Born to Be Bad
With Joan Fontaine, Robert Ryan, Zachary Scott.
US, 1950, 35mm, black & white, 94 min.
From its opening scenes, which clearly display Ray’s masterful use of interior space to reveal the emotional state of the characters who inhabit them, Born to Be Bad upends our expectations by depicting one of cinema’s perennial “good girls” as the ultimate villain and, more importantly, pitting her against a morally vacuous society that just might deserve whatever she can dish out. As the scheming seductress who manipulates her way to the top of San Francisco’s social scene, Ray brilliantly subverts Joan Fontaine’s screen persona as a “nice” girl, revealing the cold-hearted calculation and deviousness behind her simpering smiles. Nicholas Musuraca’s glossy black and white cinematography artfully depicts their glittering world as shallow and empty.
Part of film series
Screenings from this program
The True Story of Jesse James
Bigger Than Life
King of Kings
Johnny Guitar
55 Days at Peking
On Dangerous Ground
A Woman's Secret
