Tonight's movie was so good that it was one of those rare cases where you are left wondering, "why isn't this movie well-known"? Usually if a movie is great, it has a cult following at the very least, or word of mouth. But I had never even heard of this one until about a week ago, when I did a Library database search for Evelyn Keyes after seeing her in "Johnny O'Clock". Only a few titles came back, but one of them was "Ladies In Retirement" (1941). 'That's a strange title', I thought. But the listing referred to it as a thriller. "Gothic" and "Noir" were hashtagged keywords in the heading. I am always up for an unseen film, as you know. I checked IMDB and the rating was 7.1. So I reserved it and had a copy sent to the Northridge libe. Man, they've got that IMDB rating all wrong. It should be a 10.
The year is 1885, the setting an old mansion in England, way out in the marshes, far from London and disconnected from the local town. The house is owned by a wealthy ex-chorus girl, now in late middle age. Ida Lupino (who we just saw as the director of "The Hitch Hiker" a few days ago at CSUN) stars as a prim young assistant to the woman of the house. A maid also works there (Evelyn Keyes), so Ida Lupino's duties are mostly administrative : keeping books, paying bills, the like. Part of her job is simply to be a companion to the owner, who treats her almost as a daughter.
Lupino has two sisters of her own, who live in a boardinghouse in London. As the movie opens, she has just received a letter from the proprietor of that facility, who states that her sisters have become unmanageable. He requests Lupino to remove them immediately, lest he be forced to relocate them to a state-run asylum.
Lupino's sisters are quite insane, you see. The movie takes place in Victorian England, where such people were often locked away or put up in the family attic. Nowdays we have specific diagnoses for different categories of mental illness or sub-normal intelligence. As for Lupino's sisters, I'd say one is paranoid schizophrenic (Elsa Lanchester) and the other (stage actress Edith Barrett) is just plain daffy and either retarded (an outmoded yet still clinical term), or autistic. Together, Lanchester and Barrett steal the show as the two sisters. Each should have been given an Oscar for their performances.
Okay, so Lupino has two supremely goofy sisters, but she is loyal to them and will not let them be put away by the state. She asks her employer, the Lady of the Mansion, if her sisters might stay there for a few days while she tries to relocate them. She downplays their peculiarities and promises they'll be no trouble. With that assurance, her landlady agrees to take them in.....but only for a few days.
When the sisters arrive, however, their personality tics are blatantly apparent. The landlady is overwhelmed and annoyed, but because she values Ida Lupino, she sticks to her original agreement. Soon, though, the few days are up and she asks Lupino to move the sisters back to London, or anywhere away from her house. But Lupino has made a promise to her sisters, who we see are really very fragile creatures, that she will never send them to an asylum.
"Ladies In Retirement" was originally a Broadway play, and the plot is so good and so tightly woven as to be worthy of Hitchcock, though the setting is too Victorian for Hitch. If you've seen the horror movie "Night Must Fall" starring Robert Montgomery, you'll have an idea of the type of house I am talking about, and also the kinds of English personalities of the era, when a Cockney aspired to have class, despite his or her station.
In the movie, there is a knock at the door. The maid opens it to find a man standing there, young and handsome, nicely dressed. But it is clear that he isn't on the up-and-up. He is a cousin of Ida Lupino, a "Smilin' Jack" who wants to worm his way into the good fortune of her hard work. He has stolen funds from the bank at which he was employed and needs a place to hide out, just until the heat cools off.
As if Miss Lupino didn't have enough problems......
I think I really shouldn't tell you any more, because things are gonna wind up into a coil from this point.
There will be secrets and attempted blackmail. The crazy sisters will influence what is told to whom. Two nuns from a local priory will visit the house at the most inopportune times. And Albert, the dapper, snide cousin, will try to take control of the situation in the house, but he hasn't reckoned with the steely resolve of Ida Lupino, who carries this picture even as the two actresses who play her sisters add most of the spice. Louis Hayward as "Albert" is great, too. He is just enough of a punk to think he's gonna get away with his plan, and he has the cute maid on his side, but........
Just see this movie, if you can find it, because from me it gets 5 Stars and my highest rating. I think it should be ranked right up there with "Rebecca" and psychological thrillers of that nature.
Shot in foggy nighttime black and white, with great, twisted old trees set into the background before the matte painted skies. You can't beat the atmosphere, and the actors take full advantage of it.
Two Gigantic Thumbs Up, a must see. //////
This morning we had good singing in church. I finished the Bill Clinton/James Patterson book "The President Is Missing". Though the story is different, I still highly recommend it to anyone who was involved in 1989, simply because there are traits and instances of the Real Bill that you will recognize. Also, it's a damn good book, a page turner if ever there was one.
That's all for tonight. See you in the morning. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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