Ladies in Retirement

Moviecut—Ladies in Retirement

source: Ladies in Retirement

This film is very much the essence of Grand Guignol: fog, swamp, old dark house, eccentric characters, skeletons in the closet and even a feigned dead-of-night haunting. The resulting Gothic atmosphere is thoroughly enveloping and indeed exquisite – garnering deserved Oscar nominations for the art direction-set decoration and the music score, though the cinematography and even star Ida Lupino ought to have been similarly recognized if you ask me (amazingly, this future pioneer among women film-makers was never even up for the golden statuette in either category)! Interestingly, she and her leading man here – likable, dashing Louis Hayward – were married to each other at the time and they are accompanied here by a splendid ensemble that includes Elsa Lanchester (as one of Lupino's 'mad' sisters), Evelyn Keyes (as a gushing maid) and Isobel Elsom (as the past-her-prime mistress of the house). The picture's reputation seems to have dimmed somewhat with time (a rather weak and misleading title does not help), but I was highly impressed myself – despite watching it in less than congenial circumstances as, due to compatibility issues with my Philips machine, the disc froze no less than five times during playback! Plot, characterization and dialogue are alike rigorous so that no possible nuance is overlooked in the perfect screen definition of the dictum 'Blood Runs Thicker Than Water' (more or less the same scenario would be treated as black comedy in ARSENIC AND OLD LACE [1944]). The fact that, here, a sensitive and essentially low-key approach is maintained throughout, when it could easily have gone the scenery-chewing route (all the more to keep the viewers on their guard), is the sign of real talent at work. For the record, I own another equally well-regarded psychological thriller from this director i.e. BLIND ALLEY (1939): both films, incidentally, would be deemed worthy of a remake; in the case of LADIES IN RETIREMENT, it was turned into THE MAD ROOM (1969) which gave a gorier spin to the proceedings and, apparently, is even harder-to-find than the original!

Glorious Gothic camp. A seemingly unlikely, yet perfectly cast, Ida Lupino is the stiff-backed housekeeper and companion to fussy actress Isobel Elsom. When she discovers that her two daft sisters, (an excellent Edith Barrett and a superb Elsa Lanchester), are to be evicted from their lodgings she decides to move them in but first she must do something about her employer. Things get complicated when Lupino's scurrilous 'nephew' turns up and is quick to put two and two together. The setting is one those quaint old cottages on the English marshes that are perpetually shrouded in fog and which one someone in Hollywood could dream up and the source material was a play by Reginald Denham and Edward Percy. By rights it should be terrible but it's actually hugely enjoyable and Lupino's terrific, (she makes for a very sympathetic murderess). It's the kind of film that would sit very nicely next to "Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte" and "Whatever Happened to Aunt Alice".

Macabre film with Ida Lupino once more proving what a great actress she was. With its eerie atmosphere, Ida brings her two completely daffy sisters to stay at the home of the woman she is working for. Lupino, with that jet-black hair and extremely dark-eyelashes depicts an eerie character if ever there were one. Insanity seems to run in the family, for when the dowager gets disgusted with the 2 loonies-played well by Edith Barrett and Elsa Lanchester, Ida does her in. While this is going on, "nephew" Louis Hayward shows up and has fled a situation where he has embezzled from a bank. When he puts two and two together, the remainder of the film becomes a cat and mouse game with Ida and real-life husband Hayward really going at it together. Evelyn Keyes plays the maid who is smitten by Hayward's advances and Isobel Elsom portrays the wealthy dowager, a part she plays well but can you imagine Dame Judith Anderson as Miss Fisk? The film tries to discuss those who have no understanding of the unfortunate in society. Of course, bumping them off is certainly no solution. Remember in "They Drive By Night," Ida claimed that the doors made her do it. In this one, she is again daffy with Gothic horror ensuing.

Ida Lupino stars in "Ladies in Retirement," a 1941 film also starring Louis Hayward, Evelyn Keyes, Elsa Lanchester, Isobel Elsom and Edith Barrett. Lupino is Ellen Creed, the housekeeper/companion to a retired actress Eleanora Fiske (Elsom) who "has friends" that send her money besides her pension. Translation: she got around. Ellen's crazy sisters (Lanchester and Barrett) are being evicted from their place in London, so Ellen gets Fiske to agree that they can visit. Of course Ellen doesn't intend that they visit, she intends that they move in. They turn out to be impossible, bringing in branches, shells, dead birds, scratching the funeral and living like coyotes, so after 6 weeks, Fiske tells Ellen that not only is she throwing out her sisters, but Ellen is going with them. The next day, Ellen kills the old woman and tells her sister she's purchased the house. Complications arise when a relative of the Creeds, Albert Feather (Hayward) who has already been to the house to see Ellen when she was in London and met Mrs. Fiske, shows up again. It doesn't take him long to figure out what went on and what's going on. Lupino's career would have been better, of course, if she hadn't been stuck at Warner Brothers where the plum roles she might have played went to Bette Davis. She is very good here in a restrained performance as a determined young woman who takes her responsibilities to her sisters very seriously. Lanchester turns in an excellent performance as the willful sister, and Edith Barrett, the more fragile one, is very amusing. Lupino was married to Louis Hayward at the time of his filming. Hayward could look strange, possibly when his weight was up - here he is most attractive and charming as Albert. He was marvelous as Simon Templar, the Saint, and here he brings that same smooth as silk quality to his performance. Evelyn Keyes has a small but showy role as a maid who can't resist Albert. Isobel Elsom is excellent as Mrs. Fiske - distracted, self-involved and somewhat annoying with no coping mechanisms. The big question is, if Ellen's two sisters are crazy, and Ellen can kill so easily, is Ellen crazy as well? Hard to say but perhaps her obsessiveness over her sisters and her determination to get what she wants are indications that she has a streak of instability. The sets are very noticeable today as is the fake fog, and I have to add that a title like "Ladies in Retirement" sounds like an early '30s film with Constance Bennett. Nevertheless, it has a good, suspenseful atmosphere and while a little slow moving, it definitely held my interest.

Gothic thrillers involving women in peril don't often take a sinister turn like this one does. Of course, it's obvious that the lonely ladies of "Night Must Fall", "Kind Lady", "Angel Street" (aka "Gaslight") and "Love From a Stranger" will be used by men, some of them resulting in grim fates. But this is closer to "Double Door", a forgotten Gothic melodrama about an evil old lady who intends to barricade her enemies alive, no air or food. The premise of the original "Ladies in Retirement" had an aging spinster killing her employer to give her crazy sisters a home, but the role has been altered with the much younger Ida Lupino playing that part, having proved her ability to play sinister parts only in her early 20's. The sisters are older: the gentle but potentially crazy Edith Barrett and the hot tempered Elsa Lancaster, obviously hiding a violent streak under her claims of religion. And the poor unfortunate old lady, Isobel Elsom, a down on her luck actress, who hired Lupino as a companion, and agreeing to allow her to bring her sisters for a brief visit sets her household up for misery, and ultimately signs her death warrant. The only ones who could find evidence against Lupino are housemaid Evelyn Keyes and Lupino's crooked cousin, the handsome but low class Louis Hayward. With a foggy setting in the hinterlands, this is fascinating from the eerie credits down to the finale, and Lupino's finest role prior to her signing on at Warner Brothers. Barrett and Lanchaster are fascinating, with Hayward and Keyes making the most our of the un-showy parts they play. Veteran character actresses Emma Dunn and Queenie Leonard appear as the visiting nuns. There's not a dull moment in the film, a must for fans of anything Gothic.

Ellen Creed (Ida Lupino) is the servant and companion of a well to do older woman, Miss Fiske. However, Ellen has a serious problem...she's the sole support for her two mentally ill sisters...and the sisters have been tossed out of the place that was caring for them. You can understand why, as one of the sisters (Elsa Lanchester) is rather surly and the other is quite out of touch with reality. So Ellen maneuver's her employer into letting the pair stay with them a few days. However, the days turn into weeks and the sisters are almost impossible to live with, so Miss Fiske insists that Ellen make other arrangements. With no easy solution to her dilemma, Ellen does something pretty dreadful. Little does she know that her slimy nephew (Louis Hayward) is about to arrive for a visit...and he's NOT mentally ill....just a conniving sociopath! Slowly he puts the puzzle pieces together and he realizes Ellen has done something even he wouldn't do! And, not surprisingly, he plans on taking full advantage of the situation. This is an excellent and interesting film. I especially like that the plot is quite unique....and because of this it offers many surprises. The acting by Lupino was excellent and I appreciate how she allowed the makeup folks to make her look unglamorous and 'normal'...many actresses would have resisted this. Even more impressive is Hayward's performance...one of his very best. He is wonderful as the slimy nephew...very convincing and fascinating in every scene. My only complaint in the acting was Edith Barrett as one of the mentally ill sisters...as her performance seemed forced and a bit overdone. Subtle it wasn't. Overall, the good very much outweighs the bad...and it's a film lovers of classic cinema need to see.

But I cannot imagine why. This movie is attractively shot but not overly well directed. It's over-the-top in a somewhat unpleasant way. Ida Lupino is one of my very favorite actresses. She's good here, too. She plays the prim companion of a wealthy woman. But that woman, Isobel Elsom, is very charming. She's well off now but she's a showgirl who married well. She's bawdy and, though self-absorbed and silly, she's generous. She's much more likable than the Lupino character's sisters, who come to stay at her house. They are eccentric in the extreme. Elsa Lanchester is always a delight but I don't quite buy her in this role. And, as the other sister Edith Barrett widens her eyes and does little else. Lupino's real-life husband at the time, Louis Hayward, is best in the role of a local scoundrel. His character is pivotal but his part is relatively small. Things take an unpleasant turn. And for me, it ends up neither funny nor touching. Lupino was in many marvelous movies. My favorites are "The Man I Love" and "Road House." She isn't miscast here, as she sometimes was. But it's a movie oddly at the same time trivial and disagreeable.

This is a weird one, atmospheric, moody, and brooding. It has a script by Reginald Denham based on his play, and although director Charles Vidor makes sure it does not come across as stagey, but makes the confined atmosphere work for him, the action has a kind of mental proscenium arch around it. This was Edith Barrett's first film, and she is superb. Elsa Lanchester does well in another one of her roles as an insane eccentric. What is particularly fascinating is to see the young Evelyn Keyes aged 25 but looking a virginal 18, and the sweetest little thing you ever saw. It is hard to imagine she had already made 15 films, as she looks straight out of the milk parlour. When I knew her in her mid-fifties she was so ultra-sophisticated that the idea of her ever having been innocent seems inconceivable. But she certainly is in this film! I guess that's called acting! She later married the director of this film, before moving on to Artie Shaw and John Huston (and anyone who could survive Huston as a husband was no little girl!). Ida Lupino plays the lead role, but it is a thankless task, because it is her job to look intense all the time, with very little scope for anything else. What a waste of her talents! She kisses the heads of her mad sisters very lovingly, and that's about all the emotion she is allowed to show. This is a claustrophobic story of how crazy people do crazy things. There might be a murder committed, but I'm not telling. It is set in a kind of mythical Essex marshes, and the sun never shines once through the mist. They must have used up all the dry ice in London for this film.