As a lover of film noir I was struck by the femdom and risqué themes in three now famous movies: The Blue Angel 1930, Gilda 1946 & Sunset Boulevard 1950 mainly that all of them centre around a cuckolding diva. Women who flirt or take lovers that they flaunt in front of their husbands. (For a full explanation of cuckolding see my blog Cuckolding the Ultimate Sexual Humiliation here.)
Gilda 1946 The plot makes little sense but importantly it revolves around Gilda trying to humiliate Johnny her husband by flirting with other men in front of him and even at one point starting a striptease in a room full of men. Here she is using a type of flirty cuckolding to humiliate him and punish him with his own jealousy. (This is another interesting clip along the same lines from the movie http://youtu.be/tT4j62qfKVs )
Here is Rita Hayworth in the famous scene from the movie, proving her place as one of the most beautiful and alluring women in the world – now that’s the art of tease (and most definitely an inspiration for Jessica Rabbit.)
Stunning, Enigmatic, Photogenic – Marlene Dietrich
The Blue Angel 1930 is the most cruel, a school teacher falls for cabaret girl Lola-Lola and leaves everything behind to be with her. She spends all his money and now penniless he ends up having to work as a ‘clown’ in the circus while she moves onto a love affair with the ‘strongman’ (that’s one hell of a cuckolding metaphor). After watching them together he commits suicide. This was the movie that made Marlene Dietrich famous and where she notably sings ‘Falling in Love Again’ which has the words…
Men cluster to me like moths around a flame
And if their wings burn, I know I’m not to blame
It was banned in the UK by the censors who described it as an ‘exhibition of lustful degeneracy.’ Slideshow of Marlene Dietrich while she sings the song here: https://youtu.be/hK1lUswV6Uk
Sunset Boulevard 1950 I love this movie, it’s a work of genius with the cuckolding Diva of all Divas, Norma Desmond – “I am big. It’s the pictures that got small.” Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson) a former huge star of the silent screen, takes in a younger man (to replace her recently dead, pet monkey) seducing him with her money and then sexually. He’s soon totally under the spell of this rich, domineering prima donna. We find out later in the movie that her butler, who has facilitated much of this was once her husband but is so dedicated to her now lives as her servant (cuckolded slave). Norma Desmond puts the fatal into femme as she most certainly doesn’t take kindly to the idea of her young beau leaving her.
The movie famously ends with her line – “All right, Mr. DeMille, I’m ready for my close-up.” As she disappears into the celluloid… forever.