Not Wanted (Elmer Clifton, Ida Lupino, 1949)
Cast: Sally Forrest, Keefe Brasselle, Leo Penn, Dorothy Adams, Wheaton Chambers, Ruth Clifford, Ruthelma Stevens, Lawrence Dobkin, Patrick White, Rita Lupino, Audrey Farr, Carole Dunn. Screenplay: Paul Jarrico, Ida Lupino, Malvin Wald. Cinematography: Henry Freulich. Art direction: Charles D. Hall. Film editing: William H. Ziegler. Music: Leith Stevens.
Not Wanted, Ida Lupino's first feature as director, begins well (after a gratuitous assertion of the film's moral intentions in a title card), with Sally Kelton (Sally Forrest) trudging uphill toward the camera, a glazed look in her eyes, until she reaches the top, where an infant has been left in a carriage outside a shop. It gurgles and coos at her and Sally can't resist: She picks up the baby and walks away with it, only to be accosted by the mother who calls the cops and has her arrested. In jail, where Sally is thrown in with some tough-looking dames (there's a rather clichéd touch of predatory lesbianism here), she looks at the camera and begins to ponder what brought her to this moment. Cue flashback. The sequence is handled deftly, and we can only assume that it was directed by Lupino instead of the credited Elmer Clifton, who suffered a heart attack three days into shooting the film. Lupino, who was the producer, took over for the rest, but declined credit because she wasn't yet a member of the Directors Guild. The movie also ends well, with an exciting chase sequence in which a guilt-ridden Sally runs from the man who loves her, Drew Baxter (Keefe Brasselle), climbing steps to a bridge that crosses the railroad tracks and at one point threatening to leap onto the tracks below. Only when Drew collapses -- he's a World War II veteran with a prosthetic leg and has struggled to follow her -- does Sally turn and go to him for the inevitable happy ending. What comes between these scenes is often less impressive: a tear-drenched story about a young woman who falls for the wrong man (a musician, of course), gets pregnant, has the baby and gives it up for adoption, and suffers from self-loathing and remorse. To appreciate it we have to remember what was deemed possible for American filmmakers under the Production Code, as well as what was deemed possible for American women of the era. Even within the confines of the "problem picture" compromises, Lupino provides some interesting touches, such as the giddy, speeded-up carousel in the background when when Sally faints -- a sure indication for anyone familiar with movie pregnancy clichés that she's going to have a baby -- and the subjective camera that takes over during Sally's Demerol-numbed labor and delivery. Lupino's ability to think originally even when the material lacks originality is one of her strengths as a director.
