Ladies in Retirement

Last updated
Ladies in Retirement
Ladies in Retirement VideoCover.jpeg
Theatrical release poster
Directed by Charles Vidor
Screenplay by Garrett Fort
Reginald Denham
Based onthe play Ladies in Retirement
by Reginald Denham
Edward Percy
Produced byLester Cowan
Starring Ida Lupino
Louis Hayward
Cinematography George Barnes
Edited by Al Clark
Music by Ernst Toch
Morris Stoloff
Production
company
Columbia Pictures
Distributed by Columbia Pictures
Release date
  • September 18, 1941 (1941-09-18)(United States)
Running time
91 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

Ladies in Retirement is a 1941 American film noir directed by Charles Vidor and starring Ida Lupino and Louis Hayward, who were married at the time. It is based on a 1940 Broadway play of the same title by Reginald Denham and Edward Percy that starred Flora Robson in the lead role. [1]

Contents

Plot

Ellen Creed, a proud spinster fallen on hard times, has spent the past two years as housekeeper and companion to her old friend Leonora Fiske, a wealthy retiree who in her youth had been a chorus girl "of easy virtue". Ellen receives a letter threatening that unless she can tame her two peculiar sisters, the police will be called and the sisters will be evicted from their lodgings for outlandish behaviour. Leonora allows Ellen to invite her sisters to visit.

One day when Ellen is away, handsome young stranger Albert Feather appears, claiming to be Ellen's nephew. Leonora lends him money, but Albert makes her promise not to tell Ellen about either his visit or the loan.

Ellen returns with her sisters, who quickly wear out their welcome, proving to be a burden to Leonora and her maid Lucy. Leonora complains to Ellen, pointing out that two days have turned into six weeks and that the sisters are destroying her possessions and fraying her nerves. Leonora finally orders them out but Ellen pleads with Leonora, afraid that her sisters will be sent to an institution. In a rage, Ellen then strangles Leonora to death.

Ellen tells visitors and Lucy that Leonora is traveling. She tells her sisters that she bought the house and makes them swear that they will never talk about Leonora or that she sold the house.

Some nuns living nearby visit the house in a terrible storm to borrow something. After Ellen sends Lucy to the shed, Lucy is surprised there by Albert, with whom Lucy had a flirtation the first time that he was at the Fiske home. He flirts with her again and asks her to promise not to tell Ellen that he has been there before or that he is in the shed. Instead, he visits through the front door, telling Ellen that he needs help and a place to stay because he is a wanted thief. Ellen refuses to allow Albert to stay and buys him a boat ticket out of the country and says that she will give him some money to make a new start.

Albert and Lucy find evidence that Ellen is hiding something about Leonora. They find Leonora's wig, wondering why she did not travel with it. Albert intercepts a letter from the bank asking why Leonora's signature on a check is much different than the one that they have on file. Albert reads the blotter after Ellen writes back to them about a "sprained wrist." Lucy is not able to figure out what is happening, but Albert is putting the pieces together.

Albert seduces Lucy and tries to steal the hidden money, but fails to find it. He has Lucy sit at the piano, playing Leonora's favourite song and wearing a wig with her back to Ellen, who screams at the sight of her and faints. Albert forgoes his trip in order to stay and blackmail his aunt so that he can have an easy life in the country. He confronts Ellen and she confesses, and he talks about his own crimes. Lucy overhears them and flees the house, and the neighbour nuns come to the door and Albert hides. The nuns tell Ellen that the police are looking for a man who fits Albert's description. Albert comes out of hiding and takes the ticket and money from her and leaves. Ellen's sisters return from their walk and tell her that they saw Albert playing tag with two men. Ellen smiles, dons her coat and hat, tells the sisters she's going to see some men, kisses them goodbye and departs into the fog.

Cast

Casting

The film is based on a Broadway play that starred Flora Robson, a forty-year-old actress playing a 60-year-old character, while Ida Lupino was only 23 at the time. Studio boss Harry Cohn fumed, "you're out of your mind choosing this child to play that role." [2] Director Charles Vidor did everything he could to make Lupino look 40, including severely limiting makeup, pulling her hair back in a severe style and getting cinematographer Charles Barnes to light her face in a harsh light to wash out her skin's softness. Barnes told her that "I'll do what I can with my camera, but nearly everthing depends on your performance." [2]

Isobel Elsom reprised her Broadway role as Leonora Fiske. [3]

Reception

Critical response

In a contemporary review, The New York Times called the film "... an exercise in slowly accumulating terror with all the psychological trappings of a Victorian thriller. ... It has been painstakingly done, beautifully photographed and tautly played, especially in its central role, and for the most part it catches all the script's nuances of horror quite as effectively as did the original play version ... Despite all its excellence, however, it must be added that Ladies in Retirement is a film for a proper and patient mood. It doesn't race through its story; it builds its terror step by step." [4]

Writing for the Los Angeles Times , critic Edwin Schallert called the film "a dramatic and somber portrayal" that "discloses no end of pictorial interest." He praised Lupino's and Hayward's performances, writing "... the film's feminine star appears young for the role but this in many ways makes her interpretation especially interesting and requires the utmost of skill from Miss Lupino in her acting. This is a demand that she meets ably, as does Louis Hayward, who succeeds logically and ingeniously in unmasking her as the killer." [5]

In the Hollywood Citizen-News , reviewer Carl Combs called Ladies in Retirement "a mighty fine movie ... eerie, atmospheric, and charged with melodrama, not to mention a half a dozen performances of considerable dramatic voltage. Its creepy qualities arise not from blood and thunder so much as from a sort of painful tenseness bred by insanity and murder." [6]

Academy Award nominations

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ida Lupino</span> British actress and filmmaker (1918–1995)

Ida Lupino was a British actress, director, writer, and producer. Throughout her 48-year career, she appeared in 59 films and directed eight, working primarily in the United States, where she became a citizen in 1948. She is widely regarded as the most prominent female filmmaker working in the 1950s during the Hollywood studio system. With her independent production company, she co-wrote and co-produced several social-message films and became the first woman to direct a film noir, The Hitch-Hiker, in 1953.

<i>High Sierra</i> (film) 1941 film by Raoul Walsh

High Sierra is a 1941 American film noir directed by Raoul Walsh, written by William R. Burnett and John Huston from the novel by Burnett, and starring Ida Lupino and Humphrey Bogart. Its plot follows a career criminal who becomes involved in a jewel heist in a resort town in California's Sierra Nevada, along with a young former taxi dancer (Lupino).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mary Wickes</span> American actress (1910–1995)

Mary Wickes was an American actress. She often played supporting roles as prim, professional women, secretaries, nurses, nuns, therapists, teachers and housekeepers, who made sarcastic quips when the leading characters fell short of her high standards.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Louis Hayward</span> British actor born in South Africa

Louis Charles Hayward was a South African-born, British-American actor.

<i>This Gun for Hire</i> 1942 film by Frank Tuttle

This Gun for Hire is a 1942 American film noir crime film directed by Frank Tuttle and starring Veronica Lake, Robert Preston, Laird Cregar, and Alan Ladd. It is based on the 1936 novel A Gun for Sale by Graham Greene.

Edward Small was an American film producer from the late 1920s through 1970, who was enormously prolific over a 50-year career. He is best known for the movies The Count of Monte Cristo (1934), The Man in the Iron Mask (1939), The Corsican Brothers (1941), Brewster's Millions (1945), Raw Deal (1948), Black Magic (1949), Witness for the Prosecution (1957) and Solomon and Sheba (1959).

<i>The Trouble with Angels</i> (film) 1966 film by Ida Lupino

The Trouble with Angels is a 1966 American comedy film about the adventures of two girls in an all-girls Catholic school run by nuns. The film was the final theatrical feature to be directed by Ida Lupino and stars Hayley Mills, Rosalind Russell, and June Harding.

<i>The Major and the Minor</i> 1942 film by Billy Wilder

The Major and the Minor is a 1942 American romantic comedy film starring Ginger Rogers and Ray Milland. It was the first American film directed by Billy Wilder. The screenplay credited to Wilder and Charles Brackett is "suggested by" the 1923 play Connie Goes Home by Edward Childs Carpenter, based on the 1921 Saturday Evening Post story "Sunny Goes Home" by Fannie Kilbourne.

<i>Death of a Scoundrel</i> 1956 film by Charles Martin

Death of a Scoundrel is a 1956 American film noir drama film directed by Charles Martin and starring George Sanders, Yvonne De Carlo, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Victor Jory and Coleen Gray. It was distributed by RKO Pictures. This film and The Falcon's Brother are the only two to feature real-life lookalike brothers George Sanders and Tom Conway, who portray brothers in both pictures. The movie's music is by Max Steiner and the cinematographer is James Wong Howe.

The 13th National Board of Review Awards were given on 20 December 1941.

<i>Yours for the Asking</i> 1936 film by Alexander Hall

Yours for the Asking is a 1936 American comedy film starring George Raft as a casino owner and Dolores Costello as the socialite he hires as hostess. The movie also features Ida Lupino and was directed by Alexander Hall.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Errol Flynn filmography</span>

The film appearances of movie actor Errol Flynn (1909–1959) are listed here, including his short films and one unfinished feature.

<i>The Corsican Brothers</i> (1941 film) 1941 film directed by Gregory Ratoff

The Corsican Brothers is a 1941 swashbuckler film starring Douglas Fairbanks Jr. in a dual role as the titular conjoined twins who are separated at birth and raised in entirely different circumstances. Both thirst for revenge against the man who killed their parents, both fall in love with the same woman. The story is very loosely based on the 1844 novella Les frères Corses by French writer Alexandre Dumas, père.

<i>Out of the Fog</i> (1941 film) 1941 film by Anatole Litvak

Out of the Fog is a 1941 American film noir crime drama directed by Anatole Litvak, starring John Garfield, Ida Lupino and Thomas Mitchell. The film was based on the play The Gentle People by Irwin Shaw.

<i>Son of Fury: The Story of Benjamin Blake</i> 1942 film by John Cromwell

Son of Fury: The Story of Benjamin Blake is a 1942 American south seas adventure film directed by John Cromwell and starring Tyrone Power. The film was adapted from Edison Marshall's 1941 historical novel Benjamin Blake. It is notable as the last film Frances Farmer appeared in before her legal problems and eventual commitment to psychiatric hospitals until 1950.

<i>The Hard Way</i> (1943 film) 1943 film by Vincent Sherman

The Hard Way is a 1943 Warner Bros. musical drama film starring Ida Lupino, Dennis Morgan, and Joan Leslie. Directed by Vincent Sherman, it is based on a story by Irwin Shaw which was reportedly based on Ginger Rogers' relationship with her first husband Jack Pepper and her mother Lela.

<i>Paris in Spring</i> 1935 film by Lewis Milestone

Paris in Spring is a 1935 black and white musical comedy film directed by Lewis Milestone for Paramount Pictures. It is based on a play by Dwight Taylor, with a screen play by Samuel Hoffenstein and Franz Schulz.

<i>Escape Me Never</i> (1947 film) 1947 film by Peter Godfrey

Escape Me Never is a 1947 American melodrama film directed by Peter Godfrey, and starring Errol Flynn, Ida Lupino, Eleanor Parker, and Gig Young.

<i>Up in Mabels Room</i> (1944 film) 1944 film by Allan Dwan

Up in Mabel's Room is a 1944 American comedy film directed by Allan Dwan and starring Marjorie Reynolds, Dennis O'Keefe and Gail Patrick. It is based on the 1919 play by Wilson Collison and Otto A. Harbach. The film's composer, Edward Paul, was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Score in 1945.

<i>The Duke of West Point</i> 1938 film by Alfred E. Green

The Duke of West Point is a 1938 American drama film directed by Alfred E. Green and starring Louis Hayward, Joan Fontaine and Tom Brown. It was described as "A Yank at Oxford in reverse".

References

  1. Ladies in Retirement at the American Film Institute Catalog .
  2. 1 2 Donati, William (2013). Ida Lupino: A Biography. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky. ISBN   9780813143521 . Retrieved 28 November 2022.
  3. "Ladies in Retirement notes". TACT. The Actors Company. Retrieved 28 November 2022.
  4. "THE SCREEN: Boyer and Sullavan Seen in "Appointment for Love," at Music Hall–"Ladies in Retirement," at the Capitol". The New York Times . 1941-11-07. p. 27.
  5. Schallert, Edwin (1941-10-24). "Psychoses Play Important Part in Films". Los Angeles Times . p. 18.
  6. Combs, Carl (1941-10-24). "Insanity and Murder on the Marshes". Hollywood Citizen-News. p. 6.

Streaming audio