1953
Directed by Ida Lupino
All right, stick with me when I give you the plot of this film; it is actually quite good, despite how it sounds.
A man is married to two different women but it is actually not that bad of a guy. The women aren't even that upset when they find out!
All right, that sounds really stupid. It is actually extremely entertaining. First of all, the acting is fantastic (shout out to my favorite, Joan Fontaine). The dialogue is also snappy and clever. I ride the bus everyday and I never have such witty repartee with strangers.
This is a ridiculously short review because I have to go to work now and it will bother me if this isn't finished when I leave. I fear, dear reader, that you must suffer for my obsessiveness.
Check it out and be surprised at how you feel about polygamy by the end.
RATING: ****-
Interesting Facts:
Stars' actual homes were used in the tour.
Ida Lupino's last feature film for twelve years.
Very much with you on this one Amanda..
ReplyDeleteFor it's time, an astonishingly tolerant slant on the guy. In an age where (at least filmic representations had to be shown as) a marriage was for ever, to be sympathetic to the guy is remarkable. (I wonder if a male director would have been able to get away with it? I somewhat doubt it)
Ray
Interesting point about the male director. I always am a bit weary about early films in the book that are directed by women because I don't if it is actually going to be a good movie or if the list makers just put it because women directors were rare at the time. This was definitely a pleasant surprise.
DeleteLOL at how his excuse for cheating on his wife was that she was a "career woman." He said she is different now because of course you can be hardened and career-oriented, or maternal, but not both! I love how at dinner she is so knowledgeable about the product and he is like, ew gross.
ReplyDeleteHello again Rachel - it's always good to see you here..
ReplyDeleteI don't remember that quote, but I'd agree it would be a cringe moment. I agree with you that it seems like he cannot take that 'a woman' could be an equal in terms of his work..
HOWEVER...I'm still going to defend this one. How many other films have we seen where the man is so obsessed with work and sucess that he ignores his wife and family and their emotional needs..
We all have - irrespective of gender - many sides to us, often in contradiction, and he see this film as about that - not just as a 'cheating male beep' story.
I was noticing this more and more when I watched Fatal Attraction recently; how the career woman is an unbalanced menace since any woman in her right mind would want to have a family. It's pretty cringy.
DeleteGoing into this movie I had prepared for the worst and instead got a surprisingly detailed and sympathetic story. Engrossing, really.
ReplyDeleteIf you want cringe worthy then watch "Woman of the Year" with Katherine Hepburn. That is a movie that wants to celebrate the liberated women, yet cannot help describing her as a freak who missed the entire point with her life.
Oh dear. No thank you!
DeleteMy take on the career woman line wasn't that it was intended to be an accusation of behaviour nor personality. It was more just that somewhere along the line both of them lost track of the husband and wife parts of their relationship and instead just became good work colleagues. He noticed this first, but in all likelihood he became it first as well.
ReplyDeleteI thought it was an interesting film. Possibly balanced too far towards sympathy for him by the end, but in the era it was made perhaps it needed a lot to counter-balance the prevailing attitudes of the times.