I find it odd to see "The Bigamist" described as a feminist film in a number of online reviews, including a couple here on IMDb. In my view, it is anything but.
As some other reviewers have noted, the hapless Harry (played by Edmond O'Brien) is treated somewhat sympathetically. He's hangdog, he's lonely, and he just wants a little attention from his careerist wife.
Everything that happens in "The Bigamist" stems, it seems, from the failures of Harry's first wife--called, significantly enough, Eve, the first woman, from whom original sin and all the woes of humanity flow, in the common view. This Eve leads her man to the sin of adultery.
Not only is Eve unfailingly careerist, she's infertile to boot. We're to understand that it's her insufficiency as a woman that drives Harry to infidelity. That hardly seems feminist to me.
I realize that this argument applies a current standard to a work from a half-century ago, but calling it feminist would be making the same kind of judgment. Lupino was certainly a path breaker as one of the first women to direct films in Hollywood. And it's typical of the times that she made "women's pictures"--films whose stories would address women's concerns.
But to call this film feminist--with its cold and ultimately condemning portrayal of a successful (and infertile) woman--seems really to miss the point. The film affirms everything about the role that women were expected to adopt after World War II. No longer working on assembly lines as Rosie the Riveter, women were expected to step aside in the workplace to make room for returning veterans. Women had a job to do: to make happy homes for their husbands. When Eve fails to take her rightful place, the most terrible of consequences ensue.
I find this a fairly typical film of the 1950s, affirming in a rather sordid and unappealing way the mores of the time. Harry is a far from likable character, and the women are hardly better. Lupino is the most interesting, because she shows a bit of spunk. Fontaine's character vacillates between hard-bitten businesswoman and expectant mother who goes all girlie at the sight of a mechanical soldier. (Really? A mechanical SOLDIER???) This is not a feminist film.
As some other reviewers have noted, the hapless Harry (played by Edmond O'Brien) is treated somewhat sympathetically. He's hangdog, he's lonely, and he just wants a little attention from his careerist wife.
Everything that happens in "The Bigamist" stems, it seems, from the failures of Harry's first wife--called, significantly enough, Eve, the first woman, from whom original sin and all the woes of humanity flow, in the common view. This Eve leads her man to the sin of adultery.
Not only is Eve unfailingly careerist, she's infertile to boot. We're to understand that it's her insufficiency as a woman that drives Harry to infidelity. That hardly seems feminist to me.
I realize that this argument applies a current standard to a work from a half-century ago, but calling it feminist would be making the same kind of judgment. Lupino was certainly a path breaker as one of the first women to direct films in Hollywood. And it's typical of the times that she made "women's pictures"--films whose stories would address women's concerns.
But to call this film feminist--with its cold and ultimately condemning portrayal of a successful (and infertile) woman--seems really to miss the point. The film affirms everything about the role that women were expected to adopt after World War II. No longer working on assembly lines as Rosie the Riveter, women were expected to step aside in the workplace to make room for returning veterans. Women had a job to do: to make happy homes for their husbands. When Eve fails to take her rightful place, the most terrible of consequences ensue.
I find this a fairly typical film of the 1950s, affirming in a rather sordid and unappealing way the mores of the time. Harry is a far from likable character, and the women are hardly better. Lupino is the most interesting, because she shows a bit of spunk. Fontaine's character vacillates between hard-bitten businesswoman and expectant mother who goes all girlie at the sight of a mechanical soldier. (Really? A mechanical SOLDIER???) This is not a feminist film.