In fact, Lupino was the only female director working in Hollywood when she began. A woman carving out a place for herself in what was very much a man’s world: this was the situation many of Lupino’s most memorable characters found themselves in, and it was also her story as both actress and director. Tellingly, they’re all in traditionally “masculine” genres: crime thrillers, rugged adventure tales, gritty urban dramas. These are the films that make up her enduring legacy as an actress, and all of them are screening in the Film Forum series. The studios seemed unsure of what to do with her at first, but she soon hit her stride: throughout the 1940s and into the ‘50s, she turned in brilliant performances for Walsh ( They Drive by Night, High Sierra, The Man I Love), Michael Curtiz ( The Sea Wolf), Jean Negulesco ( Road House), Fritz Lang ( Moontide, While the City Sleeps), Ray ( On Dangerous Ground), and Aldrich ( The Big Knife). The last few years have brought restorations and high-quality home-video releases of some of her best films, and lucky New Yorkers can head over to Film Forum between now and November 22 for a retrospective celebrating the centenary of her birth: twenty-five features, including all seven that she directed.īorn in London to a family of stage actors, writers, dancers, and musicians, Lupino trained at RADA and then honed her craft in several now-forgotten British films before moving to Hollywood while still in her teens. If her reputation hasn’t yet caught up to theirs, it’s only because her movies haven’t been as widely seen. As an actress, she worked with some of the giants, including Robert Aldrich, Nicholas Ray, Don Siegel, Raoul Walsh, and William Wellman as a director, she was their peer. The movies she made between 19 are as good as anything that came out of Hollywood during those years. Ida Lupino, a major actress of the 1940s who began directing and producing at the end of that decade, did more than excel. Actors, even or perhaps especially the most successful ones, have always been drawn to those jobs, and have often excelled at them. Maybe it’s the movie stars whose names go above the title, but any student of the film industry quickly learns that the real power and the glory reside with the producers and directors - those who make the movies happen, and those who control what ends up on screen. (Film Forum’s retrospective Ida Lupino 100 runs through November 22.
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