What scenes come to mind when you hear the term "damsel in distress"?

[sturmhauke]

What chrisk said. Feel free to add bells and whistles.

[Thudlow_Boink]

@Barrytown

What springs to mind immediately for me is a pretty generic image of a woman tied down to railroad tracks, with a train approaching…and maybe some tremolando diminished piano chords as the soundtrack.

This one, or any of the others described in the Coasters song “Along Came Jones.”

[Enright3]

@porcupine

Dudley Do-Right’s girlfriend Nell.

That’s what I thought of too! If not her, I still picture some poor girl being tied to railroad tracks.

E3

[Walloon]

Mabel Normand tied to the railroad tracks as villain Ford Sterling commandeers a train engine at full speed, and Mack Sennett races to rescue her, in Barney Oldfield’s Race for a Life (1913).