A pack of dime store dames and pin-striped players descended upon the Camelot Theatres in Palm Springs, California in June to celebrate the danger and despair of noir at the 2002 Palm Springs Film Noir Festival.

The line-up promised the best of a genre that has withered with time, as politically correct docents of filmmaking tend to shy away from the one-dimensional characters and the glamorization of crime that makes noir kick. Things that typically make up these films like con men, killers, cigarettes, deep focus photography, chiaroscuro, odd camera angles and urban settings have lost their allure in the mind, body and soul seeking millennium market. The inflatable doll secretary gone bad and the gold toothed playboy have been demoted to the closet with the cashmere sweatered fifties for years.

Nonetheless, the festival's line-up boasted such classic film noir flicks as D.O.A., His Kind of Woman, Woman on the Run, Detour, Kansas City Confidential and the Coen Brothers' 1984 version Blood Simple. And Art Lyons, author of Death on the Cheap The Lost B Movies of Film Noir showed up to interview cast members after the showings.

I wanted to love the films as much as I loved the Prada-esque kinky librarian clothes that the fifties femme fatales wore, but it was impossible. Film noir is notoriously lacking in depth and the paint-by-number plots and dialogue are best relegated to the "have your friends over for a theme party" evening where everyone gets drunk enough to find humor in the cheesy lines and cardboard props.

At the premiere showing of Simply Scarlet, an intense Technicolor farce of political deception and masterminded plots, flame haired vixen Rhonda Fleming fills the prototypical dame role. She is hot haired, hot blooded and secretarial simultaneously. Her life is torn between caring for a nymphomaniac sister fresh out of prison and serving as a PR person/marketing prostitute for her boyfriend with political aspirations. Of course, the minute a shady man makes an appearance into her life she is willing to throw her whole stable life away for just one kiss from this smooth talking charmer in chinos. Fleming keeps all eyes glued to the screen with her curves, her clothes, and her occasional quick sighs so that it doesn't matter if the words are bad, the lighting sucks or the plot is unbelievable because in film noir all you need is one helluva dame to keep the blood pumping in order to ensure its success.

After the film Rhonda Fleming, who obviously had not seen or thought of the film since its 1950's debut, mounted the stage for a question and answer period and was almost embarrassed as she discussed the revelation that her lines in the film had been "so corny." She also spoke about the studio world in which she rose as a star shortly after being discovered for the movies while jogging one morning on her way to Beverly Hills High School. The way she spoke, it seemed as if most girls back then were being exploited for their looks and the ability to fill out a tight sweater mattered more than their acting did.

The festival was held in a small artsy theater in Palm Springs, a city that was known in the fifties for its Hollywood hideaways. In those days you would find Marilyn Monroe sipping booze poolside at the Racquet Club or Natalie Wood in crisp, white chinos walking down Palm Canyon for shoes at the old architecturally perfect Saks Fifth Avenue. Most hotels in the city have hallways lined with framed photos from those "good old days" when the booze flowed, bikinis were stuffed wild, cliches were new to movie dialogue, and a dame could be just a dame.

But things must change and that was apparent when Mickey Spillane in his stale fedora and Jane Russell with her silver hair in a cobalt blue pantsuit rose from their audience seats to leave the theater after their films were shown. It was a soft reminder that in film, seedy and sexy, pompadoured men and hot-assed dames willing to take spills for money, power and play are a laughable thing of the past. In other words, modern day cinema denizens aren't fulfilled with pretty faces and cookie cutter plots anymore.

But it would be nice to see a modern day version of the film noir dame come alive to add some spice in today's cinematic efforts. Take the unabashed sexiness, the woman not afraid to look good in a dress, and combine it with a feministic, girl-power brain and an innate tendency to want to kick ass. The closest thing we have had is Jessica Rabbit or Laura Flynn Boyle in Red Rock West knocking back a drink and yelling, "I love tequila". It would be nice to see a wise cracking woman not afraid to wear stilettos while shredding her own damn espionage papers.

-- Kimberly Nichols

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