The history of the film industry is in many ways a reflection of the thwarted emergence in society of feminism and full equal civil rights for women. Commercial films have traditionally relied upon the charm and sexual allure of actresses to assure economic success at the box office. Victorian mores heavily influenced the way women were treated in early films, and from the 1920s to the present the cinema has capitalized upon the public's wish to safely rebel from those values by presenting films which stress women's sexuality. In the 1920s the image of the flapper and the vamp dominated the screens. In the 1930s the brashly "wisecracking" blond woman typified by Jean Harlow, emerged. With the coming of war, cinema's women became factory workers. The "strong woman" became the image of that day. The presentation of an idealized, exaggerated sexuality in women, typified by Marilyn Monroe and Brigitte Bardot, became popular in the 1950s and 1960s. The more current trend in film's treatment of women concentrates upon the quasi-liberated female typified by Jane Fonda and Glenda Jackson. Each period, however, is marked by a varied but superficial and sometimes demeaning depiction of women. (CH)