Cast:
Joan Fontaine (Eve Graham), Ida Lupino (Phyllis Martin), Edmund Gwenn (Mr. Jordan), Edmond O'Brien (Harry Graham / Harrison Graham), Kenneth Tobey (Tom Morgan, Defense Attorney), Jane Darwell (Mrs. Connelley), Peggy Maley (Phone Operator), and Lilian Fontaine (Miss Higgins, Landlady) Directed by Ida Lupino (#799 - The Hitch-Hiker, #1651 - Never Fear, #1811 - Not Wanted, #1991 - Outrage, #2189 - Hard, Fast and Beautiful)
Review:
At last, here is a movie where a woman was directing herself for a major feature film, as this was apparently the first of its kind in the sound era. It just happened to be the sixth feature film by Ida Lupino and her near swansong. The Filmmakers, the company behind these films in collaboration with her then-husband Collier Young, wasn't merely just a vanity project, they released such movies as Charles Lederer's On the Loose (1951), Harry Horner's Beware My Lovely (1952). There were just two more movies released by the company after The Bigamist: Don Siegel's Private Hell 36 (released in 1954 and co-written by Lupino and Young) and Harry Essex's Mad at the World (1955). After co-writing two of her previous five movies as a director, this was one with a different type of writing: Lawrence B. Marcus and Lou Schor wrote the story while Young wrote the screenplay by himself. It should be mentioned that by this time, Young was married to Joan Fontaine, as if one was essentially writing about himself when talking about loving different women (actually it went both ways, Lupino married Howard Duff pretty quickly after she and Young were divorced). The company had to distribute the movie itself when RKO Pictures pulled out, and the company effectively went by the wayside in trying to get into self-distribution. Lupino continued to direct in television for several years afterwards while directing one more film: The Trouble With Angels (1965)*.
Incidentally, bigamy is a considerable crime that could range from infraction (Utah) to a felony. Perhaps coincidentally, this movie was released in the same year that the "largest mass arrest of polygamist in American history" was done, in which Short Creek, Arizona had hundreds of Mormon fundamentalists arrested while children were removed from their families (some children never returned to their families). If it was made in a slightly different timespan, who knows what kind of exploitation would've been made about the sordid things that happen with living a double life. At any rate, it probably isn't too surprising to see the movie is a noir of its own, complete with a lengthy flashback that eventually will see a perhaps inevitable clash of the traps that come with the times one lives in within an 80-minute runtime. With a title like that, one might see the angle for someone to turn it into exploitation fare or something to perhaps preach to the pulpit, but what we really have is a movie with three solid leads that are presented with clear-cut honesty about the foibles that come with a person that simply does not want to decide between two women where he knows someone is going to get hurt. It is the kind of wishy-washy nature that could only happen with a man that has the particular status to be wrapped up in such a venture (some people have mistresses, others, well, have women). It helps to have a quartet like this, packed with two Academy Award winning actors with Fontaine and Gwenn and a future winner with O'Brien. You can see where O'Brien shines in the dilemma that comes with a man that cannot be hated but is instead found to be in a weird sort of road where one would wish him luck with a performance that rides the line of loneliness with commitment. His bout with lies and truth (the ones he tells to others but also to himself) tangle with ambiguity because you really don't know where he will find himself at the end of the prison road (beyond the money part). Fontaine may be his first love, but Lupino gave him something distinct as the other side of a coin wrapped with bare truths for a man who could not stand to be alone or "not doing the right thing". Lupino and Fontaine each play it straight to the point of what might as well be two sides of the same woman: distant on one side that one might forget really does love them and a side that is distinctly unsentimental but vulnerable. Gwenn handles his part with dry observation (as one does when mostly being inquisitive here). The movie isn't exactly as curious in its execution as say, The Hitch-Hiker, but at least it has enough of an ending in ambiguity to at least stick the landing. In short: one isn't seeing bigamy be endorsed on screen but instead one sees the idea that some marriages are suspectable to not being the "norm" than others, particularly when the gossip is around the corner. It ranks firmly in the middle of Lupino's other works but makes for a fair swansong to the run of Lupino movies for an era that didn't necessarily have many people like her making movies with something interesting to show on screen.
Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.
*Okay, this sounded too tabloid, but I kid you not: Lupino also starred on a TV show with her husband Duff with Mr. Adams and Eve...as executive produced by Young.
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