Blog Entry #4

#1

Both the endings of the novel and the film are in a way appropriate for film noir and somewhat not appropriate. I was excited on watching the ending of the film hoping it would be better than the novel’s but I stayed in the middle; liking and disliking both. To start off, the ending of the novel portrayed Phyllis as the femme fatal way more than the film’s ending did. In the end of the novel she talks about how she’s going to meet with the love of her life, referring to death. I don’t know about you but that gives me the chills. She’s seen as a crazy death-loving woman in that ending. On the other hand, in the film’s ending she doesn’t seem as reckless as a femme fatal. Of course her plan is to kill Walter Huff but she chickens out after she misses to kill him in the first shot. She does not just withdraw from the attempt to kill him but confesses to him that she is madly crazy in love with him.  A real femme fatal, as they are described, would have shot him again without thinking twice about it and she would have definitely not confessed any sort of love to the man she was using to her advantage. Now, about the way they died, the ending of the film was most appropriate. Phyllis needed to beg for mercy at her time of death instead of making her own choice about it and that’s how it happened in the film. Overall, the ending of the novel was the most appropriate for film noir for the reason that Phyllis was portrayed as the femme fatal until the end as Walter the weak ambiguous protagonist who falls too easy. Though that was the most appropriate, I believe the novel would have been perfect if Walter Huff would have got away with his plan to kill her in the park.

#4

Actor Barbara Stanwyck was appropriate for her role in the novel. Barbara Stanwyck was clearly the women I was imagining for the role of the femme fatal while reading the novel. She is an attractive woman with a thin fit figure. Her facial features seem very sweet and innocent, fooling anybody into thinking she’s an angel but with a lift of one eyebrow the image you once had of her turns to something uncomfortably evil. From the beginning to the end of the novel, Barbara Stanwyck stuck to her role and did a great job. She was fit for the role as a femme fatal. In contrast, Fred MacMurray was not who I was expecting to do the role of the protagonist. First of all his voice didn’t sound of a man who would be weak for any women who gave him an eyebrow lift. He also didn’t seem to me as a guy who would be single at that age but more of a family guy who would do no harm. In my opinion, a taller guy with finer cheek bones like for example, actor James Franco would have fit the role perfectly.