Ida Lupino (Female Filmmaker February pt. V)
The Hitch-Hiker
The Trouble with Angels
Greetings, my femmes and mascs and every being in between: are you feeling insane too? It’s feeling like Civil War vibes outside and I, for one, have never had less faith in our government, our elected officials, and the common man than I do right now, as we witness atrocity after atrocity after human rights violations after human rights violation. And in this short month leading up to the Oscars, I can already feel my movie-industry-fueled-malaise growing, so allow me drown out the deafening sound of Oscar buzz by once again celebrating Female Filmmaker February. Back in 2022, when my blog and I were still young, I became further aware of the lack of female representation behind the camera and wanted to do my part to shine a light on creators whom seldom receive the praise, awards, funding, and ya know, basic human rights, they deserve. So I dedicated a whole month to watching films made by women, organizing each week by grand-yet-broad themes like rage, love, abortion, and female friendships—so just normal girly things, really. This year, I intend to cover even more topics and films, but this time, organized by specific female directors. If you’re reading this, then you likely know that I consistently feature female filmmakers on this blog, but I still feel compelled to carve out a whole month (I know it’s the shortest month but I couldn’t resist the alliteration) for women in the film industry because they just don’t get enough kudos for doing the exact same work that men do. Men have historically had a monopoly on the film industry, and on society in general. Men populate about 66% of the film industry, while women account for 34%—an abysmal statistic made possible by years of existing and working under the patriarchy. Though I have dedicated six double features to my favorite male director David Cronenberg, some of my favorite films of all time were made by women, and I’d like to spend this February exploring more. So let’s begin with a director who made an appearance during the first Female Filmmaker February, an icon from in front of and behind the camera: Ida Lupino (who would’ve turned 108 on February 4th??!!! Didn’t even know that before I planned this, swear to god. Why am I only psychic in unhelpful ways…) Widely renowned as the most distinguished female filmmaker during the regimes of the Hollywood studio system, Ida Lupino had an illustrious acting career before (and during) her time as a director. While she was a hit with audiences, she often beefed with studio head Jack Warner—opposing roles that she deemed poorly-written and offering rewrites to scripts, even turning down a role alongside Ronald Reagan in Kings Row, which resulted in multiple suspensions from the studio. (Reagan was still a democrat and an actor at the time but she must’ve caught his bad vibes.) During one of these suspensions, she and her then-husband Collier Young started their own independent production company (The Filmakers, Inc), seeking to add a dash of realism to the dreamy but shallow Hollywood film narratives at the time, focusing their films around socially conscious topics. Her 1950 directorial debut Outrage was a film with such social consciousness, as it was one of the first American films that dealt with the topic of rape. It’s not an easy topic to speak about or bring to the screen in this day-and-age, but in 1950, positively no other film, other than Johnny Belinda (1948) even referenced the subject. Ida made several successful films, directed 100 episodes of television, she was the only woman to direct an episode of The Twilight Zone (The Masks, one of my favs), she was the second woman (behind Dorothy Arzner) to be admitted into the Director’s Guild, and she was also the first woman to direct a noir film: her terrifying 1953 classic, The Hitch-Hiker.
The Hitch-Hiker is one of those risky, too-close-for-comfort movies like In Cold Blood, where the true story upon which it is inspired had only just occurred, and the director did up-close-and-personal research in order to recount the details correctly. The film opens on ominous text that reads: “This is the true story of a man and a gun and a car: The gun belonged to the man. The car might have been yours or that young couple across the aisle. What you will see in the next seventy minutes could have happened to you. For the facts are actual.” We are then shown a series of quick vignettes, wherein friendly drivers kindly pick up the same mysterious hitchhiker before meeting their respective demise(s) by the hand of said mysterious hitchhiker, with spinning newspaper headlines that read “nationwide search for ‘hitch-hike slayer’ begins.” It’s only as menacing of a scene as the Hays Code would allow, and Lupino apparently had to remove at least one death to appease the stuffy standards, but its a helluva way to open up a film. We are then introduced to two men, Gilbert Bowen and Roy Collins (played by Frank Lovejoy and noir legend Edmond O’Brien), two friends road-tripping down to Mexico to go fishing. On their way to San Felipe, they happen upon a car pulled over on the side of the road, and a tall, leather-jacketed gentleman, who claims he is out of gas. Despite the killer’s increasing infamy, the two men stop and pick up the hitchhiker—as if this was a no-brainer, super-casual, no-fuss thing to do. It’s hard to imagine that people used to actually pick up hitchhikers—not just because of the potential for danger, but because of the potential for inconvenience, at the very least! But I digress. The man enters the backseat and shadows cover his face, revealing only a sinister scowl painted on his mouth. The camera remains on the two friends, framing the stranger in the backseat for awhile, carefully building suspense until we finally see the man’s face—and his gun. The man introduces himself as Emmett Myers—a prison escapee who’s already killed several drivers and stolen several cars—and it would appear that Gilbert and Roy are next. But their interaction goes on, through the night, through the next day, for the next several days as they drive through miles and miles of desert nothingness. I knew that The Hitch-Hiker would be a cold, interesting thriller, but I didn’t expect it to be so psychologically torturous and chilling. Myers (played by William Talman) delights in the power he has over his chauffeurs, and gets a sick thrill out of interrogating them, mocking them, making them use one another as target practice. As the three men dodge Mexican civilians and police, Myers insists that no one around him speak Spanish, and it just made perfect sense that this psychopath would also be a loud, proud bigot. Despite our antagonist’s disdain of the Spanish language and his belittling of the locals, there is more Spanish spoken in this film than I’ve ever witnessed in any other American film from the 1950s—which was very cool. As the terribly hot hours turn into terribly hot days, Ida Lupino maintains a keen, powerful sense of tension, that truly does not let up until the credits roll. I was completely gripped by this film, by its believable script and its dedicated performers—particularly William Talman, who scared the utter shit out of me. He is so horrifying as the unfeeling and unrelenting Myers, that in an interview he once recalled being recognized in his convertible at a red light, where a man in another convertible asked, “You’re the hitchhiker, right?” Talman nodded, the other driver got out of his car, went over to Talman, slapped him, then got back in his car and drove off. In retelling the story, Talman said, “You know, I never won an Academy Award, but I guess that was about as close as I ever will come to one.” The Hitch-Hiker kept my eyes firmly glued to the screen and I was blown away how beautifully and intricately this was shot.
As she began making more of her own films, Lupino continued to act in order to finance her ambitious projects. She became respected and admired in her community, partly because she toed the delicate line of starlet and crew member very well. She allegedly made a point to seem non-threatening in her male-dominated environment, once stating, “That's where being a man makes a great deal of difference. I don't suppose the men particularly care about leaving their wives and children. During the vacation period, the wife can always fly over and be with him. It’s difficult for a wife to say to her husband, ‘come sit on the set and watch.’” But on her sets, people knew exactly who was in charge: the back of her director’s chair was famously labeled “Mother of Us All.” She commanded each production confidently, no matter how tight the budget or how many recycled sets it required, she got the job done. She joked that if she had been the “poor man’s Bette Davis” as an actress, she had now become the “poor man’s Don Siegel” as a director. When The Filmakers production company ceased operations in 1955, Lupino immediately turned to television, where she directed episodes from over thirty TV shows, only taking a break once to direct her final theatrical film in 1966: The Trouble with Angels. From the time I was a very little girl, my mom spoke about how much she loved this movie. Then when I began this cinematic excursion, she spoke about her adoration further: underscoring the quiet power in Rosalind Russell’s performance, how it shifted Hayley Mills’ image from Disney’s good girl to spunky spitfire, and how unnecessarily cruel Gene Siskel’s review was at the time. So I figured it was time to give this movie a watch—especially because of my love of Nunsploitation—and prove once and for all that Gene Siskel was just a middle-aged man who had no business reviewing this sweet, youthful, girly movie that was not made with middle-aged men in mind. The Trouble with Angels follows a rebellious teenager named Mary Clancy (Hayley Mills), who is shipped off to St. Francis Academy: a Catholic boarding school for girls run by an order of nuns. On the Harry Potter-esque train ride to their “positively medieval” castle of a school, she meets Rachel Devery (June Harding), a quiet, aspiring delinquent whom Mary takes under her mischievous wing. Mary and Rachel are immediately put off by the stifling, cloistered environment, and sneak off to the bathroom to smoke cigarettes the first chance they get. But they’re soon busted by Mother Superior (Rosalind Russell), who is not yet aware of just how inventively indignant and creatively pranky these two are. As Mary and Rachel’s friendship blooms, they learn how well they complement one another, and how well they can keep each other entertained—much to all the nuns’ chagrin(s.) While I’m sure this school is just as boring and annoying as any other, I’ll admit that the nuns never really earn any of the shenanigans that these rascals inflict upon them. I was expecting some severe Mother Superiors and no-nonsense nuns, but a lot of them were actually quite lovely and even cool. In fact, as my mom pointed out, Mother Superior and one of the other nuns even seem to have a romantic connection going on, not that this is ever explicitly stated, but it didn’t feel like an accident. Through the hijinks and hilarity, Mary and Rachel form an unbreakable bond, and the two find a home in this medieval castle, whether they can admit it or not. It is an expectedly silly movie, with an unexpectedly raw and tender core. The writing is sharp and funny; I always prefer my characters to be funny, and here they were unbelievably quick-witted and lovably kooky. And this is to say nothing of how gorgeous this film was to look at—from the brightly-colored non-uniformed and non-habit costumes to the absolutely radiant shots of every season on this lovely campus. The Trouble with Angels is based on the 1962 book Life with Mother Superior by Jane Trahey, which covered her own high school years at a Catholic school, and the friend who always had “scathingly brilliant” ideas. As it turned out, many people wanted to adapt this story for the screen, but several iterations failed. First, Ross Hunter tried to make this movie with Loretta Young, Jane Wyman, Barbara Stanwyck and Virginia Grey as nuns and Patty Duke and Mary Badham as students, then, when Columbia Pictures acquired the rights, producer William Frye offered the role of Mother Superior to Greta Garbo (which would’ve been her first role since 1940) but she turned the one million dollar offer down. By the time she was brought on to direct, Ida Lupino was known strictly for her action and suspense programs, and hadn’t worked with a mostly-female cast in years but welcomed the “change of pace.” (Though allegedly Rosalind Russell called the producer several times to warn him, “Ida’s been having those drinks again.”) The film also stars Binnie Barns, Camilla Sparv, Mary Wickes, Marge Redmond, Dolores Sutton, Judith Lowry, Bernadette Withers, Barbara Hunter as Marvel-Ann, and legendary burlesque performer Gypsy Rose Lee in a small but memorable cameo. I think it is incredibly sweet that June Harding’s headstone reads “no trouble with this angel”, and I think it is absolutely wild that (allegedly) Elizabeth Smart loved this movie so much that she watched it with her family on her first night home after her 9-month kidnapping ordeal. I searched high and low for the negative Gene Siskel review that has offended my mom for decades, but alas, it is nowhere to be found—perhaps because someone in his estate recognized how tone-deaf he was, and didn’t want him to be remembered as being on the wrong side of history. But if I had a nickel for every time a middle-aged man harshly-critiqued a fun-loving and wholesome movie that was not at all made for them, I’d have as much money as all of the ignorant middle-aged male critics who came before me. While The Hitch-Hiker offered an uncomfortably-close look at the life of a male sociopath, The Trouble with Angels offered an intimate look at the curious and complex inner lives of young girls—thus proving the nuanced and wide-ranging perspectives of the female filmmaker of the evening. Well that’s enough nun-centric nonsense for one night, but I thank you for stopping by and reading my feminine rage and love, and I hope you’re ready for more feminine mystique this month. Until next time—toodles!
