007 Femme Fatales
Saturday, October 20, 2012 at 10:58AM Deborah Lipp, author of "The Ultimate James Bond Fan Book" continues her countdown to "Skyfall" with lists of 007 things!
Author Ian Fleming, creator of the James Bond series, had no interest in the archetype of a femme fatale—a seductive, beautiful, dangerous woman. The femme fatale is Freud's ultimate woman, combining sex and death. Fleming's women were either love interests, usually fragile and in need of rescue, or—if villains—hideously ugly. But the Bond films introduced us to the sexy villainess. As it happens, there have been exactly seven such villainesses in the course of Bond film history.
In chronological order, then, here's a run-down of the femmes fatale that have passed through Bond's films and bed...
Miss Taro
001 Miss Taro, Dr. No (1962)
A secondary villain, Miss Taro sleeps with Bond to keep him at her house long enough for compatriots to come and kill him. Unfortunately, he knows her plan, and in a rare gesture of mercy, has her arrested. She's the only character on our list who survives the encounter! She's also not terribly interesting; she seems uneasy in her role as villainess and the film relies far too heavily on "inscrutable Asian" stereotypes.
What should I say to an invitation from a strange gentleman?"
-Zena Marshall as Miss Taro
Fiona Volpe
002 Fiona Volpe, Thunderball (1965)
This one's the best, ladies and gentlemen, the prototype, the mold upon which all other seductresses are based.