CHARMED and DANGEROUS

The irresistible allure of many seductresses of yore, from Helen of Troy to Cleopatra, may only be imagined. But Hollywood's femmes fatales reach out from the screen— and from the pages of this portfolio—to make their power felt forever

LESLIE BENNETTS

They have just met, and they're downing shots on a steamy patio in Bogota as thunder rolls across the sky. She's wearing a white cotton skirt and lace-up top that might look virginal on someone else, but since this is Angelina Jolie, they seem brazenly, I-want-you-to-rip-them-off-me wanton.

When she starts undulating to the music, inviting him to dance, she insinuates her voluptuous body around his so provocatively that it makes the viewer's jaw drop. As she slithers like a sly cat, rubbing herself up and down against him, Brad Pitt is mesmerized by lustful anticipation. At this moment he would do anything she told him, even flap his arms, jump off a cliff, and fly.

Watching the seduction scene in Mr. & Mrs. Smith, a movie Jolie and Pitt filmed while he was still married to Jennifer Aniston, one can't help but think: There is no husband on the planet who could have resisted that woman under those circumstances.

This is the very definition of a femme fatale. It doesn't matter if the man is married. It doesn't matter if his moral code or his religion or his politics or his job or his government or the last shreds of his common sense warn him not to succumb to her wiles. It doesn't matter if she's his best friend's wife, or the crime boss's mistress, or the daughter of a vengeful king. In that moment of choice, he doesn't care what the consequences will be.

The question is: Yes or no? And with a woman like that, the answer is always yes, even if that choice launches a thousand ships or destroys an empire. No matter what it will cost, the poor guy simply can't help himself.

History has bequeathed to us an array of femmes fatales so potent that some have captivated our imaginations for millennia, from Eve to Helen of Troy to Cleopatra. But since the invention of celluloid, the pictures that once had to be conjured by poets and playwrights have been visible to us all, and the gallery of dangerous sirens has expanded to fill our imaginations with images as timeless as they are unforgettable.

Luminous as a full moon, their faces haunt our memory. In real life, their beauty might be irresistible, but its power is inevitably transient, because the lushness of youth is fleeting. And the smarter seductresses know it: "Being born beautiful is like being born rich and getting poorer," said Joan Collins.

No matter how breathtaking you are, the torch will eventually be passed, or taken from you. The husky-voiced Kathleen Turner was often compared to Lauren Bacall in her "You know how to whistle, don't you?" era as a knowing ingenue ("You just put your lips together and blow... "). When the two finally met, Turner reportedly introduced herself by saying, "Hi, I'm the young you." A generation later, Turner found herself playing drag queens, all too credibly.

But on film the beauty of such icons is imperishable. Bacall (see page 328 for a profile of the actress) may be elderly, Greta Garbo and Marlene Dietrich may be gone—but they will all live forever in their movies, and thus in our minds.

"SHE IS A WILDLY exciting love-mistress... beautiful beyond the dreams of pornography."

—Richard Burton, on Elizabeth Taylor.

As for their stories, the permutations are many. Sometimes the woman is a reckless teenager who doesn't even understand her own power—a naughty Lolita like the Britney Spears of "Oops! ... I Did It Again." Sometimes she is an experienced con artist like the Barbara Stanwyck of The Lady Eve.

Sometimes her sexual appeal is just so powerful that it doesn't matter what else she is or does. Making the movie that blew up both their marriages, Richard Burton was smitten with Elizabeth Taylor from the moment he saw her naked in Cleopatra's bath. When they filmed their first deep screen kiss, they got so lost in each other that director Joe Mankiewicz finally asked, "Would you two mind if I say, 'Cut'?"— and even then the kiss didn't stop. "She is a wildly exciting love-mistress," wrote the besotted Burton. "She is beautiful beyond the dreams of pornography." A renowned swordsman, even he was no match for such a temptress.

But the seducers fare better than the naifs. Sometimes the plotline casts the man as a hapless innocent ensnared by a lovely woman: think Cary Grant in North by Northwest. Sometimes he's a mark who's been targeted by a predatory siren: think Fred MacMurray in Double Indemnity or his latter-day incarnation as William Hurt in Body Heat, when Turner says to him, "You're not too smart, are you? I like that in a man."

In Jolie's latest role as a femme fatale, in The Tourist, Johnny Depp plays a math teacher from Wisconsin who is picked up by a ravishing stranger on a train, for nefarious reasons—only to find himself being chased, shot at, imprisoned, and otherwise abused, just because she kissed him. "I don't regret it, you know," he says in between dodging people who are trying to kill him.

In such scenarios, sometimes even the man is not what he seems; Pitt's character in Mr. & Mrs. Smith turns out to be as lethal an assassin as his wife, and Depp has his own secrets in The Tourist.

In the end, however, it doesn't matter what kind of man he is. The woman is the very personification of trouble, and when she fixes him with her hypnotic gaze, the man is toast. By the time it's over, he may lose everything: his reputation, his fortune, his freedom, even his life, all for his moment of glory with her incomparable self.

And if he had it to do over again, he wouldn't change a thing.

WHEN SHE FIXES him with her hypnotic gaze, the man is toast.

"YOU'RE NOT too smart, are you? I like that in a man."

Kathleen Turner's character in Body Heat, to William Hurt.