FAQ

The flirtatious behavior of young Irish lass Emily 'Emmy' Beaudine (Siobhan McKenna) gets her banished from her home village and sent to England to live as a maid on a sheep farm owned by the Tallent family -- Father (George Thorpe), son Larry (Grant Tyler), daughter Bess (Anne Crawford), Bess' husband Bob (Barry Morse) and daughter Julie (Honor Blackman), and Julie's boyfriend Saul Trevethick (Denis Goacher). Hoping to make a fresh start, Emmy soon finds that the Tallents, in particular Bess, are also disturbed by her presence. When a man from Emmy's past, 'Battling' Dan (Maxwell Reed), a heavyweight boxer with Murdock's Mammoth traveling fair, comes to town and is found murdered, Bess sets out to expose Emmy for what she is...a femme fatale.

Daughter of Darkness is based on a 1939 stage play, 'They Walk Alone,' by English playwright and novelist Max Catto, who adapted his play for the movie.

A femme fatale, meaning 'a deadly woman' in French, is a seductive, alluring woman who easily attracts men but, because of her cunning and evil side, often leads them into dangerous or disastrous situations. Other names synonymous with 'femme fatale' include 'siren' and 'vamp'.

Bess orders Emmy to leave the house and never to return to this part of the world. As a way getting back at Bess, Emmy lures Larry to follow her. When the Tallents find Larry dead, they call the police to come and help search the moors, where Emmy has apparently run off. However, when Bess hears Dan's dog crying outside, she realizes that Emmy can't be too far away. She follows the dog into the cemetery, where she finds Emmy sitting in the church. Bess confronts her, telling her she feels like killing her with her own hands. Cowering on the floor, Emmy tries to explain how these terrible things come over her and how sorry she is for herself. She asks for help, but Bess just tells her to leave. Happy at being spared, Emmy leaves the church. In the final scene, Dan's dog attacks her.

There are several movies in which a seductive, alluring woman leads a man to ruin, such as The Blue Angel (1930) (The Blue Angel) (1930), Cat People (1942) (1942), the 1982 remake Cat People (1982), and Poison Ivy (1992) (1992). In Batman Returns (1992) (1992), Michelle Pfeiffer plays a sleek and stealthy 'cat' whose cunning and evil nature even Batman (Michael Keaton) finds hard to resist. At the top of the list, however, has to be Theda Bara in the silent film, A Fool There Was (1915) (1915). Bara is the epitome of the femme fatale such that her portrayal is the one that gave birth to the idea of the female 'vamp.'