Dark City Dames The Wicked Women of Film Noir

Hollywood's devotion to "good girls" took a beating after World War II. That's when the crime movies, later to be called "film noir," introduced a new archetype: the hardboiled dame. Shrewd, sexy, and strong-willed, these dames knew what they wanted, and stopped at nothing to get it. Eddie Muller, author of the quintessential noir opus "Dark City: The Lost World of Film Noir," escorts readers behind the scenes with the tough, flinty femmes fatales of such noir classics as "Out of the Past, Tension, Kiss of Death, The Prowler, Detour," and "The Killing." He profiles six extraordinary actresses who embodied, onscreen and off, the changing roles of American women -- Jane Greer, Evelyn Keyes, Ann Savage, Coleen Gray, Audrey Totter, and Marie Windsor -- as they balanced love and career, struggled against typecasting, and sought fulfillment in a ruthless business. Filled with delicious gossip and attitude -- and cameos by Tinseltown figures like Howard Hughes, Robert Mitchum, John Huston, and Otto Preminger -- "Dark City Dames" reveals the traps and triumphs of being a working actress in 1940s Hollywood. And in revisiting the actresses fifty years later, it goes further, offering hard-earned insights on the vagaries of life, love, success, and celebrity.Muller, Eddie is the author of 'Dark City Dames The Wicked Women of Film Noir' with ISBN 9780060988548 and ISBN 0060988541.