Best Villain in "The Maltese Falcon"

I haven't lived a good life. I've been bad, worse than you could know.

The problem here is that her too-perfectly upper class role playing makes her a bad adventuress, because she is too self-contained and a bit of a cold fish, whereas an adventuress needs to attract and hold her male targets and the bait for that is sexuality, not propriety.

See Bebe Daniels in the 1931 The Maltese Falcon (and for good measure, Bette Davis in 1936's Satan Met a Lady). I've seen Mary Astor bring the heat on other occasions, but as Brigid she seems a little too much like a schoolmarm trying to play a bad girl, rather than the other way around.

The problem here is that her too-perfectly upper class role playing makes her a bad adventuress, because she is too self-contained and a bit of a cold fish, whereas an adventuress needs to attract and hold her male targets and the bait for that is sexuality, not propriety.

this is a weird take because Astor and Huston emphasize her piss-elegance: the corsage, the stoles, etc. And the point is that Spade falls for neither her sexuality nor her propriety; he isn't fooled for an instant, unlike, say, poor dead Miles.

My students disliked it, I think.

That's on them

Did you tell them what gunsel means?

Explaining who was gay and why genuinely surprised them.

Oh bless

Just tell them they'll take it and like it

Timely revival; the "When you're slapped, you'll take it and like it" line was in my head earlier this a.m.