I never really cared much for Ida Lupino, either as an actress or as a director.  As for most of the movies she starred in, I can’t say that it was her fault that I did not think much of them, for her acting was fine, and I doubt that any other actress in her place would have made much difference.  As for the movies she directed, for some of which she also was a writer, her responsibility for their lackluster nature cannot be denied.  Nevertheless, when Turner Classic Movies decided to show a bunch of the movies she directed early in her career in that capacity, I decided to watch them.

The first one I watched was Never Fear (1949), which was just fair.  The second one I watched was Outrage (1950), and it too was just fair.  Neither movie on its own inspired me to write a review.  However, halfway through the second movie, I began to notice a structural similarity between the movies, which fascinated me.  Whether there is an Ida Lupino formula that applies to any of her other movies and whether that formula is significant in any way, I cannot say.

In Never Fear, Guy and Carol are struggling dancing partners.  In order to give her flowers, he has to steal them.  But finally, after a performance that he choreographed, their agent gets them a two-week engagement at a major night club.  They now have enough money not only for him to pay for the flowers he brings her, but to buy her an engagement ring and ask her to marry him as well, which is something she has been hoping for.  In Outrage, Ann and Jim are also in love.  When Jim gets a raise, he tells Ann they now have enough money to get married, something she has been hoping for.

Then tragedy strikes, and the woman in each of these movies ends up regarding herself as damaged goods.  In Never Fear, Carol is stricken with polio.  Guy still wants to marry Carol, but she pushes him away, telling him she won’t marry him, because things would never be the same.  In part, she does not want Guy to marry her out of pity, but she also has lost her sex drive.  She does not say this explicitly (this was 1949, after all), but much later in the movie, she makes a remark about how she finally feels like a woman again.  (Note:  when the doctor offers Carol a cigarette as she lies in bed, she refuses the offer.  This is taken as a sign that she is depressed.  Later, when she starts smoking again, this indicates that she is getting better psychologically.)  In Outrage, Jim still wants to marry Ann, but she pushes him away.  In part, she tells him he would never be able to forget that she had been raped, but she also now regards sex as something repulsive.

In Never Fear, Carol goes to a hospital and then to an institution for therapy.  There she meets Len, played by Hugh O’Brian, who has an even more severe case of polio than Carol.  He is a kind of spiritual figure.  At one point, the doctor that heads the institution says that Len has a special “power.”  In Outrage, Ann runs away from home without telling Jim or her parents where she is going.  She collapses on the side of the road and is rescued by “Doc,” so called because he is a reverend.  He takes her to a house owned by a married couple he is friends with, and they take her in.

In Never Fear, Guy keeps coming around trying to get Carol to marry him.  He has been trying to make a go of it selling houses, but she tells him to forget about her, to find himself another dancing partner.  They have a bitter argument and do not see each other for a long time.  Eventually, Carol begins to feel better about herself, and she has reached the point where she is able to walk with crutches.  She writes him a letter, hoping to make amends.  He shows up at her birthday party with flowers.  At first, she thinks they will be able to get married after all, but then he tells her that he took her advice.  He has another dancing partner, and they will be performing in Las Vegas soon, which is why he cannot stay long.  After he leaves, she throws herself at Len on the rebound, telling him they are alike, and that they will be good for each other (it is here she makes the remark about feeling like a woman again).  But Len knows she still loves Guy.  He tells her that she is just looking for someone to be comfortable with, and that is not enough for marriage.  In Outrage, we never see Jim again, because he does not know where Ann is.  She hopes that Doc will marry her, but Doc knows that she still loves Jim, and that they must go their separate ways.

In Never Fear, when the day finally arrives for Carol to leave the institution, she has progressed to the point where she only needs a cane.  As she walks down the street, she is apprehensive about facing the world alone (except for her father, with whom she will be living for a while).  But then Guy shows up with flowers.  It is clear that they will get married and live happily ever after.  In Outrage, a man starts making advances to Ann at a picnic, and she goes all flashback, thinking he is the man who raped her.  She hits him with a wrench.  It puts him in the hospital and she goes to jail.  However, the man does not want to press charges, and the judge agrees to let Ann go provided she receives psychiatric care for a year.  In other words, Ann receives professional care same as Carol, only hers is delayed.  Doc puts Ann on a bus back to her home where Jim and her parents are waiting for her.  And in case you were wondering, the rapist was caught.

In one sense, the ending of Never Fear was not far-fetched.  People who don’t dance tend to assume that dancing partners are lovers, but dancers know that very often they are not.  So, Carol would not have had any reason to feel jealous about Guy and his new dancing partner.  However, I still did not like what comes across as an artificial, tacked-on happy ending.  I would have preferred that Carol leave the institution knowing that she will have to face the world alone, except for the support her father could give her, at least for a while.  It would have given the movie a tougher, harder edge.  In fact, I was a little bothered by the way the movie portrayed Carol’s attitude as wrong-headed.  If she wanted to make a clean break with her past, that was her business.  In Outrage, on the other hand, the happy ending seemed reasonable and natural.