For lesbian audiences who saw Garbo's film in the early 1930s, Queen Christina will always be the lovely girl who dressed in male attire and refused to marry, and no amount of heterosexual cover will ever change her. The story of lesbians and the cinema, told for the first time in Vampires and Violets, is a love-hate affair in which the invisible becomes visible in fascinating and surpirising ways. The lesbian vampire for instance, cinema's most persistent lesbian character, acts out male fantasies of sexual challenge and titillation, but she is also an agent of female desire that is both dangerous and excessive. Gossip and camp have enabled the stars - Dietrich, Garbo, Hepburn - to hold particular, magical appeal for lesbian filmgoers. Andrea Weiss follows the lesbian character in Hollywood films, from Dorothy Arzner's The Wild Party through The Children's Hour, Rebecca, Silkwood and The Color Purple. She explores lesbian sexuality in European art cinema, and modern independent work by lesbian filmmakers. With wit, insight and liberal illustration she brings into her discussions a wide range of films, both popular and forgotten, as well as the work of contemporary directors Chantal Akerman, Su Friedrich, Ulrike Ottinger and many others.