Isn't it strange, how differently people can see the same movie? Though I didn't warm up to The Bigamist until I watched it a second time, I honestly don't see Joan Fontaine as unsympathetic or O'Brien as holding all the cards or Lupino as frumpy. In some ways this film is a rather bold--for its time--critique of social class distinctions, harking back to the pre-code era in its attempted realism.kingrat wrote: Lupino proves herself a competent director in THE BIGAMIST, which makes good use of Los Angeles settings. Too bad that the script of THE BIGAMIST is so retro. Consider: Joan Fontaine's character can't have a child; her husband is a bigamist; her father has a long illness and dies; her mother is ill; yet SHE's supposed to be the unsympathetic character because she devotes time and effort to making her husband's deep freeze business more successful. Fortune cookie philosophy: "Woman who run deep freeze business have deep freeze in bedroom." Lupino gets a better performance from Fontaine than Fritz Lang did in BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT a few years later. Notice how Fontaine has a natural speaking voice in THE BIGAMIST, not the stage diction that makes her seem so matronly and stuffy in the Lang film.
Oddly, Lupino looks less attractive in THE BIGAMIST than in films directed by others. The script calls her character a "little brown mouse," and that's how she's dressed until she puts on "something slinky" for her big date. Her short hairstyle is not becoming; the other films give her longer hair, which sets off her face better.
One of the quirky strengths of this film may be the fact that no one is overly heroic or villainous. The ending is open-ended, which may reflect the script's deliberate lack of polish, but is also much more realistic in a way, (though I know that many find that denouement very dissatisfying). I think that one of the interesting things about the script is that each character in a sense is trapped by society's expectations. Their transgressions against that norm of behavior are almost unconscious acts of rebellion with Edmond O'Brien marrying two women and loving both, Joan Fontaine "failing" to have a baby and then compounding her sin against nature by becoming more adept at sales than her hubby, and Ida, who appears to have a hard shell with that bad haircut, the wisecracks and blue collar job and all, is actually the most vulnerable, full of longing and loneliness that has become a habit for her for so long, she just assumes that O'Brien will not be likely to help her when she commits the ultimate misstep by becoming pregnant outside of marriage.
Again, I have to differ, though because of the Production Code this film tips its hat at convention but has a strong undercurrent of subversive criticism of societal expectations for men and women. I think that it attempts to show what happens to a woman in American society when she attempts to give both her sister's and her lives some direction. This transforms her into a ruthless but instinctively canny person.kingrat wrote:THE HARD WAY is just as backward as THE BIGAMIST. Granted, the point is that Lupino's character ruthlessly guides her sister's show biz career, but did the script really have to expound on the glories of marriage and ten (!) children? The paradox is that performers like Ida Lupino and Joan Leslie work hard to improve their craft until they finally star in a film that, at least officially, denounces the importance of acting, singing, and dancing. If you can overlook that, THE HARD WAY looks like one of Vincent Sherman's better films.
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Dennis Morgan, who sees through the naked ambition in Ida's character, but fails to perceive the reality of the need behind it, is presented as an alternative path to fulfillment, but he is then unmasked as as an avenging angel of sorts for the social norms--enticing Lupino into letting her guard down and then rejecting her. Even though it costs Lupino what most people might term her soul and others might perceive as her femininity, by adopting the prevalent philosophy that underlies our society most of the time: "look out for yourself and to hell with others." Because Ida sees little choice in life, she uses her sexual allure, her wiles, and her inner steeliness to escape from one dead end trap, only to find herself (and her poor sister, Joan Leslie) in another, better dressed trap of success.
Was the life he pretended to offer ever a real possibility for Ida? I don't think so. Lupino's character is behind the eight ball from the start of this film. Still relatively young yet trapped in a marriage to an unimaginative, hard working if self-pitying blue collar worker (Roman Bohnen, who played such roles with enormous understanding and truth).
I believe that the film has sympathy for almost all--except Morgan--who is the only cardboard character of the bunch. (Actually, I've always had a weakness for Dennis Morgan, but, except for his work under John Huston's direction in In This Our Life, I can't honestly say that I believe he's a very good actor, frankly).
Some may feel like hissing over Lupino's stratagems, but she is no better off by the end of the film nor is Joan Leslie, (who probably won't last too long without Ida's push, though maybe Morgan will once again pick up his romance with the kid.) Even Roman Bohnen, and the falling star whose vulnerability is exploited by Ida, (so brilliantly captured by Gladys George), and especially not poor Jack Carson (who was exceptionally fine as the lovesick vaudevillian) all suffer because our society tends to treat human beings as a disposable commodity, cast aside when their usefulness is over. On the surface the film appears to be one of the most acidic portraits of a certain type of show biz mentality ever caught on film, but I tend to think it is not backward in regard to female roles, but an entertaining portrait of an entire society too.
But heck, that's just one interpretation of mine. I do find Ida's character pretty horrible, but I recognize something very human and very American in her too.
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Btw, did you know that the original script by Irwin Shaw was reportedly written after Jerry Wald supposedly told Shaw about a performer he'd discovered recovering from a suicide attempt in a New York hospital while Wald was a reporter for the tabloid, the New York Graphic? Though the script had Daniel Fuchs and others embellishing it along the way, it was based on the story of that suicidal performer, Jack Pepper and Ginger Rogers.
Pepper, (whose real name was Edward Culpepper), was part of a vaudeville team called "Pepper and Salt", with his partner, Frank Salt, were performing in Dallas, Texas in the late '20s. Asked to judge a Charleston contest, he saw Ginger, voted for her, met her, and they fell in love and were married and began to appear on stage together as "Ginger and Pepper". Her career took off after their divorce when her aggressively protective mother, Lela Rogers began managing her career, while Pepper's nosedived, though he tried to make a go of it again.
Shaw changed the mother and daughter to sisters, but much of the rest has some basis in reality, including the character played by Jack Carson, who is clearly based on Jack Pepper. Producer Jerry Wald is said to have offered the Ida Lupino role to Ginger Rogers who refused it, but said "This could be the story of my life."
Rogers spoke well of her first husband later, and other performers, including Bing Crosby, remembered that Jack Pepper was a good singer, but as his hair thinned, his girth increased and vaudeville died, he and his erstwhile partner split up for good after a reunion, and whenever Crosby ran across Pepper around the club circuit or in vaudeville houses where he was "stooging" for players like Jay C. Flippen and Ben Blue, he'd ask how is it going. Pepper would invariably say "Have fun now, get the bread later" or, when feeling especially ebullient, he'd say, "Lots of laughs, lots of bread in the house." His friends tried to help him several times, but he endured after the suicide attempt, working in a small Dallas club he owned and appearing in films in small parts from 1929 until 1965 when he played an uncredited banjo player in Cat Ballou (1965). You can read more about his work here and below is Pepper, singing, in his blues-tinged way, the ironic "The Girl Of My Dreams" in 1928.
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(Most of the sources for this info about Jack Pepper are drawn from Studio Affairs by Vincent Sherman, Ginger, My Story by Ginger Rogers, Ginger Rogers: a bio-bibliography by Jocelyn Faris, Bing Crosby: A Pocketful of Dreams by Gary Giddins, and Vaudeville, Old & New: An Encyclopedia of Variety Performers in America)
