Ida Lupino

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Cinema has long made the hallowed halls of education one of its most oft utilized settings, whether real (Eastside High School) or fictional (Rydell High School), of this world (Greendale Community College) or existing in another realm (Hogwarts). But where most are set in public schools or universities, it is the boarding school that often makes for a more interesting subset of school-based films for the opportunity to create a more instant feel for community and togetherness, whether in countless Anime fare, dramatic tales set in the past, or more action-oriented movies like Toy Soldiers, one of this reviewer’s favorite guilty pleasures. Director Ida Lupino’s 1966 film The Trouble with Angels, set in an all-girls Catholic boarding school, is a classic family-friendly Comedy that might show its age in 2019 but that remains true to the essential characters and the realities of life in one of cinema’s more endearing and possibility-filled essential locations.Read More »

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The 1950s was an incredible time for television. Many of the best actors, directors and writers had moved from the big screen to TV and shows like “Playhouse 90” and “Screen Directors Playhouse” assembled some amazing talent. Here, Ida Lupino directs Teresa Wright, Peter Lorre and William Talman in a drama about some crooks who have chosen Wright’s isolated hotel in which to hide out from the law. Wright plays a deaf woman who is terrified of these men and it is very reminiscent of many other films–including a few in which Miss Lupino appeared (such as “Deep Valley”, “On Dangerous Ground” and “Beware My Lovely”). It also is a bit like the later film “Wait Until Dark” (with Audrey Hepburn)–though in this case the terrified woman is blind, not deaf.Read More »

A young woman who has just become engaged has her life completely shattered when she is raped while on her way home from work.Read More »

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Harry and Eve Graham are trying to adopt a baby. The head of the agency 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 and a baby. Via flashbacks, Harry tells the adoption agent how he ended up in two marriages.Read More »

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Originally begun as NOT WANTED by low-budget director Elmer Clifton, who almost immediately suffered a heart attack and died soon after, the film was completed by actress Ida Lupino, her first directorial effort (she also co-wrote and co-produced this one). Lupino was a film noir favorite, and would continue acting well into the 1970s, but her short directing career was a first in Hollywood. She was one of the first actors to make the move behind the camera, and was the very first actress to direct her own feature-length film. Read More »

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A dancer who has just gotten engaged to her partner and choreographer and is about to embark on a major career is devastated to learn that she has contracted polio.Read More »

After a beautiful but unsophisticated girl is seduced by a worldly piano player and gives up her out-of-wedlock baby, her guilt compels her to kidnap another child.Read More »

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A superb noir thriller with a difference. Ray’s second film with producer John Houseman (the first being They Live By Night) starts off in the sinister urban jungle, with Ryan’s cop increasingly brutalised by the ‘garbage’ he is forced to deal with. Finally, his methods become so violent that he is sent to cool off in snowy upstate New York, where his search for a sex killer brings him into contact with Lupino’s blind woman and her mentally retarded brother (Williams). It’s a film about the violence within us all, about the effects of environment and family upon character (Lupino, peaceful and a healing force, even has a tree in her living room), and about the spiritual redemption of a fallen man.Read More »

The Hitch-Hiker is the most well-known movie in Kino on Video’s “Ida Lupino–Queen of the B’s” video series. In the past, The Hitch-Hiker has been available in poor video transfers from small video companies. Now thanks to this pristine print, this taut, suspense-filled film noir can be better appreciated. The only film noir directed by a woman, The Hitch-Hiker tells the story of two buddies (Edmund O’Brien and Frank Lovejoy) on a fishing trip. Unbeknownst to them, however, the police are pursing a psychotic killer who hitches rides and then kills the occupants of the cars. (This character is based upon drifter William Edward Cook and the news coverage that followed his 1950 murder spree in the Southwest.) Emmet Meyers (played by William Talman) becomes a forerunner of the killer in Henry–Portrait of a Serial Killer. Without any remorse, he kills and then moves on to the next victim. O’Brien and Lovejoy make the mistake of stopping to pick up a hitchhiker and soon find themselves looking into the barrel of a .38 caliber revolver.Read More »