I love finding these old movie star bio's, either made for Turner or for the Biography channel, and when I do, I usually find myself watching several of the subject's movies along with the documentary about their life. In the case of Ida Lupino, I watched one of her early "fluff" comedies ("Smart Girl") and one of her later film noir potboilers ("Strange Intruder"). No matter how the films were (and she did a few "loo loo's", as I'm sure she would refer to them as), she was always commanding, even if in her early films, you don't get the chance to see the powerhouse dramatic actress and force of nature that she would become once her real image became clear to her.
For me, Ida Lupino is closer to Barbara Stanwyck in on screen image and temperament, sometimes a bit melodramatic, but always riveting to watch. Her early career is a bit like Joan Bennett's to where it was unclear what that image was, but when they changed their image (which occurred for both around the same time), they never looked back. The British born Lupino came from a show business family, and was making movies by 1932 when barely a teenager, looking a few years older than her real age. Fortunately, these films have popped up, and if you don't see the future hard ways of "They Drive By Night", "High Sierra" or "Road House", you do see a glimpse of something lurking in her eyes that just needs time to develop.
This documentary doesn't hide issues of her sometimes difficult off screen nature, but shows as to when and why that developed. She was not meant to be a mamby pamby Jean Harlow knock-off, and when she believed that the scripts were not worthy of her talents, she'd willingly take suspension in order to fight for those better parts. By the early 1940's, she was a top notch star at Warner Brothers, but that was the Bette Davis dominated era. Imagine how the older stars of today watching their desired parts go to Meryl Streep, and you can imagine the Warner Brothers contract ladies being upset by getting Bette's cast-off's.
Ida's off screen life wasn't an ideal one either, and this covers her three marriages to Louis Hayward, Collier Young and Howard Duff, with an interview from her daughter by Duff indicating how Duff tried to change his ways to go from popular playboy to devoted husband and father but ultimately couldn't change what was inbred in himself. The documentary explains in great detail how she got to start her own production company ("Filmmaker's"), going from screenwriter to director, the financial failure of that company during a difficult time in her life and her transition to directing episodic TV. The more about Ida that is revealed here, the more I want to know about her, because she was a woman in a man's world who strived to bring her vision to the screen and would let nothing stop her. Interviewers with her later caretaker also reveal more intimate details and are fascinating. There's a reason why Ida Lupino is in my list of my all time top 10 stars, and they are all exposed here.
For me, Ida Lupino is closer to Barbara Stanwyck in on screen image and temperament, sometimes a bit melodramatic, but always riveting to watch. Her early career is a bit like Joan Bennett's to where it was unclear what that image was, but when they changed their image (which occurred for both around the same time), they never looked back. The British born Lupino came from a show business family, and was making movies by 1932 when barely a teenager, looking a few years older than her real age. Fortunately, these films have popped up, and if you don't see the future hard ways of "They Drive By Night", "High Sierra" or "Road House", you do see a glimpse of something lurking in her eyes that just needs time to develop.
This documentary doesn't hide issues of her sometimes difficult off screen nature, but shows as to when and why that developed. She was not meant to be a mamby pamby Jean Harlow knock-off, and when she believed that the scripts were not worthy of her talents, she'd willingly take suspension in order to fight for those better parts. By the early 1940's, she was a top notch star at Warner Brothers, but that was the Bette Davis dominated era. Imagine how the older stars of today watching their desired parts go to Meryl Streep, and you can imagine the Warner Brothers contract ladies being upset by getting Bette's cast-off's.
Ida's off screen life wasn't an ideal one either, and this covers her three marriages to Louis Hayward, Collier Young and Howard Duff, with an interview from her daughter by Duff indicating how Duff tried to change his ways to go from popular playboy to devoted husband and father but ultimately couldn't change what was inbred in himself. The documentary explains in great detail how she got to start her own production company ("Filmmaker's"), going from screenwriter to director, the financial failure of that company during a difficult time in her life and her transition to directing episodic TV. The more about Ida that is revealed here, the more I want to know about her, because she was a woman in a man's world who strived to bring her vision to the screen and would let nothing stop her. Interviewers with her later caretaker also reveal more intimate details and are fascinating. There's a reason why Ida Lupino is in my list of my all time top 10 stars, and they are all exposed here.
