The Poor Man's Bette Davis
Ida Lupino described herself as "the poor man's Bette Davis" as she acquired the leftover roles that Bette Davis refused. She also called herself "the "poor man's Don Siegel" as a director.
In reality, Ida Lupino (February 4, 1918 – August 3, 1995) was an English-born film and radio actress and director, and a pioneer among women filmmakers. In her forty-eight year career she appeared in fifty-nine films and directed seven others, mostly in the United States, where she became a citizen in 1948. She co-wrote and co-produced some of her own films as well. She appeared in serial television programs fifty-eight times and directed fifty other episodes. Additionally, she contributed as a writer to five films and four television episodes, and was a radio actress of note.
I recently was enjoying her radio work courtesy of the Internet Archive. She did a fabulous job on Lux Radio Theater as Charlotte Vale in Now, Voyager and as Anna Holm (a.k.a. Ingrid Paulson) in A Woman's Face. Click here to listen to Now, Voyager and A Woman's Face.
I've been enjoying her film work for many years. She played small parts in Hollywood films through the 1930s until she starred opposite Humphrey Bogart in High Sierra, which led to bigger roles in films of the '40s. Early on, she appeared in Peter Ibbetson, Anything Goes, Artists and Models, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, and The Light That Failed, among others. Later, she appeared in Ladies in Retirement, The Sea Wolf, Life Begins at Eight-Thirty, and Forever and a Day, and continued performing on into the 1960s, but not in major films. Starting with Not Wanted, which she also co-wrote, she became the only female movie director of her time. She specialized in dramatic and suspense films, including Never Fear, The Hitch-Hiker, The Bigamist, and the comedy The Trouble with Angels. She also directed episodes of many television series, including The Untouchables and The Fugitive.
One of my favorites is The Hitch-Hiker, the first film noir made by a woman. It's a hardly sentimental and sharp-edged thriller with very modern filming. The paralyzed "eyelid" thing is very clever, too.
In The Bigamist, Harry (Edmond O'Brien) and Eve (Joan Fontaine) Graham are trying to adopt a baby. The head of the agency (Edmund Gwenn) senses Harry is keeping a secret and does some investigating. He soon discovers Harry has done an unusual amount of traveling from his home in San Francisco to Los Angeles. Harry gets tracked down in LA where he has a second wife (Ida Lupino) and a baby. Via flashbacks, Harry tells the adoption agent how he ended up in two marriages.
Never Fear (a.k.a. The Young Lovers) was directed, co-produced and written by Ida Lupino. A dancer (Sally Forrest) who has just gotten engaged to her partner and choreographer (Keefe Brasselle), and is about to embark on a major career, is devastated to learn that she has contracted polio.
In One Rainy Afternoon, actor Philippe Martin (Francis Lederer) and his married date Yvonne (Liev De Maigret) plan to neck in a darkened cinema, but he gets the wrong seat and mistakenly kisses lovely Monique (Ida Lupino), a publisher's daughter. An absurd scandal results; to protect Yvonne, Philippe insists that he was simply overcome by Monique's beauty. This naturally intrigues Monique...but her nominal fiancée (Erik Rhodes) feels differently. French bureaucracy is broadly satirized.
The episode "House for Sale" from the series Four Star Playhouse.
