The first in-depth study devoted to Ida Lupino's directorial work, this book makes a strong case for her as a trailblazing feminist auteur, a filmmaker with a clear signature style and an abiding interest in depicting the plights of postwar American women. Ida Lupino, Director not only examines her work as a cinematic auteur, but also offers a serious consideration of her diverse and long-ranging career.

Preface
Acknowledgments
Note on Quotations


Part I. Introducing Ida Lupino, Director and Feminist Author
A Rejection of Hollywood
Lupino Directs
Director Lupino and Colleagues
The Filmakers’ Films
Lupino and the Censors
Lupino as Feminist Auteur
Postwar Hollywood, American Society and Culture
Close-up on Outrage
Empathy and a Cinema of Engagement
Italian Neorealism or American Realisms?
Looking Backward? Outrage and M

Part II. Lupino’s Ingenious Genres: Early Films and The Trouble with Angels (1966)
The Social Problem Film and Film Noir
Home Noir
Home Is Where the Noir Is
Doubled Dreams in Hard, Fast and Beautiful
Doubled Domesticity in The Bigamist
Doubled Trauma: Outrage
A Mighty Girl: Lupino and The Trouble with Angels

Part III: Lupino Moves to Television
Industrial Contexts: Film to Television
Directing for Television
“No. 5 Checked Out”
Ida Lupino, Television Director
On Close Readings of 1950s and 1960s Television
“The Return”: Norma Desmond and Ida Lupino Haunt the Small Screen
Mr. Adams and Eve
Directed Episodes, 1956–1968
Comedies
Action, Thrillers, Mysteries
Westerns


Notes
Works Cited
Index

 

THERESE GRISHAM is a lecturer in film and media studies in the department of humanities at Oakton Community College in Des Plaines, Illinois, as well as an instructor at the Facets Multimedia Film School in Chicago. She is also an editor for the English translations of The Complete Works of Rosa Luxemburg (Verso).

JULIE GROSSMAN is a professor of English, and communication and film studies at Le Moyne College in Syracuse, New York. Her books include Rethinking the Femme Fatale in Film Noir, and Literature, Film, and Their Hideous Progeny. She is also a coeditor of the forthcoming collection Adaptation in Visual Culture: Images, Texts, and Their Multiple Worlds.