STREAMING SATURDAYS! Ida Lupino and Joan Fontaine Fall For THE BIGAMIST
Welcome to another edition of STREAMING SATURDAYS, where we embed a free, fun movie for you to watch right here!
In 1953’s The Bigamist, Edmond O’Brien scrambles up and down the California coast, shuttling between two wives. If I’d been anywhere in the vicinity, it would have been three. But enough about my love of Eddie.
In the film, Ida Lupino, who also directed, plays Phyllis, an L.A. restaurant hostess and the more sympathetic of the two wives. And that was my main gripe: not that she took the plummier role (why wouldn’t she?), but that her rival (Joan Fontaine) was subtly frowned upon for being a—gasp!—business woman, and a damned good one. So, of course her husband became a bigamist! He was lonely and emasculated and blah, blah, blah… Really, Ida? You, of all people, ran with that tired old trope? (And by the way, in real life, the anything but hard-hearted Joan left her entire multi-million-dollar fortune to an animal shelter.)
Here’s the thing, though: in other ways, the movie is pretty subversive, especially for a noir. O’Brien, unlikely as it may seem (except for those of us who adore him), is kind of an homme fatale—unable to get control of his emotions and his life, he ends up making two kind, trusting women absolutely miserable. He’s the irrational, random force that wreaks havoc on their otherwise sane, centered lives. The women know what they want and where they’re going (at least until they learn the truth), but he’s a freaking wreck. Throw in the fact that he’s being stalked by Santa Claus—Edmund Gwenn plays an adoption agency investigator looking into his domestic life—and you’ve pretty much stood the movie world as we know it on its head.

With this film, Lupino became the first woman in the modern era to direct herself in a major film — partly, she recalled, to cut down on the budget. She used separate camera crews and a variety of lenses for each wife, to highlight their differences and heighten the feeling of intimacy the audience had with each of them. Lupino said directing herself was the biggest challenge: “It was difficult for me to determine the quality of my performance, so I relied on Collie… who would signal to me when I was doing something I would not like.”
“Collie” was Lupino’s ex-husband Collier Young, who wrote the screenplay and remained her partner in their production company, Filmakers (yes, with one “m”). Oh, and they cast his new wife, Fontaine, in the film — also throwing in a cameo for his mother-in-law. Some couples carry the idea of amicable divorce a little too far…
A few more tidbits before I turn you over to the movie: The Bigamist was one of the first films to use product placement; the shoestring budget was bolstered by fees from Cadillac, Coca-Cola and United Airlines. And the scene with the tour of the movie stars’ homes? Those were their actual homes. There’s also a little inside joke in that scene, but I won’t give it away…
And now, enjoy!
STREAMING SATURDAYS is a semi-regular feature on Sister Celluloid. You can catch up on movies you may have missed by clicking here! And why not bookmark the page to make sure you never miss another?
Don’t Ditch Those DVDs and Tapes! They’re Your Only Permanent Pass to the Movies
If you want to make sure a movie you love is always there for you, you’ve gotta own it. Period.
More and more people are being sucked into cyberspace for all their viewing needs, like modern-day versions of Carol Anne in Poltergeist. Because who needs old-school media when you’ve got HBO Max, Hulu, Netflix and a zillion other streamers? You do, my dear. Look at it this way: When your lease is up and you have to move, streaming media is the friend who kinda helps you pack, but mostly just rifles through your record collection. Physical media is the friend who helps you haul that ratty sectional sofa down from your fourth-floor walkup.

Streaming services are especially fickle friends when it comes to classic film, which seems to occupy a narrower niche every year. The uber-classics like Casablanca and The Wizard of Oz will likely always be online somewhere, but most titles have much shorter shelf lives, and many never make it onto platforms at all. Some streamers, like TCM, HBO Max and the Criterion Channel, do much better than others, but out of necessity, movies cycle in and out all the time. (Oh and PS: When you “buy” a movie on, say, Amazon, you’re only paying for a limited license to view it for an indefinite period.)
I don’t know about you, but when I wake up at three in the morning and only Kay Francis and William Powell in Jewel Robbery can calm my fevered mind, I don’t want to be clacking away on my keyboard or fumbling with the remote, hoping it’s still on one of my streaming subscriptions somewhere. I want to pop in the disc, hear that comforting little whirr, and sit back and bask in the Deco glow of 1932, knowing Kay and Bill are mine forever.
And if you still have your VHS tapes, come sit here by me. I have lots of titles that never made it to DVD, either for a perceived lack of audience interest or because the rights hurdles they cleared the first time were harder to leap over in the next round. These include gems like Kevin Brownlow’s Buster Keaton and Hollywood series, as well as old biographies such as Laurence Olivier: A Life and a bunch of 1930s movies likely deemed unworthy of a new life on DVD.
If your VCR has conked out, used ones are super cheap online, but new DVD-VCR combos have gotten pricier as the demand dwindles down to dinosaurs like me (even the New York Times crossword writers hate on us). So only you can decide if it’s worth the hunt and the money to watch the tapes you’ve hung onto. (Oh and screw the ridicule.)

If storage space is an issue, consider high-quality DVD cases that let you ditch all the packaging. I realize that using these is blasphemous to some people, but they’ve kept my movies safe for decades; I stick to the smaller cases and shelve them vertically, away from moisture, heat and sunlight. I keep the liner notes worth saving in a small box. (Alas, there’s no equivalent storage workaound for VHS tapes.)
Want to add to your collection? If you can spring for new DVDs of classic films, great—it reminds media companies that there’s still a market for them and encourages them to maintain their libraries and churn out the odd restoration or two. If you can’t, there are plenty of outlets for cheap used ones, including flea markets, thrift and charity stores, library sales, and of course online sellers. Even some drugstore chains and supermarkets sell DVDs, and classics sometimes pop up in their bins, so don’t pass them by.
One of my favorite online sources is the eBay store of the Friends of the San Francisco Public Library (username friendslibrary), where 100% of proceeds go to this fabulous cause. (As you might imagine, they also have tons of books.) The eBay charity store (just enter “charity auction” in the searchbar) also has lots of other nonprofits selling DVDs, though the percentage earmarked for charity varies.
If you prefer your DVDs free, check back to this website in a while. I inherited my Mom’s DVDs after I lost her last summer, and since we were movie kindred spirits, there are some I already had. I’ll be keeping hers, and giving mine away. But I don’t have the heart to plow through that process just yet.
In the meantime, keep the ones you have. Streaming services can take down content whenever they feel like it, but your own personal stash of movies? Oh no, they can’t take that away from you…
Paul McCartney’s Way with Women (In Song)
Happy Birthday, Sir Paul! And in his honor, I’d like to focus on a part of his much-mined legacy I’ve not heard too much about: his story-songs about women.
Let’s start with “Eleanor Rigby,” still one of the most evocative songs ever written, and a novel unto itself. (I know Paul is Catholic, so Father McKenzie was probably not marriage-eligible, but I can’t hear that song without wishing he’d thrown off the collar so he and Eleanor could rescue each other.) On a broader note, it’s about the deep chasms of loneliness anyone could feel, in an era of post-war upheaval when all the “pulling together for a common cause” has long since come apart. But what you see most vividly is Eleanor. Has there ever been a lonelier image set to song than that of a straggler in the back pew who “picks up the rice in a church where a wedding has been” as the happy couple sets off on their new life together?
And Paul was 24 when he wrote it. I mean Jesus. John Lennon had apparently advised against the downbeat ending, but Paul held fast.
“Eleanor Rigby” was something of a lonely song to record as well: none of the other Beatles played on it (shades of Yesterday earlier), though George and John chimed in on vocals. And the strings were producer George Martin’s idea—reportedly inspired by those he’d heard in… wait for it… Psycho.
Similarly, none of the Beatles played on “She’s Leaving Home,” though John sang the chorus. This stunner seems completely out of place on Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (much as “Eleanor Rigby” did on Yellow Submarine) but to me it’s the best cut on that legendary album. “Silently closing her bedroom door… leaving a note that she hoped would say more…” The stark imagery throughout the song captures everything.
The song was loosely based on a story Paul had read in the Daily Mirror about a 17-year-old runaway, but her interior life, and the mystified grief of her mother and father, were purely Paul’s creation. (The very act of acknowledging the feelings of — gasp! — her parents, even wryly, was enough to make this song revolutionary for 1967.)
Martin was tied up on another project, so Paul turned to Mike Leander to produce the song, once again bringing in strings to underscore the mood. “[George] was busy and I was itching to get on with it, I was inspired,” Paul told Playboy in 1984. “I think George had a lot of difficulty forgiving me for that. It hurt him, I didn’t mean to.” You’ve gotta love a man who’s still wracked with guilt about hurting a friend, almost 20 years on. (Did I mention he was Catholic?)
Brian Wilson cried when Paul played it for him, and Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Ned Rorem called it “equal to any song that Schubert ever wrote.”
Most heart-rending break-up songs are written from the perspective of the dumpee. “For No One” splits the difference between the man left behind and the woman out there creating a life without him. “She wakes up, she makes up, she takes her time and doesn’t feel she has to hurry, she no longer needs you…”
Paul recalls writing the song in the bathroom of a Swiss chalet while on vacation with his then-girlfriend Jane Asher, as their relationship was falling apart: “I suspect it was about another argument.” And yet he wrote it as much from a woman’s perspective as a man’s.
During the recording session, Paul asked Alan Civil, the soloist on the French horn, to play a note that stretched beyond its normal range, to strike the perfect mournful tone, which recording engineer Geoff Emrick said resulted in “the performance of his life.” In terms of his bandmates, this was yet another virtual solo for Paul, with Ringo adding some light percussion.
I admit I was reluctant to put “Lady Madonna” in here as I’ve never liked the song and it always felt like something of a put-down. But a recent interview with Paul changed my mind.
“I think women are very strong, they put up with a lot of shit,” he told the UK’s Far Out magazine. “They put up with the pain of having a child, of raising it, cooking for it, they are basically skivvies a lot of their lives, so I always want to pay a tribute to them.”
Paul’s own mother, a midwife in Liverpool, was also an inspiration here, as elsewhere in his music. (She’s the one he references in “Let It Be,” though it’s been wrongly assumed to be the more iconic Mother Mary.) “It’s really a tribute to the mother figure, it’s a tribute to women,” Paul told author Barry Miles for the book Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now. “‘Your Mother Should Know’ is another.” Yes, that little music hall-style ditty is the one where Paul, in the midst of a particularly turbulent generational war, “was basically trying to say, your mother might know more than you think she does. Give her credit.”
In researching “Another Day,” I was shocked — though I shouldn’t have been — to see how many (male) music critics sneered at it, in one case likening it to a jingle for underarm deodorant, and generally dismissing it as trite.
The single was released three months before Paul’s second solo album, Ram — and just as his former bandmates were turning out All Things Must Pass and John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band. It was deemed far too lightweight to compete. Yes, how could a song about a woman’s interior life have any gravitas?!? These are pretty much the same kind of myopic misogynists who sniffed at “women’s pictures” during the classic movie era. In fact this song pretty much is a women’s picture. “At the office where the papers grow she takes a break… drinks another coffee and she finds it hard to stay awake, it’s just another day… So sad, so sad, sometimes she feels so sad.” It’s loneliness and depression set to a slight samba beat.
Lennon snidely referenced “Another Day” in his song about Paul, “How Do You Sleep?”: “The only thing you done was yesterday/And since you’ve gone it’s just another day.”
But Denny Seiwall, the session drummer on Ram, called it “Eleanor Rigby in New York City.” And I’m guessing that most women whose strength and sanity are being sucked slowly dry by jobs and relationships going nowhere will see themselves much more clearly in this song than in, say, “Instant Karma.”
None of this is to take away from all the other gorgeous ballads Paul wrote. But there’s something about these story-songs, all centering on women, that reveals such a deep understanding and compassion. With them, he created characters wholly outside himself, something not many songwriters do, and not nearly that well.
To close out this birthday tribute, here’s Sir Paul — no entourage, no crew, no bullshit — strolling through JFK Airport a couple of years ago, ticket and luggage in hand. Safe travels always, you beautiful man…
What’s Your Classic Movie Intervention?
Okay here’s a question for all of you, who, like me, feel movies from the top of your head to the tips of your toes. What classic movie character would you like to stage an intervention for? Who makes you want to reach into the screen and say “Don’t do it!” I don’t mean warning someone about an imminent danger, like “Don’t go down the basement!!” I mean something the character is doing or not doing, or perhaps the way they’re living their lives, that’s just breaking your heart or making you crazy.
For me, two come to mind right away: Fran (Ruth Chatterton) in Dodsworth, throwing away her husband, one of the best and most attractive men in the world, for a string of Eurotrash milquetoasts, and Sibyl Vane (Angela Lansbury) making the terrible mistake of turning around and staying the night in The Picture of Dorian Gray. I’ve seen that movie roughly ten times, but that scene only once: I literally have to leave the room for about two minutes until it’s over. I can’t even fast-forward past it because you can still kinda see it. (I realize, of course, that both these films are based on novels, so maybe I have to leap into the books to save these ladies as well.)
Similarly, I spend much of Random Harvest, which I love but oh my God, screaming at Paula (Greer Garson), pining away for her amnesiac husband (Ronald Colman), “Just tell him!!” Though as my Mom would wisely point out, as with most plot contrivances that drive you insane, “Then it would be a really short movie.” And at least her story ends happily, because we all know that being long-suffering, noble and self-sacrificing is a sure-fire ticket to romantic bliss.
Sad to say there are many, many more, but I’d rather turn the floor over to my movie tribe.
So… what classic movie character do you most want to save from themselves?
STREAMING SATURDAYS! Brace Yourself for a Shock in PAROLE GIRL
Welcome to another edition of Streaming Saturdays, where we embed a free, fun movie for you to watch right here!
Parole Girl has the most shocking ending in all of classic film: Ralph Bellamy gets the girl. (Not to fear—we know that from the jump. Also there’s literally no other attractive man in the entire movie.)
The girl he gets is the fabulous Mae Clarke. But first he sends her to prison—talk about meeting cute!
Sylvia Day (Clarke) gets guilted into teaming up with grifter Tony Gratton (Hale Hamilton), who had befriended her father when he fell on hard times. Now on her own after his death, she agrees to help Tony pull a con on a department store. After she’s caught and collapses in fear and remorse, the manager is willing to show her mercy—but his boss, Joe Smith (Bellamy) insists they can make no exceptions.
Sent off to jail, Sylvia’s got but one consuming, consoling thought: wreaking revenge on Smith when she’s released. And does she ever—up to a point.
Parole Girl was a bit of a departure for director Eddie Cline, who usually knocked around with Mack Sennett, Buster Keaton and W.C. Fields. But it was tailor-made for the versatile Clarke, who moves seamlessly from a terrified, pleading victim to a vengeful schemer (with a rueful laugh that could peel the wallpaper) to a desperate wife who risks everything to protect the man she now loves.
The script was an early effort of Oscar winner Norman Krasna, who later collaborated on two of Jean Harlow’s best films, Bombshell and Reckless, and went on to whip up such confections as Wife Vs. Secretary, Bachelor Mother, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, The Devil and Miss Jones, Indiscreet and Sunday in New York (with my beloved Rod Taylor). Some of the coincidences that drive the story along will strain your credulity so hard you’ll need a chiropractor. But it’s a sweet little movie—and must have been especially satisfying for Mr. Bellamy.
STREAMING SATURDAYS is a semi-regular feature on Sister Celluloid. You can catch up on movies you may have missed by clicking here! And why not bookmark the page to make sure you never miss another?
A Memory Dream Turns Into A Nightmare
For me, it’s always been one of the most unsettling scenes ever set to film: the one in Goodfellas where, after Henry has become something of a liability, his wife Karen goes to see his mobster friend Jimmy for help, amidst a jungle of ramshackle old warehouses near the docks. At first, he commiserates with her, asks how Henry’s holding up, and presses a few thousand dollars into her hand. Then he gives her a hug and a kiss and says “Listen, I got some beautiful Dior dresses, you wanna have ‘em?” Still flush with gratitude, she smiles and says, “Yeah, maybe for my Mom.” But as he tries to steer her, a bit too insistently, into the dark, deserted space where he wants her to go, you can almost see the hairs on the back of her neck stand up.
Being somewhat movie-mad, and trying to put something that just happened to me into some kind of context, that was the scene that ran through my mind yesterday.
I had gone to Sunset Park, Brooklyn, to pick up my husband Tim after arthroscopic surgery. The nurse said she’d call when I could come by, and in the meantime, I walked around the neighborhood, my face tucked into my coat collar against the bitter cold, as the wind barreled down the bits of barren street where it met no resistance. I suddenly realized I was just a few blocks from the house where my Dad grew up, and where we lived, upstairs from my Gramma, for the first few years of my life.
The front door was now made of steel, almost prison-like, which really threw me. But the bricks on the front, mottled dark and red, still looked the same, as did the swirling black ironwork on the windows.
I remembered the willow tree that once stood across the street, whose shadows hovered protectively on my bedroom wall in the glow of the street lamp as I drifted off to sleep. And I remembered Billy down the block, who had a lot of trouble with his words. I can still hear his voice—he couldn’t quite clamp down on the hard letters and everything sounded a bit like oatmeal. But somehow I could understand him, and his Mom, who topped out a bit above my 6-foot Dad, would sometimes bend close to me and ask me what he’d said. Maybe because I had a stumbling block of my own—Rs eluded me completely (and sometimes still do)—I could make my way through his jumble of sounds.
The little courtyard behind the front gate reminded me of when Billy and I made several hundred round trips up and down the street with his wagon to collect the phone books thrown away when the new ones arrived, and built a fort there. Which was heaven until it rained. But before it collapsed into roughly a thousand pounds of soggy pulp, Billy and I got married in front of it—Billy in his spiffiest teeshirt, me in my best shorts set and my sister’s First Holy Communion veil, and my best friend Monica sporting a lovely kitchen towel on her head as my maid of honor.
And I remembered going back to visit my Gramma with my Dad on Saturdays, after we moved away from that place I’d never wanted to leave. If I peered hard enough, I could still see her waiting there at the window for us.
But suddenly I was startled out of my memory dream when a man stepped out of the house and approached me. I apologized for lingering and told him it was once my family’s home. “Why don’t you come in?” he smiled, and I said no, that’s okay. He asked again, “Come in, it’ll be fine!” And again I nodded no, really, it’s alright. Then he got a little more insistent—”No, come on, come in!” And I suddenly realized, as the day began to darken, that he’d left the steel front door open and there was no one else around, anywhere.
I started to walk away slowly, not wanting to be rude, and thanked him again. And he grabbed my arm hard and dragged me toward him. I somehow got away and said “I have to pick up my husband from surgery!” and he said something like, “Yeah right!” As I hurried away he swiped at my arm again, grabbing hold of my coat and sort of growling something at me. I broke away and ran, and when I turned the corner onto a street with at least a few people on it, he gave up chasing me.
I ducked into a store, shaking, and started crying. A little while and a lot of deep breaths later, without waiting to hear from the nurse, I headed for the hospital, where Tim was doing fine and almost ready to go home. And I was more than ready.
Aside from thinking about that scene from Goodfellas, a few other things struck me. Like even after I’d felt fear rising up through my throat, I thought I had to just sort of saunter away from him to avoid hurting his feelings. And then, even after he’d grabbed me, I had to explain to him why today would not be a good day for me to be abducted off the street.
Most unsettling was that if I hadn’t needed to be somewhere—if I’d just been out for a walk and passed the house—I might have accepted his invitation to go inside, because at first he seemed normal, and I was swept up in my memories, and also I’m kind of an over-truster. (A friend of mine teases me all the time, like when my wallet’s hanging halfway out of my bag, “I can’t believe you’re from Brooklyn.”) That part really gives me shivers, the way something that didn’t happen and now never will happen but could have happened can still frighten you.
I realize very little of this is actually movie-related, but I just had to write it down. Thank you for listening.
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