Do horror films count? There are usually lots of damsels in distress that die. How about some of the Jaws series?
How about The Golden Child?
Except, of course, she gets resurrected before the end.
I believe that was Susan Sarandon in that role.
In any case, Goldman’s assessment of the movie was right. After Sarandon’s character gets killed, the movie is a pretty gloomy affair (but then again, it was made during the 70’s when “downer” movies were in fashion).
As for other movies where the damsel in distress bites it, I submit Young Sherlock Holmes.
My favorite – Dragonslayer – has already been taken (the dragon kills the princess, and you actually see the baby dragons eating her. In a DISNEY movie! You don’t see HER in those “Princess collections”!)
So how about Batman Returns, with the snow cutie falling to her doom?
At the end of A Boy And His Dog,
the “damsel” is cooked and eaten by the hero and his dog.
It’s based on a Harlan Ellison story, naturally.
I haven’t seen Braveheart in years but I don’t remember Wallace’s wife being raped. I remember an old-looking British soldier tackles her to the ground and forcefully kisses her/feels her up, but she ends up escaping him (in a violent fashion.)
Yes, she didn’t actually get raped. An incredibly ugly soldier tries to rape her, but she strikes him and escapes. She is executed for injuring him.
The name of the ugly rapist was Smythe. I remember this because my friends and I watched Braveheart when we were 11 or 12 and naturally we thought the attempted-rape scene was entertaining instead of disturbing, specifically the part where the would-be rapist’s comrade sneers, “let her have it, Smythe!” or something like that. For a while after that, whenever my friends and I were roughhousing and what not, one of us would always say, “give it to him, Smythe!”
Not only that, but we were in 6th grade at the time and our classroom had a pet hamster. The brand of hamster food that the teacher fed to the hamster was called “Amazon Smythe” and featured a picture of a pith-helmeted explorer. So we got endless entertainment from that, too. All because of a scene in Braveheart which was intended to be disturbing and awful.
IMDB says that Smythe was played by Michael Byrne. I think I’m going to track that actor down and tell him this story.
I think Lethal Weapon II is a perfect example. Normally, in this sort of movie, the hero dispatches the bad guys, and he and the girl live happily ever after. The fact that the bad guys actually manage to kill her is one of the best twists I’ve ever seen.
Bourne Supremacy
Jason and Marie are in the jeep trying to escape the bad guys. Jason, who was driving, switches places with Marie, so he can concentrate on shooting. Because the bad guys think Jason is driving they shoot the driver, hitting Marie in the head. Jeep goes off the bridge; underwater Jason tries to breath air into Marie’s lungs only to realizes she dead, kisses her one last time and swims away to wreak vengeance upon the CIA for the next two movies.
This is can be seen as just another “death of SO motivates the hero” cliché, however, she was the heroine for the entire first movie so the hero truly fails in keeping the heroine alive.
What about the new Casino Royale?
Bond tries to save Vesper but she goes down with the building.
She’s never aware that she’s in peril, but in Ronin
The terrorist/bad guy/whatever (Johnathan Pryce? I forget) says that if he doesn’t receive the briefcase by the appointed time, his sniper will kill the famous figure skater (played by Katarina Witt) during her skating routine. The deal goes bad, the briefcase doesn’t get received, and Witt does indeed get shot and killed, right on the ice in front of thousands of spectators.
Thanks for all the examples, guys. I’ve forgotten about some of these since it’s been awhile.
Correct. As you say, there are plenty of movies where the protagonist’s love interest/relative/daughter dies and is used to explain his motivation.
In The Last of the Mohicans the heroine jumps to her death to escape the Unwanted Attentions of the bad guy just as Hawkeye and Company arrive to rescue her.
How about a book? In The Black Shrike by Alistair Maclean, the hero falls in love with Maria, who loathed him through most of the book. They have the normal ups and downs as members of the British Secret Service, he calls the badguys bluff once (once) and she gets tortured. Frantic to save her from being carried away to a life of white slavery in SE Asia somewhere, holed up in a cliff as the badguys load a new top secret missile and Maria on a tramp steamer -
He remote detonates the missile, killing the terrorists and Maria, but saving the scientists and their wives by waiting until the missile and the ship that carried it was far enough away that no one would be hurt
This was at the end, not the beginning where it would have motivated him or explained his angst or anything. Just as we thought they’d see the lights of London together… <sniff> It was terrible, man.
Written under the pseudonym “Ian Stewart”, I suspect Alistair knew it wasn’t one of his better books.
Can’t think of any movies, tho…
In The Grave Maurice, by Martha Grimes a young kidnap victim escapes after a couple of years only,
spoiler below - I don’t know how to do the spoiler box.
…to be shot and killed shortly after her escape.
I think the British do that for tax purposes.
One of my favorite MacLean books, and I am ashamed not to have mentioned it. :smack:
Juliet?
I always always the kid watching to see if any Cobra pilots didn’t manage to bail out in time, myself (I think the animators actually did miss a one or two, actually). 
Anyway…the remake of Assault on Precinct 13 has something similar (in spirit, at least) to what the OP asks…
[spoiler]…the hero’s psychiatrist (who there seems to be some Hollywood-style romantic tension with) and one of the cons defending the jail manage to get out of the besieged department, hotwire an escape vehicle, and make a break for help.
The con, driving, makes some reference about the shrink’s “boyfriend.” (The hero)
“He’s not my boyfriend!” the shrink replies.
The con replies with (IIRC), a kind of knowing smirk and an “Oh yeah?” Then…
…One of the SWAT guys pops out of his hiding space in the back seat, shooting the driver. She dies instantly, and the car goes off the road.
The shrink survives, not badly injured, and is captured by the SWAT guys.
The head bad guy tries to grill her about the building’s defenses, and she just gives a pithy action-movie comeback.
He smiles, and compliments her bravery.
Then he shoots her at point-blank range, right in the forehead.
Her body flops back on the snow, and an overhead shot shows her lifeless eyes staring upwards, framed by the dark stain quickly growing on the snow under her skull.
End scene.[/spoiler]
:eek:
Yow. Won’t go ridin’ off into the sunset with THAT one, dude.
Probably not what the OP is looking for, but Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio’s (sp?) character in James Cameron’s The Abyss, sacrifices herself by drowning so that her ex-husband can escape from a sinking deep-sea submersible. He tows her body back to the underwater drilling rig. They’re then able to use CPR and artificial respiration to revive her and, given the extremely cold water she was in, she fortunately doesn’t suffer brain damage.
Plausible? Well… maybe.
Thank goodness that happened though. That was kind of necessary if we’re to have any more Bond movies.
What about The City on the Edge of Forever? Kirk wants to save Edith, has the power to save her and has to let her die.