Watch The Strange Woman, the 1946 Noir Film Starring Hedy Lamarr

The Strange Woman is a noir film direct­ed by Edgar G. Ulmer and star­ring Hedy Lamarr.  In its orig­i­nal review of the film, The New York Times wrote:

Undoubt­ed­ly every actress this side of ten yearns for a tour de force and Hedy Lamarr, who plays the title role in “The Strange Woman” … can con­sid­er that yearn­ing whol­ly real­ized. For the somber dra­ma of a Suave sin­ner in Ban­gor, Me., of a cen­tu­ry ago affords Miss Lamarr her meati­est assign­ment in years, a chance at large chunks of choice dia­logue and an oppor­tu­ni­ty to wear a wardrobe that won’t go unno­ticed by the ladies. But as a study of a sin­gu­lar distaff tem­pera­ment set off by a coterie of ruined males, this adap­ta­tion of Ben Ames Williams’ best-sell­ing nov­el of a few years back has a way of telegraph­ing its punch­es. A reveal­ing dis­sec­tion of a preda­to­ry femme fatale it nev­er­the­less lacks moti­va­tion for some of its sup­port­ing play­ers, pace and sus­pense to make it com­plete­ly mov­ing dra­ma.

In its own write-up on the film, the web­site Film Noir of the Week calls The Strange Woman “a film unfair­ly neglect­ed in the fil­mog­ra­phy of Edgar G. Ulmer. It also is the least talked about of the ‘tril­o­gy’ of femme fatale ‘hero­ine’ pic­tures made in 1946, the oth­er two being the famous Gil­da and the infa­mous Decoy.”

Now in the pub­lic domain, you can watch The Strange Woman above. It’s also housed in our col­lec­tion of 60+ Free Noir films, a sub­set of our col­lec­tion, 4,000+ Free Movies Online: Great Clas­sics, Indies, Noir, West­erns, Doc­u­men­taries & More.

You’ll also find an anoth­er Edgar Ulmer noir film there, Detour.

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