Ann Savage, inventor of the '40s femme fatale role, died on Dec. 27th at the age of 87. Savage is the star of Detour, Edgar G. Ulmer's classic low-budget 1945 film which (along with Ulmer's Bluebeard) will kick of the New York State Writers Institute's 2009 Classic Film Series. In the film 
Savage plays a woman who blackmails a luckless hitchhiker, played by Tom Neal. Detour is widely considered to be the film that defined her career.
The New York Times:
“It’s actually a showcase role,” [her manager] Kent Adamson said. “Neal and Savage really reversed the traditional male-female roles of the time. She’s vicious and predatory. She’s been called a harpy from hell, and in the film, too, she’s very sexually aggressive, and he’s very, very passive.”
