10 Things You May Not Know About Ida Lupino

Ida Lupino (1918 – 1995) was a London-born actress and director; she became an American citizen in 1948. As a contract player at Warner Brothers, Lupino starred opposite some of their top male stars, including Errol Flynn, Humphrey Bogart, and John Garfield. In the late 1940s she embarked on a career as a director and independent filmmaker.

Ida Lupino, Raoul Walsh, and Humphrey Bogart on the set of High Sierra

1. Her parents both had theatrical backgrounds; her father’s family’s theatrical roots date back to the Italian Renaissance.

2. She was signed to a five-year contract with Paramount Pictures in 1933 where she was dubbed “the English Jean Harlow.”

3. Wanting to be more than just a pretty face, Lupino begged director William A. Wellman to test her for the role of Bessie Broke in The Light That Failed (1939).

4. She next played the femme fatale role in They Drive by Night (1940) where she stole the picture from such established stars as George Raft, Ann Sheridan, and Humphrey Bogart.

Beautiful color studio publicity photo of Ida Lupino

5. In 1941 she starred in three movies: The Sea Wolf costarring Edward G. Robinson and John Garfield, Out of the Fog costarring with Garfield again, and Ladies in Retirement costarring with her then husband, Louis Hayward.

6. During her years as a film director, she was a pioneer of product placement to help with financing.

7. She directed dozens of television episodes for popular series, during the 1950s and 1960s, including The Donna Reed Show, 77 Sunset Strip, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Have Gun Will Travel, Thriller, The Fugitive, Dr. Kildare, The Twilight Zone, and Bewitched. She is the only woman to have directed an episode of the original Twilight Zone and star in one as well.

8. Lupino learned about directing and other behind-the-scenes aspects of filmmaking while she was on suspension at Warner Brothers. When an actor under studio contract turned down a movie role, they were put on suspension. They received no salary during the time the movie they refused to act in was in production. Instead of sitting at home, Lupino visited movie sets and befriended directors like Raoul Walsh and Don Siegel.

Ida Lupino (third from left) on the set of The Trouble With Angels with Rosalind Russell (second from left)

9. She won the National Board of Review award for Best Actress in 1941 (High Sierra and Ladies in Retirement) and 1942 (Moontide) and a New York Film Critics Circle Award in 1943 (The Hard Way), but she was never nominated for an Academy Award.

10. Her last directing job was for the 1966 comedy The Trouble With Angels starring Rosalind Russell and Haley Mills.

A Look at the Life and Times of Bette Davis

A very young and very blond, Bette Davis

By Kate Voss

Bette Davis was born Ruth Elizabeth Davis in Lowell, Massachusetts on April 5, 1908. When she was only seven, her parents separated, and Bette was promptly sent to a boarding school. In 1921, at the age of 13, she moved to New York with her mother, and it was here where she first garnered an interest in acting. Inspired by the films she had seen, Bette auditioned and received a part in a school play, which only cemented her desire to be an actress. To further her dream, she enrolled into the John Murray School of Theatre, where she studied acting alongside a young Lucille Ball and dance with Martha Graham.

After securing a place in George Cukor’s stock theater company, Bette landed her first Broadway role in 1929’s Broken Dishes, which she soon followed up with a performance in Solid South. Upon the urging of a Hollywood talent scout she moved to Hollywood in 1930, where she landed a contract with Universal Pictures and starred in her first movie: The Bad Sister. She spent the next three years acting in 21 films, none of which secured her a place as a respected actress. Bette gained some attention when she starred in 1934’s Of Human Bondage, a film which earned her rave reviews. Afterwards, Bette took a role in the film Dangerous, which won her an Academy Award.

A tense scene from Juarez, left to right,
Paul Muni, Gale Sondergaard, and Davis

In 1936, after agreeing to star in two films in England, she became entangled in a breach of contract lawsuit with Warner Bros. Davis sued Warner Bros. in England, in an attempt to nullify her contract due to the fact that she felt the studio wasn’t giving her good parts. She lost the case, and the legal proceedings left her broke. However, her streak of bad luck ended quickly when she earned praise for her role as prostitute in Marked Woman which she followed with her second Academy Award winning performance in Jezebel in 1938. But, with professional success came personal failure; her first marriage to Ham Nelson fell apart, and the couple decided to divorce. As has been covered on this blog before, 1939 was Davis’s most profound acting year; fans saw her star in Dark Victory, Juarez, The Old Maid, and The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex. She quickly became of the most commercially and critically successful actresses in Hollywood, as well as one of the most famous and respected.

Paul Henried and Davis between takes on
the set of Now, Voyager

Bette started the 1940’s with more professional successes like The Great Lie, as well as a new husband, Arthur Farnsworth. Then, the year of 1941 saw her star in one of her most famous roles: Regina Giddens in The Little Foxes, which landed her the sixth Academy Award nomination of her career. She spent 1942 leading Hollywood’s war effort by selling $2 million worth of war bonds in two days and opening The Hollywood Canteen, where movie stars would entertain servicemen. That same year she starred in another iconic role for her in Now, Voyager. She continued her successes until her husband suddenly died after suffering a skull fracture, causing her to behave erratically on the set of her next film, Mr. Skeffington. While she did remarry and have a daughter in the late 1940’s, her career was in a state a flux. After a series of box office failures, she was released from her contract with Warner Bros.

Joan Crawford and Davis in a publicity still
for Whatever Happened to Baby Jane

However, in 1950 she returned, guns blazing, as Margo Channing in All About Eve, which is widely regarded as her best film, the film is still so popular that it’s widely available through many streaming sites and video on demand services from most cable and satellite TV providers. That same year, she ended her third marriage and married her fourth husband, her co star Gary Merrill. Unfortunately, her career started to dwindle as the 50’s continued and she ended the decade appearing mostly on television. Never one to be counted out, she made yet another triumphant comeback in 1961’s What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? alongside longtime nemesis Joan Crawford which earned her one last Academy Award nomination. She continued to act in films in the 1960’s like Dead Ringer, Where Love Has Gone, and Hush… Hush, Sweet Charlotte.

Davis as Margo Channing

The first few years of the 1970’s saw Davis tour Australia and England in a one woman show discussing her life and work. She attempted a few television pilots, but none were picked up, and she continued to take supporting roles in films like  Burnt Offerings. She did manage to win an Emmy for her work on made-for-TV movie Strangers: The Story of a Mother and Daughter in 1979. Bette began to suffer many health set backs in the early 80’s, including a fight with breast cancer that resulted in a mastectomy and a series of four strokes that left her paralyzed on her left side. Despite her suffering, her adopted daughter B.D. Hyman published a scathing memoir about her mother called My Mother’s Keeper in 1985, which Davis always stated was fabricated. Bette continued to do work for television until she discovered her cancer had returned in 1989 while in France, where she passed away on October 6th.

Her acting legacy and personality have let Davis live on for many years following her passing. With a staggering 11 Academy Award nominations, 2 wins, a career spanning 50 years, countless fans, and the praise and respect of some of the most well regarded directors, actors, and critics, Davis will always remain a Hollywood icon.

Guest blogger, Kate Voss is an entertainment blogger from Chicago. A romantic at-heart, she will be delighting in the classical works of Wilder and Frank Capra this Valentine's Day. You can find her on Twitter at @Kateevoss.

“Play it Again, Sam”: Screen classic “Casablanca” has an encore screening this Thursday

Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman in Cassablanca

Due to the success of last month’s one-night-only screening of Casablanca, Turner Classic Movies and Warner Brothers have added another special showing this Thursday, April 26, 2012, at theaters around Chicago.

TCM and Warner Brothers are celebrating the 70th anniversary of the 1943 Best Picture Academy Award winner. Released in 1942, Casablanca stars Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, and Paul Henreid. Produced during the height of World War II, the film has endured, making it one of the most beloved American films ever made. The themes of love, loyalty, and self-determination still resonate.

Although Humphey Bogart never uttered the line “Play it again, Sam,” (He actually said, “Play it, Sam”) the film is jam-packed with memorable lines—“This is the beginning of a beautiful friendship”—that have become part of the American lexicon.

The film has been completely restored. If you’ve seen the movie before, you’ll be amazed at what this new restoration reveals. Viewers will experience the classic in a whole new way.

For information on locations and showings near you, click here.

Classic Movie Man’s Guilty Pleasure: “Devotion”

In 1943, Warner Brothers set out to film an account of the Brontë siblings, focusing mainly on the lives of authors Charlotte (Jane Eyre) and Emily (Wuthering Heights). In the 1930s and 1940s, the studio produced many successful historical biographies. Film versions of both Wuthering Heights (1939) and Jane Erye (1943), produced by rival studios, hit box office gold, so wouldn’t a movie on the lives of the authors and real-life sisters be a hit too?  That was part of the thinking behind Devotion, a production that seemed to be doomed from the beginning, but succeeds in spite of itself.

Lupino and DeHavilland Set To Star
Before production started, Warner Brothers had hoped that movie star sisters Joan Fontaine and Olivia DeHavilland would play Emily and Charlotte respectively. Fontaine wasn’t available, so Warner Brothers replaced her with Ida Lupino, who was already under contract to the studio, as was DeHavilland. Nancy Coleman played youngest sister Anne, and Arthur Kennedy played Branwell, the only boy in the Brontë brood. The cast was rounded out with Paul Henried as the Reverend Arthur Nicholls, Sydney Greenstreet as William Makepeace Thackery, and Montagu Love, in his last film role, as Rev. Brontë, patriarch and widowed father of four gifted and complex children.

From left to right: Olivia DeHavilland, Ida Lupino, Nancy Coleman

Top Production
The studio employed some of its top talent for the film’s production. Curtis Bernhardt (Possessed, 1947) was tapped as the director. Oscar-winner, Ernest “Ernie” Haller (Gone With The Wind, 1939) was assigned the cinematography duties, and Perc Westmore was on hand for makeup. The lush score was composed by Erich Wolfgand Korngold who won an Academy Award for scoring The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938).

Don't Know Much About History
One of the major criticisms of the film is that it plays fast and loose with the facts, although Hollywood biographies of the period were hardly known for their absolute accuracy. As is often noted, the Brontë sisters were not famous for their attractiveness, but Lupino, DeHavilland, and Coleman are all quite beautiful in the movie. But come on, it’s Hollywood where there are no plain Janes.

For “poor” girls, they sure have some great clothes!

Poor, But Nicely Dressed
The Brontë’s weren’t wealthy by any stretch; in fact, they were quite poor. Jane Erye’s Lowood school was partly based on the four older sisters’ experiences at the Clergy Daughter’s School at Cowan Bridge, where the eldest Brontë daughters, Maria and Elizabeth became ill and died. Charlotte and Emily returned to Howarth, England, and were homeschooled by their father. The movie version hints at their lower economic circumstances, but the sisters Brontë are always beautifully, if simply, dressed and coiffed.

In the film, older sister Charlotte, as portrayed by DeHavilland, is somewhat self-centered and a bit snobby compared with Lupino’s more cerebral and serious portrayal of Emily. As the youngest sister Anne, Coleman doesn’t have much to go on. Her character has minimal screen time and no real story line to follow. Kennedy’s Branwell is a tortured self-destructive soul. The real Branwell struggled with drugs and alcohol, so Kennedy’s portrayal does seem close to the truth.

Lupino and Paul Henried starred together
in In Our Time (1944)

A Faithful Setter Dog?
As melodrama, Devotion is quite satisfying. Lupino and DeHavilland obviously took their roles seriously and give excellent performances, as does Kennedy. Henried is fine as Nichols, although some critics at the time didn’t find him at his best. Bosley Crowther in his New York Times review said, “Paul Henreid plays Arthur Nicholls with the air of a faithful setter dog.” In the broader context of his review, that was actually a compliment, since Crowther didn’t like the film overall. But Crowther and many other critics couldn’t get past the liberties the screenwriters took with the facts.

A Love That Never Was
In the film, Emily and Charlotte are both in love with Nicholls; however, there is no evidence that Emily was involved with her father’s curate or even had any feelings for him. Charlotte eventually married Nicholls, but she refused his first proposal and some Brontë historians believe Charlotte, although fond of Nichols, was never really in love with him. In the film Charlotte is infatuated with Professor Heger while studying in Brussels. Again there is no evidence that any romance took place. Events are out of order, which bothered purists like Crowther, but for lovers of classic film, Devotion is fun to watch.

DeHavilland starred with John Lund in Too Each His Own,
at Paramount after she successfully sued Warner Brothers.

Loving Lupino and DeHavilland
I love Lupino’s brooding, wistful Emily. When she shows Nicholls the moors and the house in the distance that she calls Wuthering Heights, with Korngold’s score at full tilt, it’s wonderful. Emily’s dream sequences are artfully done, too. The dark mysterious man on horseback haunting Emily looks quite spectacular on the screen. DeHavilland’s snobby and bossy Charlotte can be obnoxious, but she’s far from unlikable. When she professes her love for Profesor Heger, she’s convincing and sincere. Who cares if it didn’t really happen? It’s effective filmmaking.

Three Years on the Shelf

When the film wrapped, Warner Brothers held back its release. There are a few stories explaining their decision. Some say the studio delayed the release because they felt a costume drama wouldn’t play well during the height of World War II. The studios were sensitive about showing too much opulence on the screen during the war years, but rival Twentieth Century Fox released Jane Eyre in 1943 to great reviews and good business. The other, and more intriguing explanation, involves DeHavilland and her lawsuit against the studio. During the studio era, stars signed long-term contracts, typically for a period of seven years. Under that system, actors were paid a weekly salary and expected to perform in movies assigned them. If a star refused a role, they were put on suspension without pay until production of the film they refused to star in was completed. In addition to not paying the star’s salary, studios added time spent on suspension to their contracts, potentially extending them almost indefinitely. DeHavilland was fighting this practice in court.

Banned From the Premier
The story goes that so angry was the studio with DeHavilland that they refused to promote her career during the litigation. Whether or not their anger would go so far as to shelve a big-budget movie like Devotion to make a point, seems over the top. However, movie moguls from the period could be vindictive and spiteful. When the film was finally released, DeHavilland was under contract to Paramount. Warner Brothers wouldn’t let her attend the premier. Even worse, they gave her third billing behind Henried, which would never have happened had she been in the good graces of the brothers Warner. Considering how hot DeHavilland’s career was after she left Warner Brothers, it would have made sense, from a business perspective, to have let her participate in the film’s publicity. Hard to tell if we’ll ever really know the story behind Devotion’s delayed release, but it’s fun speculating.

The Classic Movie Man’s Verdict
Devotion may not be an accurate portrayal of the lives of the most famous of the Brontë sisters, but as film entertainment, it’s a lot of fun. Lupino, DeHavilland, Henried, and the rest of the cast are such pros, they make you care about their characters. Would it have been a better film if they spent more time on historical accuracy? Perhaps, but did audiences complain that both the 1939 version of Wuthering Heights and the 1943 version of Jane Eyre left out major plot points and characters? Hardly. That’s one of the reasons Devotion remains one of my favorite guilty movie pleasures.

What do you think? Is there a classic movie that you love, but the critics hate? Please feel free to share your favorite guilty movie pleasures here.

Ida Lupino: A Lasting Legacy in Hollywood

Ida Lupino was a major movie star during Hollywood’s Golden Age. Born in England to a show business family with roots going back to the Renaissance, she came to Hollywood in 1933 as a bleached blond Jean Harlow look-a-like. After a breakout performance in The Light That Failed (1939), Lupino moved on to starring roles at Warner Brothers as one of their top contract players. When she left the studio in the late 1940s, she began thinking about working behind the scenes as a director. Lupino eventually formed her own production company and directed a series of low-budget melodramas. During the late 1940s and early 1950s, she was the only female director of note working in Hollywood.

The story goes that Lupino was signed on at Warner Brothers to keep the lot’s top female star, Bette Davis in line. The truth behind that tale is open to speculation, but Lupino bolstered it by self-deprecatingly calling herself “the poor man’s Bette Davis.” It’s true that some of the roles Davis turned down went to Lupino, but this type of thing happened regularly during the height of the studio system.

In 1940, Lupino starred in They Drive By Night alongside Warner heavy-hitters George Raft and Ann Sheridan. The film also starred Humphrey Bogart, but he was billed fourth behind Lupino. As Lana Carlsen, the unfaithful wife of Alan Hale, Lupino literally tore up the screen. So compelling was her characterization, that movie audiences supposedly applauded when her character breaks down in front of a packed courtroom. With that performance, Lupino showed she was a talent to be reckoned with.

As one of the hottest new stars in the movies, Lupino was cast next as Marie, a hard luck dame with a soft spot for career criminal, Roy “Mad Dog” Earle (Humphrey Bogart ) in High Sierra (1941). So hot was Lupino that she received top billing over Bogart. The movie is credited with making a major star out of Bogart, but Lupino gives a multi-layered performance that showed she could hold her own opposite anyone. As the film progresses and Marie’s love for Earle grows, Lupino’s characterization becomes more complex. We see her vulnerability, her tenderness. A classic that holds up today, High Sierra’s success owes as much to Lupino’s performance as Bogart’s. And you gotta love her close-up at the end, looking luminous in her grief, tinged with happiness for her love who is free at last in death.

Lupino starred in three other films in 1941: The Sea Wolf, Out of the Fog, and Ladies in Retirement on loan to Columbia. Once again, she proved that she could hold her own against the bigger-than-life Edward G. Robinson and John Garfield in The Sea Wolf and Garfield again in Out of the Fog. And like Davis, she wasn’t afraid to immerse herself into the character she was playing even if it meant downplaying her looks, as she did in Ladies in Retirement. Of her performance in that film, The New York Times wrote, “Give Ida Lupino the largest measure of credit, for her role is the clue to the suspense. Perhaps she is too slight to portray the stolid threat that lay in Flora Robson’s original [stage] performance, but she is none the less the thin ribbon of intensity that makes the film hair-raising.”

In 1942 Lupino was loaned out to Twentieth Century Fox for two films. The first was Moontide, costarring French star Jean Gabin, making his American movie debut. The second, Life Begins at Eight-Thirty, costarring Monty Wooley. Both films featured stronger male than female roles, but Lupino’s presence in both did not go unnoticed. Of her performance in Moontide, The New York Times’s Bosley Crowther had this to say: “Miss Lupino makes a taut and sleazy slattern who is prettily revivified by love.” And as Wooley’s handicapped daughter in Life Begins at Eight-Thirty, Crowther said, in his December 10, 1942 review in the Times, that “Miss Lupino plays the crippled daughter with compassion and simplicity.” In 1943, Lupino would star in a film that would bring her great critical acclaim.

The Hard Way (1943) is a tough tale of two sisters trying to escape their dreary and impoverished existence. Ironically the mining town from which they want to escape is called Green Hill, where there is nothing green or leafy. Under the sharp direction of Vincent Sherman, Lupino gives one of her most complex and nuanced performances as Helen Chernen, Katie’s (Joan Leslie) pushy success-driven sister. Lupino is Katie’s “stage sister,” exploiting the younger sibling’s talent while vicariously living through her. So compelling was Lupino’s performance that she won the New York Film Critics Circle Award in 1943. For some unknown reason, she was overlooked come Oscar time. (Lupino was never nominated for an Academy Award.) In the hands of a lesser actress, Helen would have been merely a villain. The beauty of Lupino’s performance is that while you don’t necessarily like her actions, you understand them. She isn’t perfect for sure, but neither is her sister or the others in the rough and tumble world of show business that they inhabit.

Now an established star at Warner Brothers, Lupino was not always offered the best roles on the lot. Bette Davis was still the queen of the studio and had first refusal on the choicest scripts. Not one to take just any role, Lupino was often put on suspension by the studio. It was during these periods that she became interested in working behind the scenes. A naturally friendly individual, calling everyone she knew “darling,” Lupino learned from the contract directors, cinematographers, and others about the technical side of filmmaking. It would be a while before Lupino would move behind the camera.

In the mid-to late 1940s, Lupino starred alongside some of the top talent at the studio, including Errol Flynn, Olivia DeHavilland, and Paul Henried. One of her best roles during this period was as Petey Brown in The Man I Love (1947), directed by the legendary Raoul Walsh. As the tough-talking club singer, her Petey is the epitome of independence. As the take-charge career woman, Lupino showed she could carry a picture. The Man I Love was popular enough for Jack Warner to offer the actress a four-year exclusive contract. Lupino decided to try her hand as a freelance artist and turned down Warner’s offer.

Her first role after leaving Warner Brothers was the enjoyable and popular success Road House (1948). Released by Twentieth Century Fox and directed by the underrated Jean Negulesco, the film costarred Cornel Wilde, Celeste Holm, and Richard Widmark at his loony best. Lupino plays Lily Stevens, a torch singer from Chicago, slumming at Jeffty’s road house and bowling alley, owned by Widmark’s character. A predatory Widmark stalks Lupino when he finds out that she favors his “best friend,” Wilde, over him. As interesting as this triangle is, some of the film’s most enjoyable moments are when Lupino sings and plays the piano. Her modest gravely voice has an appealing style that is hard to resist.

As the 1940s came to a close and with good roles harder and harder to come by, Lupino formed her own production company with second husband Collier Young. She produced and directed a series of low budget films utilizing the skills she gleaned from working with the male directors at Warner Brothers. The movies Lupino made during this period were gritty and for the time, groundbreaking. Not Wanted (1949) dealt with unwanted pregnancy and Outrage (1950) told the story of a young woman raped on her way home from work, hardly popular themes at the time. Lupino was now the only working woman director and the second to become a member of the Director’s Guild. When television came on the scene, Lupino hit her stride. She directed numerous episodes of popular TV series, including Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Have Gun Will Travel, The Rifleman, The Untouchables, and Lupino has the distinction of being the only woman to ever direct and star in an episode of The Twilight Zone. Not only did she direct in television, she guest starred on many TV shows herself, staying busy throughout the 1960s and 1970s.

Ida Lupino is the only woman to direct an episode of the classic  TV series.

Ida Lupino’s legacy is a long one. As an actress, she has a body of work that holds up alongside the best of her contemporaries. As a director, she paved the way for future generations of women. It’s amazing that the small fragile-looking Lupino had such a strong and wide-reaching influence that continues today. 

Lupino died of a stroke while being treated for colon cancer on August 3, 1995. She was 77 years old.

Silence is Golden: Jane Wyman's Oscar-Winning Performance in "Johnny Belinda"

Jane Wyman paid her dues. When she arrived in Hollywood in the early 1930s, Wyman worked steadily, but no one knew her name. During this early period in her career, she appeared in dozens of films, some classics, including an uncredited part in My Man Godfrey (1936).

A Hollywood glamor shot early in Jane Wyman's career

In 1937, as a contract player at Warner Brothers, Wyman had her first credited part as “Dixie the hatcheck girl” in Smart Blonde starring Glenda Farrell as journalist Torchy Blane. From 1932 to 1936, Wyman appeared in 19 films. In 1939, she stepped into the role of Torchy Blane in Torchy Blane…Playing With Dynamite. But it would be six long years before Wyman would get a role she could sink her teeth into.

Ray Milland and Wyman in Billy Wilder's The Lost Weekend (1945)

In 1945 Wyman got what would prove to be her breakout performance. On loan to Paramount, she played Helen St. James, Ray Milland’s sympathetic girlfriend in The Lost Weekend. The film was a huge critical and commercial hit, winning Oscars for Milland and director Billy Wilder. It also won the award for Best Picture. Tough New York Times critic Bosley Crowther took notice of Wyman’s performance in Weekend. He said, “Jane Wyman assumes with quiet authority the difficult role of the loyal girl who loves and assists the central character—and finally helps regenerate him.” From a critic like Crowther, this was a rave.

Claude Jarman Jr., Gregory Peck, and Wyman in a publicity still from The Yearling (1946)

After her success in Weekend, Wyman’s home studio, Warner Bros. didn’t give her better scripts. Loaned out again in 1946, this time to M-G-M, Wyman costarred with Gregory Peck and Claude Jarman Jr. in the Clarence Brown production of The Yearling. The 10-month shoot was tough on Wyman and the rest of the cast. In spite of the production difficulties, Wyman received the first of her four Best Actress Academy Award nominations for her portrayal of Orry Baxter. She didn’t win, but Wyman was now a certified movie star.

Wyman as Belinda McDonald in Johnny Belinda (1948)

In 1948, Warner Bros. adapted the stage play Johnny Belinda and cast Wyman in the lead. Since the play was a modest success, the expectations for the film version weren’t too high. Under the steady direction of Jean Negulesco, Wyman gave the performance of a lifetime. As deaf mute Belinda, she never uttered a line of dialogue. Wyman managed to convey the frustration and longing of a young woman considered less than human by the local villagers in her Cape Brenton [Canada] home. She did this through her expressive eyes and physical gestures. Although by today’s standards, the movie is somewhat dated, Wyman’s performance is not. This is what Crowther said of Wyman's performance in his review of the film in The New York Times on October 2, 1948: “Miss Wyman brings superior insight and tenderness to the role. Not once does she speak throughout the picture. Her face is the mirror of her thoughts.”

Johnny Belinda lobby card

Johnny Belinda was nominated for a total of 11 Oscars. It lost in every category except Wyman’s surprise win for Best Actress of 1949 (Wyman expected Irene Dunne to win for I Remember Mama).

Jane Wyman would go on to further film successes, working with legendary directors like Frank Capra and Alfred Hitchcock, but her performance in Johnny Belinda is a master class in film acting technique, making Wyman a legend in her own right.  

A special midnight screening of Johnny Belinda will be held at Facets Film School on Saturday, February 26, 2011. Admission is $5.

Classic film of the week: "Road House" (1948)

Maybe it's not exaclty a classic, but it is great fun and one of my favorite melodrama's from the late 1940s. Road Housestars Ida Lupino in her first role as a "freelance" movie star. After her contract with Warner Bros. ended, Twentieth Century Fox mogul, Darryl F. Zanuck hired Lupino for the lead role of Lily Stevens.

In the film, Lily is hired by Jefty Robbins (Richard Widmark at his looney best) to sing at his road house near the Canadian border. Little does she know that Jefty has more on his mind than hiring a new singer. Enter Pete Morgan (Cornel Wilde), Jefty's friend and road house manager. At first, Pete and Lily are at odds, but soon a romance develops between them, enraging Jefty. Jefty is so crazy with jealousy over Pete and Lily's romance that he sets Pete up and has him arrested and tried for burglary. In a perverted twist, Jefty asks the judge to remand Pete to his custody so he can break him and Lily. Lily and Pete are befriended by coworker Susie Smith (Celeste Holm in a thankless role) who tries to act as a buffer between the two lovers and Jefty.

Lupino's characterization as the hard-edged lounge singer is a hoot. She smokes, drinks, and plays the piano all at the same time, making it seem natural and easy. Not too many actresses could make this work, but Lupino does with great skill, including giving Lily a voice that sounds like whiskey and gravel. The heat generated between Lupino and Wilde is pretty hot, even by today's standards. Director Jean Negulesco keeps the action moving, building things toward the dramatic conclusion.

Cornel Wilde, Richard Widmark, and Ida Lupino

Road House may not be a classic in the truest sense of the word, but it's a ton of fun and not to be missed. The DVD, part of the Fox Film Noir series, is crisp and sharp with commentary by film historians Kim Morgan and Eddie Muller, who may have had a few drinks at Jefty's before they started talking. A short featurette, Killer Instincts: Richard Widmark and Ida Lupino at Twentieth Century Fox is worth watching.