Lizabeth Scott, Femme Fatale of Dead Reckoning

Lizabeth Scott in
Jean Louis Gown

Dead Reckoning (1947) is a classic noir film featuring two great actors, Humphrey Bogart and Lizabeth Scott. Scott with her two-pack-a-day voice and sleek blonde hair is a femme fatale with class and a deadly purpose. She is often compared to Lauren Bacall and her voice and her night club rendition in this film are close to Bacall's performance in The Big Sleep - one can't help thinking the studios knew a good pairing when casting this film.

* Spoiler Alert *

The film starts with a classic noir flashback and is told in voice over by Bogart's character as he relays his story to a priest. Captain Rip Murdock (Bogart) and a buddy, Sgt. Johnny Drake (William Prince) are on their way to Washington D.C. to be honored for their heroics during WWII. When Drake finds out he skips in order to avoid being photographed. Murdock then decides to find his buddy and heads towards Drake's hometown. Once there Murdock discovers that Drake joined the service in order to avoid being imprisoned for murder.

Bogart and Scott in classic 
noir era suits and 
Scott's trademark beret.

Murdock's sleuthing leads him to Coral Chandler (Lizabeth Scott), a former night club singer, who Drake is infatuated with and whose husband Drake is accused of murdering. Coral leads Murdock on a merry chase looking for Drake through an upscale Florida nightclub as she sings and gambles her way into the gangster, Martinelli's office. Martinelli drugs Murdock who wakes up next to a corpse in his hotel room, which Coral and he dispose of at Martinelli's beach home.

It comes out that Drake is dead and that he was taking the fall for Coral, who accidentally shot her husband.

At one point Murdock asks Coral to marry him. The pair is poised to get away until Murdock, being the time-honored naive noir hero decides to get the gun with which Martinelli is blackmailing Coral. Once back at Martinelli's office, Coral shoots Martinelli.

Murdock and Coral drive towards the sunset, except Murdock realizes that Coral really meant to shoot him. Coral grabs a gun, shoots Murdock, and they end up crashing into a tree. Coral sustains a brain injury and dies.

Scott in a knock-out lounge wear.

When this movie came out it received mixed reviews, but there are some great lines, like "When a guy's buddy dies, a man's gotta do something about it," a line straight out of The Maltese Falcon. Bogart sounds a lot like Philip Marlowe with his use of one liners, and fills the role of the hard-boiled detective perfectly (as always).

Scott is the classic femme fatale having murdered or lured to their death at least three men (her former husband, unwitting boyfriend, and Martinelli). She uses her feminine charms on Bogart and has admitted to having done so with Sgt. Drake while claiming she didn't feel the same intensity as he did towards her. She uses her wiles to get Bogart to go along with her scheme to get away from Martinelli as the narcissistic nightclub songbird who kills her husband(s), since she is also married to Martinelli. She has something to do with the death of her naive boy toy, but runs into trouble with the hard-boiled excuse of a gumshoe in Bogart. She lies to all the men in order to get what she wants as a sexual being who lives outside the normal bounds of 1940s womanhood.

Day wear for a femme fatale in the 
steamy Gulf City, FL

Another great thing about classic noir films are the settings and the clothes. The nightclubs and gambling dens are elegant and the men always look sharp. The 25-year-old Lizabeth Scott wears beautiful clothes throughout.

Scott pairs her suits and gowns with gardenia perfume carrying the scent into every room she inhabits including Martinelli's office. Murdock's voice over lets the audience know he smells gardenia just before he gets zapped by a blackjack.

Scott's gowns were made by Jean Louis, a designer most famous for the backless black gown that Rita Hayworth wore in Gilda. He also designed the infamous gown Marilyn Monroe wore when she sang "Happy Birthday, Mr. President."

Scott with her husky voice and beautiful era clothes made a perfect femme fatale in this film as the audience almost falls for her "poor little me" performance.