Ida Lupino: Great & Multi-Talented

[ClassyCo]

I cannot believe I've been an avid classic Hollywood fan for more than a decade, and I've allowed Ida Lupino to slide right under my nose. Of course, I always knew of her, but I had never seen her in anything other than the "I Will Be Remembered" episode of Charlie's Angels (1977), where she played a fading film star Gloria Gibson whose agents and former co-workers are trying to steal a priceless painting in her mansion by driving her crazy.

The Lupino family was an acting dynasty whose career in entertainment traces back to the 1600s. She started her career in England, then she was brought over to America as a contract star for Paramount Pictures. She was ushered into a series of B-pictures, and her look had her branded an English version of Jean Harlow. She fought for a role in The Light That Failed (1939), receiving excellent reviews. Her work brought her to the attention of Warner Brothers, where she signed in 1940. Her first pictures there, They Drive By Night (1940) and High Sierra (1941), earned her strong reviews. Lupino spent most of her time at Warner Brothers being what she jokingly called the "poor man's Bette Davis", often taking roles Davis had rejected.

I've been digging into Ida Lupino's life, and I want to more about her. I'm finding her terribly intriguing. She's got to have some fans here among my fellow Telly Talk friends.

Every time she I hear the name "Ida Lupino" I think about the "A Toe in the Water" from the sixth season of Designing Women. The gentleman Julia has been dating, who Allison assumes is gay, makes a reference to an outfit Julia tried on as being "too Ida Lupino" for Julia to effectively pull off.

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Below is what Ida Lupino looked like when she came to Hollywood as a little-known British actress. Paramount signed her as their alternative to Jean Harlow, and cast her in a host of low-budget quickies. Even though she was attractive, she seemed out of her realm as a blonde siren, and she did not make too much of a splash during this period.

Apparently columnist Hedda Hopper, who met Lupino at a party, told her that if she wanted to make it in Hollywood she needed to shed her baby fat, loose the penciled on eyebrows, and allow her hair to go natural. Lupino did all those things, and just as Hopper predicted, things began turning around for her. She got a contract with Warner Brothers, where she would do some of her best work on camera.

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[Snarky Oracle!]

She was also a decent director, and almost did BABY JANE with Bette Davis well-before Crawford and Bob Aldrich were on board, (Lupino couldn't get financing).

She was also involved with two classic TWILIGHT ZONE episodes, "16 mm Shrine" (where she played a faded movie queen obsessed with her old films), and "The Masks" (which she directed).


Ahhh, Virginia Gregg ---you're just everywhere...

 

[Crimson]

Ida Lupina had an interesting career, especially as she transitioned to being a director. However, looking through her filmography, the only thing I've seen her in as an actress was her guest spot on the LUCY-DESI COMEDY HOUR -- and that was awful, the single worst entry in the I LOVE LUCY format.

Like Ann Sheridan, who I likewise haven't seen any/much of, I suspect I would enjoy Lupina's work -- I just never seem to get around to it.

 

[ClassyCo]

She was also a decent director, and almost did BABY JANE with Bette Davis well-before Crawford and Bob Aldrich were on board, (Lupino couldn't get financing).

She was also involved with two classic TWILIGHT ZONE episodes, "16 mm Shrine" (where she played a faded movie queen obsessed with her old films), and "The Masks" (which she directed).


Ahhh, Virginia Gregg ---you're just everywhere...
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I hadn't any idea she was once tied to What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? I'm assuming she was going to play Blanche to Davis's Jane. That would have been an interesting duo, but I wouldn't have taken it over the Davis/Crawford pairing with got.

Lupino was the first and only woman to direct a Twilight Zone episode, and actually one of the well-remembered ones at that. She had a decent career as a director it seems, directing over one-hundred episodes of some of television's top shows in the 1960s.

Ida Lupina had an interesting career, especially as she transitioned to being a director. However, looking through her filmography, the only thing I've seen her in as an actress was her guest spot on the LUCY-DESI COMEDY HOUR -- and that was awful, the single worst entry in the I LOVE LUCY format.

Like Ann Sheridan, who I likewise haven't seen any/much of, I suspect I would enjoy Lupina's work -- I just never seem to get around to it.

I know what you mean. I'm kind of ashamed of myself. Ida Lupino has slid right under my nose, and I've vastly underappreciated her. While I cannot safely pass judgment on her work because my lack of knowledge, I also feel like I'd enjoy it but I just haven't gotten around to viewing any of it.

This is the photo used in the Leading Ladies book I have that divides actresses up into different eras. If memory serves me, Ida's in the Neo-Classic section. The mini-biography says she rose above weak material with staggering ease.

This remains one of my favorite pictures of her.

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[ginnyfan]

I like Ida Lupino, even though she was never one of my favorites. I always knew about her and have seen many of her movies since she was at Warners in 1940s and starred with many of their male stars in well known movies that used to air a lot on TCM Europe. Her big break came in They Drive by Night (1940) and she was paired with Boggie again next year in High Sierra which was another success. She played opposite all the big Warner males including Eddie G Robinson, John Garfield, Errol Flynn etc. She also got some leading roles in women's pictures like The Hard Way (1943) and Devotion (1946). I guess those were the Bette Davis rejects she talked about. After leaving WB, she did a lot of noirs at RKO, including good pairings with Robert Ryan in On Dangerous Ground (1951) and Beware, My Lovely (1952). By this time she was directing as well and was not afraid to tackle controversial topics like rape, bigamy, abortion etc. Her best known work is The Hitch-Hiker (1953) but I also love The Bigamist (1953) with Joan Fontaine and Edmond O'Brien.

For me the big recent discovery about her is that she was English. I never got that from her, she seemed so American to me. Maybe it's cause she was at a very urban studio like Warners or the fact she did many noirs which are so quintessentially American.

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

I hadn't any idea she was once tied to What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? I'm assuming she was going to play Blanche to Davis's Jane. That would have been an interesting duo, but I wouldn't have taken it over the Davis/Crawford pairing with got.

No. Lupino was going to direct, not co-star.

 

[Crimson]

Lupino was going to direct, not co-star.

I know enough about JANE's production to know FEUD was mostly malarkey, but I've never come across any particularly thorough history of the film. Have you come across a good a source, or just random tidbits? (Not disputing your knowledge; looking to replicate.)

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

I know enough about JANE's production to know FEUD was mostly malarkey, but I've never come across any particularly thorough history of the film. Have you come across a good a source, or just random tidbits? (Not disputing your knowledge; looking to replicate.)

Oh, gosh... There was something somewhere someplace that Lupino was trying to interest a studio in the project with Bette as the star, and an executive had just seen a mediocre episode of, yes, WAGON TRAIN with Bette and they thought she'd lost her edge. So it was coincidence when Joan and Aldrich later came up with the same idea.... I don't know how much Bette knew about the initial situation since it didn't get very far.

Well, maybe not entirely coincidence. If you picked up and read WEHTBJ? in 1962, just what actress would you think of?

 

[Crimson]

something somewhere someplace

We appear to have the same sources.

you picked up and read WEHTBJ? in 1962, just what actress would you think of?

I read WEHTBJ? about 5 years ago and went into it with a clear slate; I tried re-casting the parts in my head. I tried everyone from Stanwyck to Lucy, Pickford to Swanson, Leigh to Hayward. Nobody worked. Even Blanche was impossible to recast.

The closest I came to a satisfactory re-cast was Fontaine and De Havilland, for obvious reasons. The thought amused me greatly, but I didn't want a Joan Fontaine movie -- even an imaginary one -- stuck in my head.

 

[ClassyCo]

I wonder how it would have worked with Lupino behind the camera?

I cannot imagine anyone else in the Davis/Crawford roles.

 

[Crimson]

I cannot imagine anyone else in the Davis/Crawford roles.

I think the Redgrave sisters' remake was proof positive that some roles just can't be re-cast.

 

[ClassyCo]

I think the Redgrave sisters' remake was proof positive that some roles just can't be re-cast.

I watched that version (it was once on YouTube and I had it downloaded on my laptop) and I can honestly say I liked it. I appreciated their attempts to update the story where they could, and I liked some of the new scenes they added, like where Jane cuts Blanche's hair and Blanche scolds Jane because she doesn't like it. It was little things like that I could appreciate their reach for something slightly different, even if their blueprint was basically the same.

The Redgrave sisters had nothing on Davis and Crawford, though. Nothing.

 

[Seaviewer]

Her big break came in They Drive by Night (1940) and she was paired with Boggie again next year in High Sierra which was another success.

There was a time when I made a point of watching every Bogart film I could find. High Sierra was one that made an impression on me.

the only thing I've seen her in as an actress was her guest spot on the LUCY-DESI COMEDY HOUR -- and that was awful, the single worst entry in the I LOVE LUCY format.

She also played one of the lesser Bat-villainesses in the finale season episode "The Entrancing Dr. Cassandra".

 

[ClassyCo]

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

Libra Rising/Moon in Scorpio --- like Elizabeth Taylor. (Different Sun signs).

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

A review of the 1964 TWILIGHT ZONE that Lupino directed, "The Masks":

She also starred in one, "The 16-millimeter Shrine."

 

[ClassyCo]

Ida Lupino directed three episodes of GILLIGAN'S ISLAND:

"Goodnight, Sweet Skipper" -- the plot of this episode escapes me right now, and I'm too lazy to look it up.

"Wrongway Feldman" -- a WWI fighter pilot stranded on the island.

"The Producer" -- Phil Silvers guest stars as Hollywood producer Harold Hecuba, who ends up on the island and the castaways out on a production of "Hamlet".

 

[Seaviewer]

"The Producer" -- Phil Silvers guest stars as Hollywood producer Harold Hecuba, who ends up on the island and the castaways out on a production of "Hamlet".

That's surely one of the great ones. To this day I can't hear those tunes without singing along with the lyrics from that show.

 

[ClassyCo]

MOONTIDE (1942) blends different genres -- crime, romance, noir -- into one film. That isn't necessarily a negative, but I'm unsure about the finished product. The story shifts from one tone to another, and it can be just a little jarring. One minute we're dealing with an alcoholic being hired as a dock worker, the next we're seeing him fawn over a woman he just rescued after a failed attempt at suicide.

That being said, French actor Jean Gabin is a charming, effective, and likable lead. I was genuinely engrossed in his character, Bobo, who has a colorful past, an issue with drinking, and problems with his anger. Ida Lupino is Anna, the female lead, a quasi-hooker whose perspective on life is turned around once she and Bobo start eyeing each other. Honestly, their love-at-first-sight romance is fine, it just rubs against the grain of the rest of the film. It is sandwiched between murder and some impressive B&W cinematography that's plucked right out of a Warner's film noir.

Thomas Mitchell is against type here as Bobo's drinking buddy, and the ever-enjoyable Claude Rains dawns a mustache as Bobo's buddy Nutsy. Mitchell and Rains are relegated to small, secondary roles here, but they both make the best of their screen time. Mitchell, in particular, holds his own against Gabin in the film's climax.

I was in the mood for an "Ida Lupino movie" today and I chose this one from a YouTube playlist. I had no prior knowledge of the movie, and little exposure to Gabin or even Lupino for that matter. I've only seen Mitchell as Scarlett's dad in GONE WITH THE WIND, so I guess that leaves me being most familiar with Rains.

MOONTIDE isn't necessarily Lupino's movie like I had hoped, and my mixed reaction to it doesn't necessarily leave the door open for me to want to revisit the movie down the road.