The Top 5 Femmes Fatales of Hammer Films… Part One
Who doesn’t like a good femme fatale? And who doesn’t love a bad one? They may be murderous and totally out for themselves, but the best of them have such charisma it’s hard not to be drawn to these divas who put the slay into slay queen. We’re saluting these independent, intoxicating women with a look at their presence across a broad variety of Hammer productions, from the gothic horrors to post-war noirs and murder mysteries. So, with an immediate warning of spoilers ahead, settle back for a celebration of cinematic villainy as we present our top five Hammer femmes fatales, starting with a trio of stone-cold killers…
1. The Quintessential Femme Fatale: Lorna Vecchi from The Flanagan Boy (1953).
Lorna Vecchi, played by Barbara Payton in Hammer’s The Flanagan Boy, emerges as the classic American femme fatale. She clearly married poor old Giuseppe, a genial but gormless boxing promoter, for his fortune, but now she’s attained the easy life along with access to her husband’s cash, she’s bored by the whole thing and therefore wants more. And more. And more, until she’ll stop at nothing and nobody to get it. Meanwhile, in bout after brutal bout, boxer Johnny Flanagan proves he can punch any man to the canvas, but outside the ring he’s floored by the looks and allure of Lorna. She wants her increasingly irritating spouse out of the way and doesn’t think twice about manipulating the young pug into doing murder.
Posing for publicity shots: Tony Wright (who plays Johnny Flanagan) and Barbara Payton (Lorna Vecchi).
What makes Lorna so spellbinding is her utter brazenness. She’ll dance with Johnny in front of Giuseppe, seducing with a clinch, a whisper and a look that will lead to death. She’ll lie about being pregnant, misrepresent her love, fake her fear and disguise her end game, but there’s a staginess to it all, as if she’s enjoying the process of deception. It means her machinations are transparent to many observers, including the audience. When she tells Johnny, ‘If you won’t do it, I will!’ it’s clear she’s playing on his warped sense of masculinity, nudging him closer to obedience. When she feigns apathy towards him (‘I've seen better bodies hanging in a butcher’s shop…’) it’s another obvious ploy.
Little wonder onlookers, from Johnny’s best friend to her late husband’s grieving family, can recognise her chicanery with ease. But she doesn’t much care, playing coy one moment and almost flaunting her intentions the next. The Monthly Film Bulletin called Lorna ‘a flashy sex-menace’ which misses the point. She’s only flashy because often, she can’t be bothered to be anything less than overt. Why should she?
In the US the film was released as Bad Blonde which is hard to argue with, but equally, in terms of being a woman who seeks to get the upper hand over any man who can further her own schemes, she’s good. She’s fiendishly, fabulously good.
Marketing material for Whispering Smith Hits London which went into production 75 years ago, in May, 1951.
2. The Mysterious Femme Fatale: Sylvia Garde from Whispering Smith Hits London (1952).
In many respects Sylvia Garde, played by Greta Gynt, stands as the complete antithesis of Lorna. When defining a femme fatale, Backstage observed, ‘She keeps to the shadows, but is impossible to miss…’ which perfectly sums up one major aspect of Sylvia’s personality. A killer and confidence trickster par excellence, secrecy is key to her modus operandi, so much so that we’re into the final stretch of Whispering Smith Hits London before we even realise the horrifying extent of her wrongdoing. But prior to that we suspected she was up to her arched eyebrows in skullduggery because, as critic Brian Naas pointed out, Sylvia, ‘has femme fatale seeping out of every pore’.
She’s smart and she’s tough and everything was going just fine before ‘Whispering’ Smith got involved. Even after he started poking his nose into her shady business, she could probably have outwitted him, or at least stonewalled his investigation, but instead she chose to toy with him. And this overconfidence proves to be her fatal flaw. Whilst masquerading as another woman she refuses to lie low or play it safe. She’s compelled to seduce and ensnare, as if the impulse is in her DNA. Gynt’s performance adds to the aura of her self-assuredness and quiet command – always watching, prowling, assessing.
But still, the reveal in the film’s final twenty minutes comes as a shock. We want to like Sylvia because things become more interesting every time she sashays into a scene, but then again, we eventually realise that she doesn’t care about what anybody else wants. What matters to her is making money and staying one step ahead of the law, and when we meet Manson, one of her victims whom she’s reduced to a shell of a human, we’re left in no doubt as to the kind of criminal she is.
‘She was the most evil and fascinating creature I’ve known,’ he tells the eponymous gumshoe. ‘The sort of woman that men like me are fair game for. She bled me of every penny I possessed and then one day she disappeared…’
Yet such is her power that knowingly or not, Manson gives the impression that he remains infatuated by her. And here Sylvia displays that classic trait – despite all her faults she remains an exciting, beguiling, sexually potent force. Manson ended up losing all his dough, but on the bright side, Sylvia probably gave him the most thrilling time of his life, and now she’s vanished his days are once more humdrum and cold, typified by his drab little office and nondescript attire.
A detail of the evocative new artwork that accompanies Hammer’s recent 4K release of Whispering Smith Hits London.
Even the world-wise Smith falls for her dangerous charms and although he winds up with the sweet and sensible Anne, if at the end of the movie he’d have boarded the train with Sylvia, it would have made for a much more interesting and charged finale, and one which would have demanded a sequel.
Sylvia also looks the part and at one point gives us a definitive image of femme fatality: She’s wearing an eye-catching necklace, statement earrings and a swish fur coat. There’s contempt in her eyes and a pistol in each hand, and you just know she’d love to pull the triggers of both of them.
But ultimately there’s an unknowable quality to Sylvia. Why didn’t she kill Smith when she had the chance? Why didn’t she simply disappear, as she had done before, when the jig was up? And most intriguingly, did she have feelings for Smith or any of the men who came under her spell? It’s hard to tell, but we’re guessing that’s exactly how the enigmatic Sylvia Garde would prefer it to stay.
‘I quite enjoyed Countess Dracula. Lots of posh frocks and OTT acting…’ – Ingrid Pitt
3. The Ahead-of-her-time Femme Fatale: Elisabeth Nadasdy from Countess Dracula (1971).
When The Substance (2024) premiered at the 77th Cannes Film Festival, its ingenious premise created a minor sensation but soon divided critics. Forbes made its feelings known in its review’s headline: ‘Genuinely Bad Horror Movie That Makes Absolutely No Sense’, whereas Variety hailed it, ‘Shocking and resonant, disarmingly grotesque and weirdly fun… a feminist body-horror film…’
It’s a work that focusses on a high-achieving woman called Elisabeth who believes that to be successful she must look and feel much younger, and more than this, she must, in effect, become youthful again, rejuvenating her body through unnatural means. She takes extreme measures to ensure she can meet these seemingly impossible requirements and the results of her age reversal go miraculously well – initially, at least. But, of course, horror awaits…
Strangely enough, the description is also completely applicable to Countess Dracula, a movie that was way ahead of its time in pointing out the perils of seeking perpetual youth. Hammer’s countess in question is Elisabeth Nadasdy, played by the formidable Ingrid Pitt, and her story is set in Hungary during the 1600s. It begins in the immediate aftermath of her husband’s death. The newly widowed Elisabeth must deal with her lover, the cruel and ambitious Captain Dobi, the interfering Grand Master Fabio and most pressingly, the fact her late spouse has through his will, carved up his estate, leaving her only a fraction of his property and possessions. At this point we can sympathise with the Countess. She’s living in ‘a man’s world’ and their brutality is shown early on when a local clings to the side of her carriage, begging her for a job: ‘Your husband promised me work!’ he pleads. ‘My wife and boys are starving!’
Dobi strikes him and he’s killed after falling under the vehicle’s rear wheels. But the most unsettling aspect of the tragedy is the utter apathy with which it’s met. A soldier on horseback, accompanying the carriage, pauses to look back with concern and is asked, ‘What are you waiting for?’, as if even this momentary display of humanity is baffling.
Clearly, Elisabeth needs to be at her sharpest to survive in this unforgiving environment, but nevertheless, she must be considered the most ruthless femme fatale on our list. She’s adept at manipulating the men around her, getting what she wants with promises of intimacy or the lure of her money. So far, so standard. But what makes her exceptional is the ends she’ll go to in order to remain youthful, not simply slaughtering young women for the ‘elixir’ of their blood, but doing so without compunction. She routinely organises for girls to be killed, and even wants ‘backups’, as if the concept of reserve victims is as normal as keeping a spare tub of moisturiser in your bathroom cabinet.
At one point she opens her wardrobe, pulls back some gowns and reveals the dead, naked body of a woman she’d hoped would get rid of a few laughter lines. Elisabeth doesn’t even flinch. When it gets to that point – corpses in the cupboard – she should really have twigged that her ‘habit’ is spiralling out of control. But she’s too far gone, and later even tries to take her daughter’s life. Needless to say, it doesn’t end well. As the central character of The Substance would later find out, trying to stay young can really age you.
The magnificent Dame Joan Henrietta Collins played Molly Carmichael in Hammer’s school-based psychological horror, Fear in the Night (1972).
Honourable mentions
We should stress that the list above represents just a fraction of the killer queens who’ve enlivened Hammer movies over the years. The mesmerically heartless Gina from Blood Orange (1953) would have made the top five with ease (as our Fashionable Femme Fatale), but we’ve discussed her previously and had to make room for other evildoers! Similarly, we cover the exploits of Ingrid Pitt’s Carmilla in The Vampire Lovers: Queer as (Undead) Folk and you can read about the deadly Molly Carmichael (Joan Collins on fine form!) in Back to School: Fear in the Night.
What to Watch next…
If you fancy spending time in the company of some of the femmes fatales we’ve discussed, Whispering Smith Hits London and Blood Orange are both available in the Limited Collector’s Edition range. Want more? You can meet the murderous Molly Carmichael in Fear in the Night (1972) and you’ll find some glorious villains in The Gorgon (1964) and the classic Blood From The Mummy's Tomb (1971). All of them captivating, and all suggesting that the female of the species is more deadly than the male…
In the second and final part of this feature we’ll be putting more Hammer femmes fatales in the spotlight as we investigate the avengers!
