The Beautiful Demise -- My Top Five

It has been said that death is never pretty. Ancient Spartans never believed that and neither do I. Killing off a beautiful lady is an effective way to move the story along, whether the intention is heroic, shocking, or even illuminating. The only hard and fast rule is that the woman is more beautiful after her demise than when she was breathing! In my upcoming Pretty Vacant comic I use the demise (and plastination) of the Mindy character to show how dangerous the situation is:

The beautiful demise is a time honored tradition, from Shakespeare to the current day. In descending order, here are five from movies that have left an impression on me. It is the only reason why I would even mention some of these actresses at all!

5. Jill Masterson – Goldfinger (1964)

An all-time classic! Jill’s death propels James Bond to enact revenge against her employer, Auric Goldfinger, by way of Fort Knox and flying bowlers. Shirley Eaton was in other movies, but I don’t remember her in any role except for the gilded Jill.

4. Scooti Manista – Doctor Who: The Impossible Planet (2006)
Did I mention television? I didn’t, but this episode was so epic in scale that I thought I was watching a movie. It’s a classic base-under-siege Doctor Who story, but with a lot more money in the BBC’s budget. Scooti (MyAnna Buring) glimpses the ultimate evil and the ultimate evil returns the favor by shooting her out of an airlock into space!

As Scooti’s lifeless body drifts toward a black hole, The Doctor, his assistant Rose and the surviving base members are helpless to do anything but watch! Fortunately, The Doctor wins his face off with the ultimate evil. Think biblical.

3. Lucinne Garnier – Prix de Beauté (1930)
I had to attend many an all-night cinema during my freshman year in college due to my roommate banging more chicks than a poultry farmer! However, I did get to see films directed by Fritz Lang and Akira Kurosawa and silent movies starring Louise Brooks. Brooks was a revelation to me, someone whose beauty transcended time, sound and color!
In Prix de Beauté (Beauty Prize en Francais), Lucinne (Brooks) is pestered by her boyfriend to enter a beauty contest, which she wins. She then decides to enter the Miss Europe contest. Surrounded by admirers, Lucinne enters a theatre watching a film clip of herself singing a song, when she is shot by her jealous boyfriend. I was floored when I first saw this movie’s end, watching the dead Lucinne in contrast with her film image still ‘alive’ on the screen!

2. Gretchen Maollmann – Anatomie (2000)

This German film was really well done, combining German creepiness with the American horror movie model. Gretchen (Anna Loos) is the top student accepted to a prestigious medical internship at the prestigious Heidelberg research institute, where there are plastinated cadavers on display for study.

A big twist is that Gretchen is not only the top student, but the school slut, sleeping with various students. One particularly eye-popping scene has Gretchen and a fellow student making out on a morgue table. This unfortunately leaves one jealously psychotic ex-boyfriend…

Not only does the ex-boyfriend kill her and the other student, but there’s this wonderfully creepy scene where he unveils Gretchen as a plasticized statue! One half of Gretchen’s body reveals her nude, where the other half has had the skin peeled off – showing her true inner “beauty.”

1. Wilma Soong – Kiss The Girls And Make Them Die (1966)

For only 15 minutes of screen time in the movie, Miss Soong (Seyna Seyn) made the most of what she had. When the Chinese spy meets the villain, Ardonian, for the first time, there’s a pause in the film. While this is supposedly done to give Ardonian time to study Soong’s facial features, it foreshadows a more sinister desire...

Inevitably, Ardonian betrays Soong and her Chinese government employers. Now what is he going to do with the Dragon Lady? Will he shoot her, gut her, feed her to piranhas? Nope. Soong’s demise is highly original: Ardonian freezes her in a cryogenic tube.

I know what you’re thinking: Soong’s not really dead. However, she is not breathing, not moving and not even thinking! Being in a state of suspended animation is the closest thing to death there is without actually dying. And with her perfectly preserved body on display for everyone to see, Soong has become a work of art -- and a beautiful demise!

I know that there might be other beautiful demises out there. Please comment if you can. I look forward to reading about other examples!