Joaquim da Silva Fontes, Significação e Estabilidade do Género no ...

at the core of the mystery of the film, which is stressed by the fact that she is initially
absent from the film (she is spoken of early in the film but is not seen until the story is well
advanced). She was placed under contract by Howard Hughes in 1944, and soon after by
RKO, where she eventually became one of the studio’s leading actresses and starred with
Robert Mitchum in two classic noirs: Tourneur’s Out of the Past (she would appear again
in a neo-noir version of the film called Against All Odds by Taylor Hackford in 1984) and
Gross’s The Big Steal, and another (minor) noir film entitled They Won’t Believe Me
(1947) directed by Irving Pichel and starring Robert Young. Her contribution to the noir
cycle may not be that imposing but the term “film noir” normally brings her name to mind
on account of her ability to interpret the role of femme fatale. In her own words, Jane Greer
recalls:
When I first signed at RKO, I darkened my hair. And dark hair makes you look a
bit sinister on the screen. Consequently, every part I got was “the other woman”.
Finally, I’d been there for years when a producer, Joan Harrison, wanted me for a
normal person. RKO said, “She plays a heavy”. But Joan told them I’ll fix it, and
she lightened my hair. Suddenly, I looked human. But I did have a hard time
moving away from that “other woman image”. (in Fitzgerald 2002:72)
Finally, third and perhaps most crucially, actor Kirk Douglas, who had the rare
privilege of starting his movie career with a reasonably important part in Lewis
Milestone’s noir film The Strange Love of Martha Ivers, where he plays Barbara
Stanwyck’s weak husband. In Hollywood, Douglas was instantly stereotyped as an
antihero, typically a bully, and frequently a villain. This is the case in The Strange Love of
Martha Ivers, where he acts as Walter O’Neil, a weakling alcoholic; in Out of the Past, in
the role of gambler / mobster Whit Sterling; and then, I Walk Alone (1948), a noir film
where he was teamed with Burt Lancaster in the role of Noll “Dink” Turner, the owner of a
swanky nightclub during the Prohibition era, and which sets up ideological oppositions:
Lancaster is a former criminal but a devoted friend with a code of honour (as a good
bootlegger); Douglas, by contrast, is socially correct but untrustworthy and crooked
(behind a corporate shield).
Douglas has had a full career on screen and became notorious for his sense of
independence. His participation in Champion (1949), a true revelation in Hollywood (and
often considered a noir film), marked the beginning of the actor’s total autonomy, and in
that film he plays Michael “Midge” Kelly, an egocentric boxer. Later in 1951, he acted as
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