen Walker

Questioning Jane Greer just indicates you haven’t seen Out Of The Past which is a seminal, Top 5, Film noir. Perhaps Mitchum’s finest hour as an antihero. An early excellent performance from Kirk Douglas. And Jane Greer as the one who made it all happen as an archetypal Femme Fatale.

Promoting Lauren Bacall, (who had a window as a glossy chic actress opposite her great husband in these films) as a noir icon thanks to two crime dramas, shows you have no idea about cinematic history.

Lauren had a small part in the history of Film noir. More realistically was an important Golden Age actress. She had a brilliant career. But Film noir was not her legacy the way it is for the other women listen upthread. She was not a Queen of the genre.

Ahem.

Maybe not a queen but certainly a queen mother.