If everyone were as good as Ida Lupino all vintage films would be a sheer pleasure to watch. She headlines Woman in Hiding, in which she plays a new bride to Stephen McNally, who she realizes married her to take control of her father’s lumber mill. When she threatens to annul the marriage he tries to arrange her death, tampering with a car that careens off a bridge and into a river. Lupino survives and hides in the woods, but McNally won’t be convinced she’s dead until he sees a body, which authorities fail to pull from the water. Soon there’s a search for her, with a $5,000 reward offered by McNally. In her efforts to remain hidden, Lupino runs into Howard Duff, who wants to help but tips off McNally without realizing he might be signing Lupino’s death warrant.
We aren’t the only fans of vintage film who think Lupino is great. She’s regarded, in an underground way, as one of the most important performers of her era, and was respected for moving behind the camera and eventually earning more than forty credits in the director’s chair. As an actress she played vamps and good girls, but in Woman in Hiding does nicely as someone barely holding herself together in terrifically difficult circumstances. Director Michael Gordon helms the production with a sure hand, and gives viewers this moment:
There are Droste effects and Dutch angles that radically shift viewer perception. Here Gordon cleverly echoes both ideas. This abyssal visual, which predates Hitchcock’s more famous Vertigo flourishes, is the moment when Lupino’s character realizes that—try as she might—the comforting anonymity she’s briefly gained through flight was an illusion, and her murderous husband will always be on her trail. The rest of the film is as well constructed, from the visceral car crash to a railyard set piece to a wild, shadowy climax in the mill where all the trouble began. We haven’t yet seen a Lupino film that failed to deliver at least some value, thanks to her. We’ll keep watching them and hope it never happens. Woman in Hiding premiered today in 1950.
