Film noir the most influential of the early noirs. A slew of now-renowned noir "bad girls" followed, such as those played by Rita Hayworth in "Gilda" (1946), Lana Turner in "The Postman Always Rings Twice" (1946), Ava Gardner in "The Killers" (1946), and Jane Greer in "Out of the Past" (1947). The iconic noir counterpart to the femme fatale, the private eye, came to the fore in films such as "The Maltese Falcon" (1941), with Humphrey Bogart as Sam Spade, and "Murder, My Sweet" (1944), with Dick Powell as Philip Marlowe. The prevalence of the private eye as a lead character declined
Portrayal of women in film noir Hayworth in "Gilda" (1946), Barbara Stanwyck in "Double Indemnity" (1944), and Lara Turner in "The Postman Always Rings Twice" (1946). These examples of deadly women commit crimes inside and outside the narrative of the films. As a consistent narrative trait in film noir, there are flashbacks embedded in the storyline, so as to signal towards the presence of a larger story outside of the feature film, an association with reality. As Karen Hollinger describes in “Film Noir, Voice-Over and the Femme Fatale,” women in film noir are subjected to the psychoanalytic perspective of the male, which forces a consistent attempt