Female

One of the most controversial of the pre-Code Hollywood films, 1933's Female features Ruth Chatterton as Allison Drake, the president of a motor car company. By day, she runs the factory with an iron fist and business savvy. By night, she invites male employees to her mansion and seduces them with the aid of vodka. Often these men fail to separate business from pleasure the way she can, so she has to transfer them to "our Montreal office". This happens a lot.


 * All Amazons Want Hercules: The film was marketed this way, especially in the trailer which shows a woman's silhouette (presumably Allison's) kneeling before that of a man's (presumably Jim's) standing silhouette.
 * Badass Decay: As was the fate of most female characters in pre-Code films, Allison devolves into a fit of stereotypically feminine hysteria and "reforms"
 * Best Her to Bed Her: Subverted, at least in the beginning. Allison claims to want a "real man", but this is clearly a desire for an equal, not a superior.
 * Chickification: A particularly extreme example. The final reels show Allison Drake as a changed woman,
 * Chick Flick: Averted. In the pre-Code era, there wasn't a distinction between "women's pictures" and "the movies", like there is now. Women were actually box office gold at that time.
 * Distracted By the Luxury: A very interesting gender-flipped example. Allison herself is very wealthy and has a very decadent mansion, so she's not only used to luxury, she's more or less numb to it. It's the men she seduces who are distracted and drawn by the glamour; her assistant, Pettigrew even lampshades it at one point.
 * Does Not Like Men: Averted. Allison likes men very much, but likes them decidedly less when they disappoint her by bringing their personal issues into the office.
 * Double Standard
 * God Save Us From the Queen: Subverted.
 * Ice Queen: Allison's business persona.
 * Naughty By Night
 * Never a Self-Made Woman: Technically how Allison got the company, though to her credit, she does a damn good job of running it.
 * No Guy Wants an Amazon: Subverted. Allison switches gears between her business persona and her seductress persona, scrambling the men's perception of her.
 * No Guy Wants to Be Chased: Jim Thorne pretty much spelled it out with "I'm a man, and I prefer to do my own hunting."
 * Really Gets Around
 * The Ingenue: Allison pretends to be this in order to seduce Jim. Imagine his surprise when he realized it was just an act.
 * The Smurfette Principle: Allison is the only non-secretarial female we see in the whole film.