The Bigamist (Ida Lupino, 1953)

The Bigamist (Ida Lupino, 1953)

Cast: Edmond O'Brien, Joan Fontaine, Ida Lupino, Edmund Gwenn, Kenneth Tobey, Jane Darwell, Peggy Maley, Lilian Fontaine, Matt Dennis, John Maxwell. Screenplay: Lawrence B. Marcus, Lou Schor, Collier Young. Cinematography: George E. Diskant. Art direction: James W. Sullivan. Film editing: Stanford Tischler. Music: Leith Stevens.

There are some curiously "meta" moments in The Bigamist: At one point, Eve Graham (Joan Fontaine) says that the man who is helping arrange their adoption of a child reminds her of Santa Claus. We smile because the man is being played by Edmund Gwenn, who won an Oscar as Santa Claus in Miracle on 34th Street (George Seaton, 1947). And just in case we missed it, a little later in the film we are on a bus touring the homes of the stars in Beverly Hills and the driver announces that the house they're passing is the residence of "a little man who was Santa Claus to the whole world -- Edmund Gwenn." But then there's something meta about the whole movie: It was produced and its screenplay written by Collier Young, who was married to Fontaine after divorcing the film's other major female star, as well as its director, Ida Lupino. I suppose if you don't believe in divorce you might say that Young is the bigamist of the film's title. But that, of course, is Harry Graham, played by Edmond O'Brien, a character actor who never failed to give a subtle and insightful performance when it was called for. Here he's a weak man, the supposed head of the Graham household, who has found himself taking a back seat in the business to his wife, Eve, whom he refers to at one point as "a career woman" -- a pejorative of sorts in the 1950s. The thing of it is, when we see Eve she's always pleasant and loving -- we sense that she doesn't want to be emasculating Harry, but she's got too much intelligence not to do so. While he's on the road for their company, he gets more and more depressed about playing second fiddle to his wife, so he takes up with Phyllis Martin (Lupino), who's a little depressed herself about her failure to make her mark in the world. One thing leads to another and they get married because she's pregnant. Harry is really a nice guy at heart, but somehow he can't help himself. Finally, he spills the beans to Mr. Jordan (Gwenn), who stumbles onto Harry's double life while investigating the Grahams' fitness to adopt a child. Jordan speaks for the viewer when he says, "I can't figure out my feelings toward you. I despise you and I pity you. I don't even want to shake your hand, and yet I almost wish you luck." There are no villains to be found in The Bigamist, only flawed people getting themselves ensnared in situations they can't resolve. Fortunately, the film doesn't resolve things for us either. It ends with Harry in court where he receives a scolding from the judge, who says he will pronounce sentence a week later. Wisely, the film leaves it up to us to deliver that sentence.

Between Two Worlds (Edward A. Blatt, 1944)

Between Two Worlds (Edward A. Blatt, 1944)

Cast: John Garfield, Paul Henreid, Sydney Greenstreet, Eleanor Parker, Edmund Gwenn, George Tobias, George Coulouris, Faye Emerson, Sara Allgood, Dennis King, Isobel Elsom, Gilbert Emery. Screenplay: Daniel Fuchs, based on a play by Sutton Vane. Cinematography: Carl E. Guthrie. Art direction: Hugh Reticker. Film editing: Rudi Fehr. Music: Erich Wolfgang Korngold.

Sutton Vane's old warhorse of a play Outward Bound made its debut on Broadway in 1924 and became a community theater staple for many years after. It's a fantasy about the afterlife, in which passengers on a ship gradually come to realize that they're dead and will be judged by a man known as the Examiner, who will send them to their just deserts. Warner Bros. filmed it in 1930 with Leslie Howard as the cynical newspaperman Tom Prior and Douglas Fairbanks Jr. as the suicidal Henry, a role Howard had played on stage. In 1944 the studio decided it was time for a remake that would update the story to the war years: A group of people are desperate to get out of England during the bombing and decide to risk sailing to America. Among them is Henry Bergner, a concert pianist who has been part of the Resistance in France but whose nerves have been shattered so that he can't take it anymore. When he's turned down because he doesn't have an exit permit, he decides to kill himself, so he returns to the flat he shares with his wife, Ann (Eleanor Parker), seals the windows shut, and turns on the gas. But Ann has pursued him to the steamship office, and when she finds out he has just left, she rushes into the street just in time to see a car carrying people who have successfully booked passage -- we have been introduced to them earlier -- blown to bits. She hurries on to the flat and discovers what Henry has done, so she decides to join him in death. Cut to the ship, where she and Henry join the people who have just been blown up. Henry and Ann realize that they're dead, but they're advised by the ship's steward, Scrubby (Edmund Gwenn), not to let the others know just yet. And so it goes, as the passengers gradually awake to the truth of their condition and undergo judgment by the Examiner, who was once an Anglican clergyman. Sydney Greenstreet plays him with his usual affably sinister manner -- in his scenes with Henreid it's a bit like watching Victor Laszlo being judged by Kasper Gutman. The bad people -- an arrogant capitalist played by George Coulouris and a snobbish society dame played by Isobel Elsom -- get dispatched to punishment; the sinful but worthy -- Garfield's raffish journalist and Faye Emerson's conscience-stricken playgirl/actress -- are provided with a measure of redemption. And then there are the suicides, Henry and Ann. It's revealed that their lot is to serve aboard these postmortem ships for eternity, like the steward Scrubby, who had killed himself. Since condoning suicide was taboo, especially under the Catholic-administered Production Code, the script has to provide an out for the attractive, repentant couple, and it does. There's a lot of stiff acting in the movie -- Garfield's is the only really naturalistic performance -- and the dialogue is full of heavy-handed exposition speeches. The capitalist and the socialite never rise above caricature, and there's a sentimental tribute to mother love. This is the first of only three films directed by Edward A. Blatt, and it's easy to see why there weren't more.