Rating: 
Summary: Great book for Noir lovers!
Review: If you liked DARK CITY, Muller's previous book , you'll love his latest! He interviews six Noir dames who starred in the most notable films of that era. You'd be hard pressed to find ANYTHING on any of these ladies, since they were not BIG stars. But Muller gives them their due and the praise they deserve. The photos are great, but you wish there were MORE (my reason for leaving off a star in my rating). If you want to know about the women behind such great Noir classics like Narrow Margin, Kiss of Death, Detour, you'll really enjoy this book. It's a great companion to all the other Noir books out there! Recommended!
Rating:
Summary: Great book for Noir lovers!
Review: If you liked DARK CITY, Muller's previous book , you'll love his latest! He interviews six Noir dames who starred in the most notable films of that era. You'd be hard pressed to find ANYTHING on any of these ladies, since they were not BIG stars. But Muller gives them their due and the praise they deserve. The photos are great, but you wish there were MORE (my reason for leaving off a star in my rating). If you want to know about the women behind such great Noir classics like Narrow Margin, Kiss of Death, Detour, you'll really enjoy this book. It's a great companion to all the other Noir books out there! Recommended!
Rating: 
Summary: Those Dangerous and Intriguing Women
Review: One of the most challenging roles for an actress is that of a femme fatale. She must exhibit far more than mere treachery. The femme fatale must convince audiences that what the poor male succumbing to her charms is experiencing is plausibly merited. She must exhibit the kind of overpowering appeal combined with a Svengali manner to sell audiences that the poor man's captivated fascination is plausibly worth it. Otherwise the whole story falls flat.Eddie Muller writes about women who accepted that challenge and surmounted it convincingly. Jane Greer is a classic example. While only 22 when she appeared opposite Robert Mitchum in the classical noir work, "Out of the Past," she revealed a native intelligence and air of sophistication of a woman who had been around forever. Mitchum, while fully aware of her treachery, found himself incapable of turning away until it was too late and he was ultimately doomed. Ann Savage was a former model who found her niche as a femme fatale in one of the most remarkable low budget triumphs in Hollywood annals, "Detour," directed by independent film genius Edgar Ulmer, who took a no frills, low budget project and carved out a classic by using limited space to commanding advantage. Tom Neil could not get away from Savage, who exuded a suffocating presence on the hapless musician, who was trying to reunite with his singer girlfriend in Los Angeles. Savage clearly had other ideas. Marie Windsor was a willowy former beauty contest winner who traveled from her small Utah hometown to Hollywood in search of fame. Her height was a turnoff initially in her career and she was compelled to work in a lot of low budget westerns before getting her opportunity to shine, which she did in Stanley Kubrick's "The Killing." Her scenes as the faithless wife in love with gigolo Vince Edwards and her shamefully sadistic usery of husband Elisha Cook Jr. serve as a dramatic highlight of a superb, hard-hitting movie about an ex-con played by Sterling Hyden, who seeks to engineer a holdup of a racetrack on the biggest pay day of the season. The more Cook begs and implores, the more savagely biting the wisecracks which emanate from Windsor, but in the final analysis the henpecked husband hits back in a way neither she nor Edwards are able to anticipate. Coleen Gray and Audrey Totter are also included in Muller's work. His penetrating interviews enable the reader to get familiar with the personalities and their lives away from the cameras. Gray played the girlfriends of Sterling Hayden and Tyrone Power in two noir gems, "The Killing" nnd "Nightmare Alley," while Totter was the love interest of detective Philip Marlowe, played by Robert Montgomery, who also directed, in Raymond Chandler's "The Lady in the Lake."
Rating:
Summary: Those Dangerous and Intriguing Women
Review: One of the most challenging roles for an actress is that of a femme fatale. She must exhibit far more than mere treachery. The femme fatale must convince audiences that what the poor male succumbing to her charms is experiencing is plausibly merited. She must exhibit the kind of overpowering appeal combined with a Svengali manner to sell audiences that the poor man's captivated fascination is plausibly worth it. Otherwise the whole story falls flat. Eddie Muller writes about women who accepted that challenge and surmounted it convincingly. Jane Greer is a classic example. While only 22 when she appeared opposite Robert Mitchum in the classical noir work, "Out of the Past," she revealed a native intelligence and air of sophistication of a woman who had been around forever. Mitchum, while fully aware of her treachery, found himself incapable of turning away until it was too late and he was ultimately doomed. Ann Savage was a former model who found her niche as a femme fatale in one of the most remarkable low budget triumphs in Hollywood annals, "Detour," directed by independent film genius Edgar Ulmer, who took a no frills, low budget project and carved out a classic by using limited space to commanding advantage. Tom Neil could not get away from Savage, who exuded a suffocating presence on the hapless musician, who was trying to reunite with his singer girlfriend in Los Angeles. Savage clearly had other ideas. Marie Windsor was a willowy former beauty contest winner who traveled from her small Utah hometown to Hollywood in search of fame. Her height was a turnoff initially in her career and she was compelled to work in a lot of low budget westerns before getting her opportunity to shine, which she did in Stanley Kubrick's "The Killing." Her scenes as the faithless wife in love with gigolo Vince Edwards and her shamefully sadistic usery of husband Elisha Cook Jr. serve as a dramatic highlight of a superb, hard-hitting movie about an ex-con played by Sterling Hyden, who seeks to engineer a holdup of a racetrack on the biggest pay day of the season. The more Cook begs and implores, the more savagely biting the wisecracks which emanate from Windsor, but in the final analysis the henpecked husband hits back in a way neither she nor Edwards are able to anticipate. Coleen Gray and Audrey Totter are also included in Muller's work. His penetrating interviews enable the reader to get familiar with the personalities and their lives away from the cameras. Gray played the girlfriends of Sterling Hayden and Tyrone Power in two noir gems, "The Killing" nnd "Nightmare Alley," while Totter was the love interest of detective Philip Marlowe, played by Robert Montgomery, who also directed, in Raymond Chandler's "The Lady in the Lake."
Rating:
Summary: Superb biography of the queens of film noir
Review: Some 50 years ago, the women of this book worked in relative obsurity amidst the shadows of large studios during film noir's heyday. Now with the resurgent popularity of the film noir genre, these actresses are finally being recognized for the keen talent they possess and the effect they had on a generation of movies. None of these women are household names because none of these women were given the star publicity treatment that Myrna Loy, Joan Crawford and others were givne during the same time period. But their stories are every bit as interesting and author Eddie Muller tells them wonderfully. Muller is obviously a fan of folm noir, but does not let this color these biographies. Rather, Muller deftly allows the six actresses featured here to tell their own stories. The result is an honest, touching and insightful view into the Hollywood moviemaking era of the late 30s to early 50s. Each actress' life is chronicled from the time she was born until the present. The personalities shine through as Muller shows the different ways in which each woman found a love for acting and was later "discovered" by Hollywood. The result is poignant. From the exhileration of the "big" movie to the sorrow at the death of a spouse, each life is fascinating. A great book!
Rating: 
Summary: overproduced and underwhelming
Review: Terrific tribute to these wonderful underrated actresses. So sad that Lizabeth Scott and Rhonda Fleming were not included. Well maybe next time. If there is a second volume , I would love to find out more about Dorothy Malone and perhaps Peggy Cummins ("Gun Crazy"), Jan Sterling and Eleanor Parker.
Rating:
Summary: Down at the Endd of Lonely Street
Review: Terrific tribute to these wonderful underrated actresses. So sad that Lizabeth Scott and Rhonda Fleming were not included. Well maybe next time. If there is a second volume , I would love to find out more about Dorothy Malone and perhaps Peggy Cummins ("Gun Crazy"), Jan Sterling and Eleanor Parker.
Rating:
Summary: overproduced and underwhelming
Review: This is a big drop off from the author's previous venture into noir country. At first glance this looks like some leftover research for the previous book that's been squeezed into a separate volume. The premise is contrived, trying to make some random veteran actresses seem somehow representative of film noir on and off the screen. While a couple of them had exciting real lives, such as Jane Greer most were just starlets or working actresses. And most of the Jane Greer material is covered in the recent Bob Mitchum bio, while Evelyn Keys wrote her own book a few years ago, and even some of the others have told these anecdotes in Filmfax or Psychotronic magazines. The reason they come together in this book is not so much that they represent film noir as that they are the only ones in those cast lists still alive! (though some have already passed away now). Better to see a nice illustrated compendium of all of film noir's great femme fatales than a rather padded volume about just the ones the author could find in the L.A. phone book. Lovely ladies all of them I'm sure but they don't represent a coherent group and the book seems to overreach its grasp by some distance. Overall the feeling is that the writer is trying to milk a subject that's been done better and given more value for the buck elsewhere.
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