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DVD Review: “The Bigamist” (1953)

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Seeing how much the movie industry and the media outlets covering it love to pay lipservice to women in film, it’s a mystery why they actually give so little coverage to pioneering female filmmakers, particularly Ida Lupino. Lupino was Hollywood’s first female producer-director, and she even co-wrote some of her films as well. (Director Dorothy Arzner preceded Lupino, but Arzner wasn’t a producer.) And, more to the point, Lupino was a damn good filmmaker whose work in movies and television has stood the test of time very well. And now, one of her best films The Bigamist (1953) has been remastered by Film Chest and is being released on DVD.

Outside of a 2010 Museum of Modern Art retrospective, Lupino’s achievements behind the camera have largely been ignored in favor of her work as an actress, particularly her performances at Warner Bros. in the 1940s as tough, hard-boiled dames in melodramas like They Drive by Night, High Sierra, The Hard Way, and The Man I Love. (Occasionally, Warners cast her in more conventional ingénue roles in films such as The Sea Wolf, Out of the Fog, and Deep Valley, her last for the studio.) “The poor man’s Bette Davis” was Lupino’s own self-depreciating description of her standing at Warners. (Her first film for the studio, They Drive by Night, was a semi-remake of Bordertown, with Lupino in the role that Davis played in the original.)

When her contract at Warners ran out in the late 40s, rather than renewing it, Lupino decided to try freelancing, like so many other actors did at a time when the “studio system” first began to unravel. Lupino had spent a great deal of her time at Warners on “suspension,” the studio’s notorious punishment for “rebellious” actors, something she had in common with Davis, James Cagney, and Olivia de Havilland. (It was de Havilland who successfully sued Warners over the practice, with the Supreme Court of California ruling it to be illegal, the first nail in the coffin of the aforementioned studio system. The US Supreme Court’s anti-trust ruling forcing the studios to divest themselves of their theater chains and the growing popularity of television were the next two major setbacks to the studios.) It was during these “suspension” periods that Lupino first became interested in the behind-the-scenes aspects of filmmaking, hanging out with directors and writers and learning the tricks of the trade from them. She was also motivated by wanting to have total control over her film work.

As a result, in addition to acting in other studios’ movies, Lupino and her second husband Collier Young formed an independent production company called The Filmakers, after first producing Not Wanted (1949), in which Lupino made her directorial debut unintentionally. Elmer Clifton, the director contracted for Not Wanted (about an out-of-wedlock pregnancy) suffered a heart attack before filming began and Lupino took over (uncredited). Lupino’s subsequent directorial efforts for the Filmakers included Never Fear, Outrage (dealing with rape, another feminist-oriented subject that was considered taboo by the Production Code), and Hard, Fast and Beautiful. In 1953, Lupino made her two most notable directing efforts, The Hitch-Hiker (her only out-and-out film noir) and The Bigamist. At this point in her career, Lupino amended her self-description to “the poor man’s Don Siegel.” (A filmmaker who could work wonders on meager budgets, Siegel directed The Filmakers’ 1954 production of Private Hell 36.) After The Bigamist, Lupino’s directing career continued mainly on television, with the exception of the last theatrical film (and only comedy) she ever directed The Trouble with Angels in 1966. (Much of Lupino’s work for the small screen also revealed a flair for the macabre, particularly in the episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Thriller, and The Twilight Zone that she directed.)

As the title makes obvious, The Bigamist dealt with another taboo subject. Originally, as was the case with Not Wanted, Lupino was not supposed to direct The Bigamist; she was only going to act in the film, which was co-produced (with Robert Eggenweiler) and co-written (with Larry Marcus) by Lupino’s then ex-husband Young. (Soon after the divorce, both Lupino and Young had remarried, she to Howard Duff and he to Joan Fontaine.) That game plan changed when Jane Greer, who was set to play the other female lead, dropped out. Fontaine offered to take Greer’s place, but only if Lupino would direct The Bigamist as well. Lupino never wanted to direct herself, but she agreed in order to get the film underway. Which is how the two Mrs. Youngs ending up playing the two wives of the title character Harry Graham (Edmond O’Brien, previously the lead in The Hitch-Hiker), a San Francisco-based small business owner who doubles as his own traveling salesman.

We first meet Harry and Wife #1, Eve (Fontaine), when they’re being interviewed by kindly child welfare official Mr. Jordan (Edmund Gwenn) as part of their adoption application. (Eve is unable to have a child.) For the most part, the interview goes well… until Harry betrays a momentary discomfort at signing the required form that gives Jordan permission to investigate their backgrounds to determine their suitability as adoptive parents, a hesitation that does not go unnoticed by Jordan. After the Grahams leave, Jordan expresses his doubts for the record in the Dictaphone recording of his notes: “From a preliminary interview, in my opinion, they would make fit parents, but something bothers me about Mr. Graham. He seemed impatient during the interview, a chip-on-the-shoulder sort of attitude. He… he behaved rather strangely when signing the… the permission to investigate form. Perhaps it is my imagination. I’ll report further when I visit the Grahams’ home for the customary inspection next week.”

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From this point, The Bigamist follows a traditional “three-act” structure of storytelling. Act One is in the form of a miniature mystery in which Jordan acts as a sleuth determined to unearth Harry’s secret, even to the extent of trailing him to Los Angeles, where he conducts most of his out-of-town business. Eventually, Jordan stumbles onto the fact that, rather than staying in a hotel, Graham owns a home in the LA suburbs. Turning up on Harry’s doorstep one night, Jordan discovers what the audience already knows, thanks to the film’s title and advertising, that there’s a second Mrs. Graham. Not only that, but Harry and Wife #2, Phyllis (Lupino), have an infant son as well.

Act Two is a lengthy flashback that takes up about half the movie as Harry tells Jordan the story of how he came to have two households. It seems that Harry and Phyllis “met cute” (to use the old screenwriters’ term) when, out of sheer boredom, Harry took an LA  bus tour of the stars’ homes and struck up a conversation with Phyllis, a waitress in a Chinese restaurant. They had a one-night stand that resulted in Phyllis’ pregnancy. Too weak-willed to divorce Eve (who’s also his business partner), but wanting to do the right thing by Phyllis, Harry proposed marriage to Phyllis and started the family that Eve couldn’t give him.

The sequences dealing with Harry and Phyllis’ brief fling and her subsequent pregnancy are a prime example of the absurdities imposed by the then-weakened but still enforced Code. Thanks to the Code’s infantile restrictions, there’s no hint of Harry and Phyllis enjoying a night of intimacy, nor is the word “pregnant” ever uttered in the scene where Harry learns that Phyllis is carrying his child, which is couched in the most evasively suggested terms possible. The Code was also responsible for the abrupt, unsatisfying resolution of the film’s third act, which conformed to the demand that all lawbreakers must face legal retribution.

The Bigamist’s script, Lupino’s direction, Leith Stevens’s music score, and George Diskant’s black-and-white cinematography waver between domestic drama and noir (particularly in the first two acts) before settling on the former. (Although the seedy restaurant Phyllis works in and the scarred, scowling face of its owner seemingly promise that noir will be the film’s dominant mood.) Despite the somberness of the subject matter and the sober approach taken to the material, the script does indulge in some playful Hollywood in-jokes. There are not one but two references to Gwenn’s most famous role, his Oscar-winning performance as Kris Kringle in Miracle on 34th Street. Eve tells Harry that she thinks Jordan “looks like Santa Claus.” And during the bus tour, the driver/guide points out Gwenn’s home, referring to the actor as “the little man who is Santa Claus to the whole world.” The homes of Lupino’s former Warners colleagues Barbara Stanwyck and Jane Wyman are also name-checked in this scene.

As she always did, Lupino got excellent performances from her cast, including herself.  She and Fontaine both contribute subtle, understated acting turns as the two Mrs. Grahams. Gwenn gives a charming, low-key performance as a dedicated public servant who is torn between duty and pity when confronting Harry about his deceit. O’Brien manages to make Harry an ultimately sympathetic (and rather pathetic) character, while still imbuing him with the sweaty neuroticism that was typical of his roles in the late 40s and early 50s.

Although Film Chest’s press release says that this version of The Bigamist was “restored from original 35mm materials,” the state of those materials obviously were not as well preserved as Film Chest’s previous remastered film release Hollow Triumph. For most of the film, the visual quality of Film Chest’s The Bigamist DVD is sharp and crisp, but noticeable scratching appears periodically and there is a little jumpiness in the opening credits. Still, the overall quality of this version of The Bigamist is light years ahead of Alpha Video’s earlier DVD version with its murky print and muddy soundtrack.

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DVD Review: “Hollow Triumph” (1948)

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In a 2013 Los Angeles Times article on ‘B’ movies, film historian Alan K. Rode was quoted as saying, “These ‘B’ features were shorter in time, lower in budget. To me, a ‘B’ movie is something that is fast, it moves, and is entertaining first and foremost.” Another aspect of ‘B’ movies that contributed to their quality is that often they were the result of an ideal convergence of veteran and fresh talent, some on their way up the ladder and, sad to say, some on the way down. One such ‘B’ film that reflects this kind of cinematic “perfect storm” is the 1948 film noir Hollow Triumph, which has just been released by Film Chest on DVD remastered in HD from the original 35mm film elements.

Hollow Triumph (aka The Scar in the UK) was a product of the short-lived (1947-48) production division of Eagle-Lion Films, a company that was initially established by British producer J. Arthur Rank (of the famous “gong” logo) to distribute UK films in the US and then make low-budget movies, with Bryan Foy in charge of production (later an independent producer for the studio). Nobody knew how to make quality ‘B’s better than Foy, who established Warner Bros.’ low-budget programmer unit in the ’30s, where he was known as “the keeper of the ‘B’s.” Hollow Triumph’s star was Austria-Hungary-born actor Paul Henreid, who also made his name at Warners, most memorably in Casablanca. After leaving Warners to try freelancing, Henreid accepted Eagle-Lion’s offer to both act in and produce (his debut in that capacity) his own movie. (Unfortunately, soon afterward, Henreid’s acting career hit a roadblock in the form of the HUAC witch hunts and, except for occasional supporting roles, he mainly spent the last two decades of his Hollywood career behind the cameras as a director.)

Upon having Murray Forbes’ novel Hollow Triumph recommended to him by Hungarian director Steve Sekely, Henreid chose that as his source material and assigned Sekely to helm the picture. An experienced director who got his start making movies in Germany and Hungary, Sekely was an inspired choice for the film, along with screenwriter Daniel Fuchs and innovative cinematographer John Alton. Henreid’s co-star was Joan Bennett (cast after Harry Cohn refused to loan out Henreid’s first choice, Evelyn Keyes, from her Columbia Pictures contract). Bennett was a major romantic star in the 1930s who had reinvented herself in the 40s playing hard-boiled types, most notably her three roles for celebrated director Fritz Lang in his films Man Hunt, The Woman in the Window, and Scarlet Street. Hollow Triumph also boasts some fine supporting performances from a Who’s Who of lesser-known character actors, including John Qualen, Henry Brandon, Herbert Rudley, Charles Trowbridge, George Chandler, Sid Tomack, Lucien Littlefield, Norma Varden, Benny Rubin, Thomas Browne Henry, Dick Wessel, and future TV and film auteur Jack Webb, making his movie debut as a dour hitman called Bullseye. (Rather ironic seeing as Webb would become early television’s most famous cop on Dragnet.)

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In Hollow Triumph, a cast-against-type Henreid plays con man John Muller, who, despite his criminal background, also holds a medical degree in psychology (which comes in very handy later in the story). In the opening scene, Muller is paroled from prison with a warning from a deputy (Trowbridge) to keep his nose clean. So, of course, the first thing he does on the outside is get in touch with his old gang. One of his men, Big Boy (Brandon), knows of an illegal gambling den that’s ripe for a knockover, but Marcy (Rudley), another member of the gang, has cold feet because the casino is owned by Rocky Stanwyck (Henry, also making his film debut), a ruthless mobster with a rep for having anyone who crosses him pursued relentlessly and rubbed out.

Taking their places inside and out of the gambling hole, a dingy basement storeroom (which, thanks to Alton’s lighting, looks like something out of a silent German Expressionist film), Muller and his crew set the robbery into motion. However, like so many of the movies’ “perfect heists,” everything that can possibly go wrong does. Although Muller and Marcy get away with the loot, the rest of the gang are captured and eliminated by Stanwyck and his goons, and the two fugitives are well aware that it’s only a matter of time until they’re next.

Marcy opts for fleeing to Mexico and Muller takes it on the lam to LA, hiding out by reluctantly taking the tedious office job the parole board set him up with. One afternoon, while running a work errand, Muller runs into a mild-mannered dentist (Qualen) who mistakes him for someone else. That someone else is Dr. Bartok (also Henreid), a psychiatrist who works in the same building as the dentist. Conveniently, Bartok is a virtual doppelganger for Muller, but with one noticeable difference: a small scar on his cheek. Stepping into Bartok’s office while the doctor’s out to lunch (a nice subjective shot), Muller meets Bartok’s secretary Evelyn Hahn (Bennett), a bitter, disillusioned woman carrying an unrequited torch for her employer.

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Ever the louse, Muller seduces Evelyn in order to pump her for info about Bartok as part of a newly-hatched scheme to eventually eliminate the doctor and take over his life. When he learns that Marcy has been bumped off in Mexico and that a couple of torpedoes (Webb and Wessel) are hot on his trail, Muller is forced to speed up his timetable. First, he gets a job working the graveyard shift at the all-night garage where Bartok keeps his car. The next part of Muller’s plot is to duplicate Bartok’s scar on his own face with the aide of a scalpel and some anesthetic. But, as luck would have it, just as the meticulously worked-out robbery unraveled, that act of self-mutilation turns out to be the first fatal misstep in a series of unanticipated events that inevitably doom Muller’s best laid plans.

Thanks to Sekely’s expert direction and Alton’s sharp-edged black-and-white photography, Hollow Triumph has enough visual style to belie its meager budget, which is typical of the ‘B’ movies supervised by Foy. Fuchs’ brittle, cynical dialogue is also a major asset. There are many situations and plot twists in Hollow Triumph that could be described as “Hitchcockian,” although in a manner more reminiscent of the Master of Suspense’s two television anthology series, Alfred Hitchcock Presents and The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, than his movies. (Interestingly, Henreid directed several episodes of the former series and one of the latter.) In fact, Hollow Triumph’s “surprise ending” was not only echoed in more than one episode of the aforementioned television series, but it also turned up in an early episode of The Twilight Zone (albeit with a supernatural twist).

Don’t get me wrong; Hollow Triumph is no unsung masterpiece. But it is a tough, spare, expertly-made and well-acted little thriller that demonstrates the virtues of ‘B’ picture making. And thanks to well-done remastering, it looks better than it has in years on Film Chest’s DVD release.