Ida Lupino

Ida Lupino first came into Hollywood at age fifteen as an actress but did not have much success outside of acting in “B” pictures. Instead, she turned to other horizons behind the scenes and even created her own production company titled “The Filmmakers” who produced their films with the aid of RKO studios. Over a period of five years in the early 1950s, Lupino wrote and directed six feature length films, which still makes her one of the most prolific female directors in the Hollywood system today. Becaus

e of her traditional femininity that she brought to the set, her director’s chair read “Mother of Us All” but in contrast, her controversial subject matter such as rape, bigamy, fatal disease, among others placed a unique mark on cinema that might suggest her to be “one of the boys.” “Some of these topics alone, and the naturalistic style of her films—even if they have an occasional upbeat ending—are enough to make Lupino something of an anomaly in the 1950s” and an investigation of Lupino’s characters help determine why feminist critics may not have given her body of work a closer look.

The Bigamist and Hard, Fast and Beautiful, in particular, become even more anti-feminist because of the male figures that appear in each film. Harry plays a bigamist but not because of spite, but because he does not want to hurt the feelings of Eve who cannot bear children, nor Phyllis, the woman he has met while on business because she is going to bear his child. As an audience, one is not sure whether to be disgusted with him because of his bad judgment calls or to feel sorry for him because circumstances have led him into an unbearable situation that he doesn’t have the bravery to escape since he longs to spare the feelings of both women he loves. Either interpretation still do not make the film more feminist because Phyllis becomes victimized and Eve made to look foolish. Neither woman benefits from the skewed situation nor do they look any more benevolent than Harry since there is nothing much they can do. Also because Harry marries two different women, they are subjected to the ultimate form of patriarchy imaginable, especially in 1950s Hollywood.

…The feminist revival of interest in women’s films that took place in the early to mid-1970s had some difficulty in placing Lupino—at first a happy find—in a convenient feminist format, especially since some of her heroines are passive and victimized, as they probably were in the “real” life they depicted. Sometimes aware of what is happening to them, and sometimes not, the “ordinary women” are often trapped . . . making for a tense atmosphere in a naturalistic milieu.

A large focus in Hard, Fast, and Beautiful is placed on the character Millie, who is arguably the film’s antagonist because she constantly acts against the rigid moral framework of Hollywood cinema. Similarly, the character Eve in The Bigamist does not uphold the depiction of a traditional woman but rather than liberating herself comes off as more aloof than empowered. Debatably both women are not within the stereotype of the good mother or wife and therefore are feminist because they represent an alternative. Millie wants the best for her daughter but this desire turns into greed. It becomes obvious into the film that th

Some topics in this essay:
Eve Bigamist, Phyllis Bigamist, Fast Beautiful, Ida Lupino, Lupino Hollywood, Gordon Florence’s, Beautiful Bigamist, Hollywood Lupino’s, Ida Lupino’s, Harry Eve, hard fast, hard fast beautiful, fast beautiful, ida lupino, feminist critics, lupino’s films, subject matter, classic hollywood, ida lupino’s, nor phyllis, 1950s hollywood,