Detecting Women: Gender and the Hollywood Detective Film

419 Pages·2011·2.05 MB·English

by  Philippa Gates

FILM STUDIES / WOMEN’S STUDIES
Gates
In this extensive and authoritative study of more than three hundred films,
Philippa Gates explores the “woman detective” figure from her pre-cine-
matic origins in nineteenth-century detective fiction through her many in-
carnations throughout the history of Hollywood cinema. Through the lens
of theories of gender, genre, and stardom and engaging with the critical con-
cepts of performativity, masquerade, and feminism, Detecting Women analyzes
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constructions of the female investigator in the detective genre and focuses
on the evolution of her representation from 1929 to today. While a popular
assumption is that images of women have become increasingly positive over e
this period, Gates argues that the most progressive and feminist models of the
t
female detective exist in mainstream film’s more peripheral products, such as
e
1930s B pictures and 1970s blaxploitation films. Offering revisions and new in-
sights into peripheral forms of mainstream film, Gates explores this space that c
allows a fantasy of resolution of social anxieties about crime and, more inter-
t
estingly, gender, in the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. The author’s i Detecting Women
innovative, engaging, and capacious approach to this important figure within n
feminist film history breaks new ground in the fields of gender and film studies.
g

GENDER AND THE HOLLYWOOD DETECTIVE FILM
“This imaginative and entertaining study of the ‘woman detective’ film makes
W
a huge contribution by giving extensive treatment to the female detectives in
B movies and to the many investigating women characters in films not usually
considered detective films. It will have great appeal for scholars, film buffs, and
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mystery fans.” — Linda Mizejewski, author of Hardboiled and High Heeled:
The Woman Detective in Popular Culture m
Philippa Gates is Associate Professor of Film Studies at Wilfrid Laurier
e
University, Ontario. She is the author of Detecting Men: Masculinity and the Hol-
lywood Detective Film, also published by SUNY Press, and coeditor (with Stacy n
Gillis) of The Devil Himself: Villainy in Detective Fiction and Film.
SUNY
P R E S S
S
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State University of New York Press
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www.sunypress.edu Philippa Gates
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Detecting Women

Detecting Women
Gender and the Hollywood Detective Film
PHILIPPA GATES
Published by State University of New York Press, Albany
© 2011 State University of New York
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever
without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval
system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic,
electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without
the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY
www.sunypress.edu
Production by Kelli W. LeRoux
Marketing by Anne M. Valentine
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Gates, Philippa, 1973–
Detecting women : gender and the Hollywood detective fi lm / Philippa Gates.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4384-3405-6 (hardcover : alk. paper)
ISBN 978-1-4384-3404-9 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Detective and mystery fi lms—United States—History and criticism. 2. Women
detectives in motion pictures. 3. Women in motion pictures. I. Title.
PN1995.9.D4G385 2011
791.43'6556—dc22 2010023363
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
List of Illustrations vii
Acknowledgments ix
PART I
The Crime Lab
Gender and the Detective Genre
1 Introduction: The Case 3
2 Detecting Criticism: Theorizing Gender and the Detective Genre 17
PART II
The Rise and Demise of the Classical Female Detective
1929 to 1950
3 Movie Modernization: The Film Industry and Working Women
in the Depression 43
4 Detecting as a Hobby: Amateur and Professional Detectives
in the 1930s 69
5 Sob Sisters Don’t Cry: The Girl Reporter as Detective in the 1930s 93
6 In Name Only: The Transformation of the Female Detective
in the 1940s 135
7 The Maritorious Melodrama: The Female Detective in 1940s
Film Noir 163
vi Contents
PART III
From Crime-Fighter to Crime Scene Investigator
1970 to Today
8 Femme Might Makes Right: The 1970s Blaxploitation Vigilante
Crime-Fighter 191
9 Detecting the Bounds of the Law: The Female Lawyer
Thriller of the 1980s 221
10 Detecting Identity: From Investigative Thrillers to Crime Scene
Investigators 257
Appendix I 299
Appendix II 301
Appendix III 331
Notes 333
Selected Filmography 353
Works Cited 361
Index 375
List of Illustrations
Figure 1.1 Angela Lansbury as Jessica Fletcher 5
Figure 1.2 Rebecca De Mornay in Guilty as Sin 16
Figure 2.1 Bonita Granville in Nancy Drew, Trouble Shooter 28
Figure 2.2 Pam Grier in Foxy Brown 37
Figure 3.1 Fay Wray and Glenda Farrell in Mystery of the Wax Museum 58
Figure 3.2 Claire Trevor in Career Woman 65
Figure 4.1 Lola Lane in Girl from Havana 74
Figure 4.2 Edna May Oliver as Hildegarde Withers 83
Figure 5.1 Carole Lombard and Robert Armstrong in Big News 100
Figure 5.2 Glenda Farrell as Torchy Blane and Barton MacLane as
Steve McBride 120
Figure 6.1 Rosalind Russell and Cary Grant in His Girl Friday 142
Figure 6.2 Florence Rice in Girl in 313 155
Figure 7.1 June Vincent and Dan Duryea in Black Angel 176
Figure 7.2 Ann Sheridan in Woman on the Run 181
Figure 8.1 Tamara Dobson in Cleopatra Jones 201
Figure 8.2 Pam Grier in Friday Foster 209
Figure 9.1 Glenn Close and Jeff Bridges in Jagged Edge 230
Figure 9.2 Cher in Suspect 245
Figure 10.1 Jodie Foster in The Silence of the Lambs 272
Figure 10.2 Holly Hunter in Copycat 279
vii