Female (1933)

femaleRacy pre-Code 1930s oddity starring regal Ruth Chatterton as a ruthless businesswoman who regularly sleeps with her male employees and then ignores them afteward. At home in her spectacular art deco mansion, she’s a sultry, sex-crazy minx, completely different from how she is at work, and men fall in love with her. At the office the next day, she reverts back to an ice queen and the men mope around looking dejected.

You already know where this is headed.

Does she eventually meet a guy who resists her advances? Of course.

Does it drive her crazy? Yes.

Does she finally fall in love? You bet your ass she does.

By that point—only the last ten minutes or so of this hour-long quickie—the film spirals into some regrettable sentimentality and blows its proto-feminist theme all to hell, but everything leading up to it is great fun.