Females behind the lens became a kind of closet secret in Hollywood once the sound era began, and consequently they almost became extinct after world war two. Ida Lupino was the only exception to that in Hollywood in the late 1940s and 1950s, and her directing career began almost by accident. She later turned to television, where she had a long and notable career as director of hundreds of episodes of iconic series.
Like her contemporary in the British film industry, Muriel Box, she gained her first directing assignments when in partnership with her husband, there being a deep distrust of women among investors. Also like Box, she made films about women's lives that reflected women's experience, and which sometimes explored uncomfortable feelings and revealed unspoken truths.
Woman Film Director in 1950s Hollywood – Queen of the B movies
Something of a cult figure now, especially among feminist academic film critics, Lupino began her career as a British actress auditioning in Hollywood at a very young age, taking American citizenship in 1948. Possibly her best role as an actress was in the noir film, They Drive By Night, (1940) a cut above more run-of-the-mill films noir, which mostly were made as low budget B-movies. Long before Kathryn Bigelow and Lizzie Borden, she became the first woman to direct a noir film, when she directed The Hitchhiker (1953).
In The Bigamist (1954) Lupino became the first woman in Hollywood to direct and star in her own film since Lois Weber at the turn of the century; Barbra Streisand, in Yentl (1983), would be the next.
Lupino’s directing career began when, as co-writer and star of Not Wanted (1949), she stepped into the (uncredited) director role when, three days into shooting, director Elmer Clifton fell ill. The studio was booked, the crew paid for, and she saw no reason to let the project fall apart when she had studied directing technique by many hours standing watching as a suspended studio starlet (she got suspended when she refused certain types of acting roles).
Soon after she formed her independent film company, variously named Emerald Productions, The Filmmakers and Bridget Productions, which allowed her to write, direct and produce. She made six movies this way, and starred in seven others, before turning to television both as an actress and a creator.
Ida Lupino Movie Director Filmography
- Not Wanted (1949) demonstrates her ability with a documentary-realist style, telling the tale of a young unmarried woman who falls pregnant by an itinerant worker in 1940s America.
- Never Fear (1950) features a young woman struggling to regain her body, and her lover, after an attack of polio (which Lupino had suffered when a teenager).
- Outrage (1950) also features a young woman whose life is forced away from its normal course, this time by the psychological effect of a brutal rape, which eventually forces the woman to take violent action.
- Hard, Fast and Beautiful (1951) tennis player, Florence, is manipulated by conflicting desires and ambitions of family members, and has to make the hard choice to break away to be happy.
- The Hitchhiker (1953) is based on a 1950 true crime and filmed in the same location, using noir techniques to produce a taut thriller in which the 'fatale' character is, for once, male.
- The Bigamist (1954) shows two good wives, rather than stereotypical manipulative women, but wives of the same man. The film revolves around Harry's conflicted nature, torn between need for the high-class elegance of his real marriage and the warmth of his poor-neighbourhood one.
- The Trouble With Angels (1965) was her greatest box office success and only break away from thrillers into a more mainstream production, starring child star, Hayley Mills, and her friend growing up at a convent school. What version of womanhood will they choose?
Ida Lupino was criticized for her apparent liking for playing 'bad girls', censured for making men the object of the camera (in the way that more often women are), and then disparaged for deserting her strengths to make a mainstream success. Eventually her remarkable and prolific contribution to the Hollywood cinema industry was recognised.
Hollywood recognised her when making her the second woman (after Dorothy Arzner) to be granted membership of the Directors Guild. The industry welcomed her strengths in the hundreds of hours of television it contracted her for, making her the most prolific woman filmmaker in history.
Sources
Ally Acker (1993) Reel Women: Pioneers of Cinema, 1896 to the Present Continuum
Mary G. Hurd (2006) Women directors and their films Praeger
Judith M. Redding & Victoria A. Brownworth (1997) Film Fatales: Independent Women Film Directors Seal Press
Andrew Spicer (2010) Historical Dictionary of Film Noir Scarecrow Press, Inc.
Valerie Williamson - Dr. Val Williamson is a freelance journalist and academic specialising in historical and popular culture topics.
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