In 2001, Eddie Muller, host of Turner Classic Movies' Noir Alley, published Dark City Dames, an homage to six golden-age Hollywood actresses who left their marks on the silver screen while playing femmes fatales and other morally dicey women. By the time Muller interviewed these actresses, the film business had long "discounted their allure." Muller didn't, and neither will readers of this invaluable expanded edition, which spotlights 10 additional noir actresses and offers an afterword containing "personal remembrances that, at the time, couldn't be included in the original edition."
The six featured actresses are heartbreakingly candid: Marie Windsor laments her dashed A-list dreams. Ann Savage recalls a life of trouble and tragedy. Evelyn Keyes's story would have challenged the Hollywood Production Code. The book is lavishly illustrated with promotional film posters, publicity shots, and personal photos. There's a feminist shimmer to the whole production--after all, crime dramas were, as Muller puts it, the only golden-age film genre in which women were the equals of men: "equally tempted, equally compromised, every bit as guilty." --Nell Beram, author and freelance writer