Ida Lupino Film Fest

arte recently showcased films directed by American actress, writer, and director Ida Lupino in their Mediathek. As you know from the Nosferatu centenary, I am a sucker for an European-government-directed film showcase.

(The films are available until July 7, 2023, but probably only in the EU. Sorry.)

The Bigamist (1953)

As Easter eggs–or Christmas eggs?–Lupino peppered this film with references to Miracle on 34th Street, because the adoption agency agent who accidentally uncovered the title character’s crime was played by Kris Kringle himself, Edmund Gwenn. Edmund O’Brien, who you may know as Dutton Peabody, gets fourth billing to Gwenn and the two women he loved, played by Lupino and Joan Fontaine (who according to the IMBD was married to Lupino’s ex-husband at the time of filming…). This is the only film of the four where Lupino acts as well as directs.

Did a female director treat the subject differently than a man would have? I’m not sure. The film is a product of its time; Harry starts his adulterous relationship with a wise-cracking waitress (Lupino) at a time when he felt neglected by his wife, the career woman–but one of the good ones, who started her career as a sad consolation prize for infertility, not one of the society-wreckers going into business because she *liked* it, scoff, scoff–and tries to walk away when his first marriage improves, but when learning a baby was on the way, he got sucked back in, and wasn’t strong enough to ask for a divorce. The judge at the criminal trial says as much–if he had abandoned the mistress and baby, society would shrug and judge her; if he’d abandoned the first wife, society would shrug and judge her; but since he chose to not fully abandon either of them, society must condemn him.

Anyway, I don’t care what a director packs in their slacks if the film is interesting, and this one certainly was. It was my favorite of the four.

Tangential notes: The film plays and was filmed in San Francisco and Los Angeles, and it was weird to see clean, safe streets. We also see the real-life homes of Jimmy Stewart and Jack Benny while Harry takes a “see the stars at home” bus tour, and while it is possible these tours still exist, seeing the homes in a film, while the actors were still working, felt doxx-y.

Cigarettes played an important role in plot and character development. I think I only noticed that because The Red N puts a “tobacco use” warning where the “gratuitous perversion” warning is often missing.

The Hitch-Hiker (1953)

Content Warning: A dog is murdered (off-screen).

This one was 69 minutes, but somehow felt much longer. Two 30-ish married men on a fishing trip get carjacked by a serial killer and are forced on a week-long drive across the deserts of Mexico. Maybe this was scarier when it was new. Predictable police work; predictable ending. My least favorite of the four. Also the only one arte did not present German subtitles–so I probably missed some stuff when the characters were speaking Spanish and the subtitles were in French.

The desert scenery was probably breath-taking in color. Alas, this one was shot in black and white.

Never Fear (1950)

The German title of this one was “Lügende Lippen“, Lying Lips, and I spent the first eighty minutes or so waiting for a big betrayal that never happened. This is the story of a young dancer who contracts polio on the cusp of making it big with her fiancé/dance partner, and her fight to learn how to walk again, and accept that life is worth living, even without dancing.

Tja. German movie titles. (Tangentially, this film wasn’t released in West Germany until 1956, after the Salk vaccine; I have some thoughts but no facts.)

The opening credits call this a true story, filmed on location: my research revealed Lupino had also suffered from polio that required aggressive therapy. Many of the extras were actual patients at the Kabat-Kaiser Rehabilitation Center in Santa Monica, which closed in 1962. Yes, that Kaiser. The history at the link is interesting.

This one is definitely worth watching as a historical time capsule. The dialog is very often cliché, but all the physical therapy scenes (not to mention the doctor lighting up a tobacco cigarette at a patient’s bedside), were a fascinating glimpse into a world that no longer exists, and a disease that is now so rare.

Not Wanted (1949)

Several IMDB reviews mention “bad colored stock footage of a C-section”, which makes me wonder what the hell people are doing to re-releases. arte obviously pushes political agendas with their selections, but they do a very good job of doing it with authentic releases and restorations…. Anyway, this is the first movie directed by Lupino, but the credit went to the man who died shortly after filming–entirely in black and white–began.

Here is a sad tale of a young (19-ish), pretty, scatter-brained blonde unhappily living with her parents. She throws herself at a much older man who plays piano at the café where she works. He is, naturally, quite happy to catch her–in one of those cheerleader catches, where he bounces her right back out again. Heh.

The sex scene was great: they’re walking along a stream, he takes her into his arms, he puts his cigarette into a hole in a rock, the scene dissolves to the cigarette floating down the stream, unnoticed.

He moves to Capital City (there’s a swingin’ town I know) and she chases him, but he’s moving to South America (I know, right?). Fortunately, on the bus she met a veteran who owns a gas station in Capital City, gives her a job, and falls in love with her. Just as she decides to settle for him, she faints, and the doctor tells her she is expecting a baby. Time to leave without saying good-bye.

The opening credits thank the “hospitals and institutions of mercy” that help “a hundred thousand times a year”, so you can guess where this is going: she checks herself into a home for “unwed mothers”. Where she is–I was surprised by this–asked if she wanted to raise her baby herself, or sign him over to an infertile couple who would love him and give him their best. Sounds so quaint in our just-kill-it-already, it’s-better-off-dead-than-loved-by-people-with-no-shared-DNA era, doesn’t it?

Several months later, with no family or friends to help her through it all, she snaps in two with grief. Gas Station Guy has tracked her down, but the resolution of their story is left ambiguous. Do they get married? Does she run away from him again? You get to decide.

I thought the ending was too ambiguous. Also, I assume I am the youngest person watching this old stuff (the average age of the German tax-funded TV audience is 60), but I would love to run this film by some high school girls. Are they as skeeved out by the older man as I was? Would they have told Gas Station Guy about the baby? That’s a completely different film right there…