“Among her many singular contributions, the femme fatale enabled a cut-the-crap directness between men and women that’s virtually extinct in contemporary American cinema, not only in romantic comedies but in dramas as well, both of which thrive on miscommunication between the sexes. … By the early 1950s, the femme fatale all but disappeared from the big screen, displaced by the politely swooning housewives of Douglas Sirk and, later, empowered ass-kickers like Faye Dunaway in Bonnie and Clyde.”