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Here are a few images from
one of the earliest films ever to feature a gun moll. 'Outside the Law' was a 1921 silent
movie and the lady certainly isn't a shrinking violet as she aids her gangster boyfriend
in taking over a rival's turf. She looks mean enough even without the gun in her hand.
The Louise Brooks look has been a popular iconoclastic feature for gun molls, in case you didn't know Louise Brooks was a movie star in the early days of the talkies. Here are a few modern Brooks lookalikes (including a couple from 'Farewell My Love') showing the classic gun moll/flapper look.
A leap to more modern times for the next film. Regular readers probably know my regard for film director Abel Ferera. His crowning moment is 'King of New York' starring the brilliant Christopher Walken. Any self proclaimed king needs bodyguards and his entourage included the following moll.
A few years ago there was a short TV series produced in the USA which tried to re-create the stories and atmosphere of the old film noir films of the 1940's. For the most part it failed. Call me old fashioned but these sort of stories always look better in black and white (see the Coen Brother's 'The Man who wasn't There' to see what I mean). However here is the best of the episodes where the lady is determined to get her hands on some loot.
In many respects Barbara Stanwyck has often been seen as the original gun
moll. Even before her show stopping performance in 'Double Indemnity' Ms Stanwyck had
already built up quite a reputation of portraying gun toting molls. In 'Ladies They Talk
About' she played a bad girl who finally turns the corner until her mentor apparently
double crosses her. Also shown is an image from 'The Strange Love of Martha Ivers'.
'New York Undercover' was a cop series which was actually very good. Good stories and good gritty acting. Apart from the classic Diane DiLasco episode where a woman commits all sorts of crime in order to become a mob enforcer there were a multitude of other episodes featuring dangerous dames.One of these starred Ice T (who appears in everything these days) who had exquisite taste in picking his lieutenants to help run his crime empire. Here are two of them and whilst you wouldn't call them classic molls they are the modern equivalent - bold, brassy and deadly.
Before Faye Dunaway played Bonnie Parker in the Sam Peckinpah film Dorothy Provine had the role in 'The Bonnie Parker Story'. Both films take liberties with the real life story but nobody really minds if Hollywood embroiders the story a bit. Despite its cheaper production values the Dorothy Provine film is quite good capturing both the feel of the times and the ruthlessness of the Bonnie Parker character. So here is a tribute to the classic gun moll.
