73. Barbara Stanwyck (Double Indemnity)

73. "The withering glance of the goddess" is a quote from The Philadelphia Story, but it applies more aptly to a film four years later. The beautiful Barbara Stanwyck would drive anyone to destruction with just a gaze (so Fred MacMurray, take heart).

Wilder's skewering of the female in Double Indemnity is the definitive noir, and there's no explanation other than Stanwyck's Phyllis Dietrichson. She lounges around in sunglasses and slutty sundresses, and decides to kill her husband completely out of boredom. Her hatred of human weakness, and her unrelenting ability to take out any person in her way is what is lacking from modern day femme fatales. Present actresses always have to add a little morality to their vindictive creations-not Stanwyck. When she needs to toss out MacMurray, she does with a flick of the wrist. She can even make supermarkets sexy! There have been many reincarnations of the dangerous dame since, but it's Stanwyck, all murder and honeysuckle, who makes sin so deliciously sweet.

Take your pick for the film festival: ranging from Kathleen Turner in Body Heat to Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct to Rita Hayworth in The Lady From Shanghai, you can't have enough of the sexy ladies/criminals. Probably don't bring a date though, at least not without a background check.