Author: Alexandra Seros

Publisher: University of Texas Press

Published: 2024

Total Pages: 261

ISBN-13: 1477330658

"The acting career of legendary star Ida Lupino is well known, but there has been little analysis of her directorial career. She was one of the few female directors in Classical Hollywood and the only one with membership in the Directors Guild of America between 1948 and 1971. Like Orson Welles, her career was notable in transitioning from acting to directing first in film and then in television, in addition to helping to create and run the production company The Filmakers [sic]. Her films were notably about women navigating difficult positions in society, dealing with controversial issues such as rape and bigamy. Nevertheless, she was the first female director of a noir film, The Hitch-Hiker, which is a suspenseful tale of two motorists taken hostage by a serial killer in the Southwest. Alexandra Seros, a filmmaker herself, examines Lupino's career with a focus on her directorial roles and how she navigated this as a woman, as well as a wife and mother, in male-dominated Hollywood. She explains how Lupino began directing and formed The Filmakers before providing a close analysis of three of her films (Not Wanted, Never Fear, and the aforementioned The Hitch-Hiker) and examining how she navigated the shooting and negotiated with the censors to be able to tell the stories she wanted to tell. Seros then details Lupino's transition to television and her taking the director's reins in that medium as well. Lupino directed episodes in a wide variety of genres, but specialized in Westerns and thrillers. Even as the press and the studios tried to focus on her femininity as a dutiful wife and loving mother, she often refused to play along and be coded as feminine in this way. Seros analyzes three of Lupino's directed episodes, comparing them with similar work done by noted male directors Nicholas Ray, Robert Aldrich, and Alfred Hitchcock, stressing Lupino's efficient, effective work in finishing the shows on time and within budget. She finishes by arguing that Lupino was a new kind or auteur, whose collaborative "family" approach to filmmaking was far ahead of its time"--