The Bigamist

Ida Lupino was one of the only women directors making films during Hollywood's classic era, and she specialized in films with a social message. Lupino's 1953 feature The Bigamist offers a surprisingly sympathetic portrait of Harry Graham (Edmund O'Brien), a hard-working salesman who is in business with his wife, Eve (Joan Fontaine). Harry wants a home and family, but Eve—who cannot have children—is emotionally distant and career-oriented, constantly pushing Harry back on the road in order to expand their business from San Francisco into Los Angeles. Harry eventually meets Phyllis (Lupino), a lonely waitress with a tough exterior, and he marries her after she becomes pregnant. His double life is revealed when he and Eve try to adopt a child and his story is told in flashback to the adoption agency officer (Edmund Gwenn). The Bigamist is hardly a typical Hollywood melodrama—in fact, Lupino produced the film independently on a small budget with her husband, Collier Young—and the screenplay doesn't boast any convenient villains. Rather, the film climaxes with a low-key courtroom scene in which the audience is left to draw their own conclusions. The superb cast here invest their characters with an admirable strength and complexity. Previously available on cheap, poorly-mastered discs, this edition is well-mastered from a worn 35mm archival print, with some visible wear and scratching but an overall crisp image and good sound. Recommended. (S. Axmaker)