Straddling Hollywood’s Gender Boundaries: Ida Lupino’s Auteur Journey

Mailman Auditorium, Mailman Hollywood Building

Ida Lupino made her place in film history by refusing to accept predetermined roles and categories. Her career began with acting, bleaching her hair to be known as “the English Jean Harlow” and eventually developed into directing, to be known as “the Female Hitch,” for her orchestration of suspense. Lupino battled the studio system, enduring suspensions for refusing to play certain roles, and ultimately used these challenges to learn the directing craft and form her own production companies. Her films unflinchingly tackled social problems that had never been fully expressed on screen, such as rape (Outrage, 1950), polio (Never Fear, 1950), and bigamy (The Bigamist, 1950), while avoiding reductiveness in gender and class depictions. Her contributions to film noir are among her most important, both as an actress, in her nuanced “tough girl” portrayals, and as a director, helming one of noir’s most gritty offerings, 1953’s The Hitch-Hiker. Eventually, her efficient and actor-centric techniques brought her to television, directing numerous episodes of traditionally male-oriented adventure and suspense series such as Have Gun, Will Travel, Thriller, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, and The Twilight Zone. As one of film’s most important pioneers in subverting traditional female roles in the industry, Lupino’s out-of-the-box redefinition of her career paved the way for contemporary female filmmakers, such as Kathryn Bigelow and Patty Jenkins, who still struggle with pervasive gender barriers in Hollywood today.