Ida LupinoBigamist, The (1953)

You can find more information regarding this film on its IMDb page.

This item is part of the collection: Feature Films

Director: Ida Lupino
Producer: Collier Young
Audio/Visual: sound, b&w
Keywords:

Creative Commons license: Public Domain

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Reviewer: adios - - December 16, 2005
Subject: zzzzzzzzz........

Ida Lupino directs and co-stars in this earnest but ultimately dreary soaper of a traveling salesman who can't bring himself to disappoint either his current wife or his recently impregnated girlfriend, and ingeniously decides to simply get married a second time. Without divorcing the first wife, that is. Hilarity ensues....OK, not quite hilarity, more like sedation. I was more interested in the exteriors of 50s Los Angeles (and that DC-7) than in the contrived characters and their angst. Features Kris Kringle and a cast of unknowns - including a bar singer who somehow manages to coax an entire orchestral arrangement out of a small piano.

Reviewer: LeoF - - July 20, 2005
Subject: A moral dilemma

This is a profound and ultimately very sad movie. The American, Christian tradition has no room for legal polygamy. It is a bit trite to point out that the film was a generation or two ahead of the times. With Americas slugging it out today over same sex marriages and the legitimacy of, let us call it, cross species relationships, the idea of two wives seems pretty tame.

The actual story is a heartbreaker and it is hard to actually say anyone is a villain. Yet none are entirely victims either. The logic that drives the unfolding of this moral dilemma is very powerful. People are after all only human and make mistakes. So what to do when one brings a baby into the world. Not an easy question to answer except by the most arrogant of people. I suspect that most cases of bigamy do not involve such decent and loving people, who are so well off financially either.

I can't say what the intended moral of the film is supposed to be but my own is that whenever Government is involved in morality, there are bound to be problems.