Sci-fi legend Jack Arnold directed a majority of "Gilligan's Island," with plenty of prolific names like John Rich, Leslie Goodwins, and even "Superman" director Richard Donner all steering multiple episodes.
The origin of "Gilligan's Island" is a fascinating story already, with creator Sherwood Schwartz allegedly singing the theme song to a gas station attendant to see if the show sounded like something the average person would watch, but just as interesting is how groundbreaking the show was behind the camera.
Namely, by inviting decorated actress and history-making director Ida Lupino to helm a few episodes.
Although Rod Amateau is credited as directing the pilot for the series, CBS comedy show supervisor Sol Saks was quoted as claiming in William Donati's "Ida Lupino: A Biography," that Lupino had been brought in to help shape a struggling show. "It was 'Gilligan's Island,'" Saks said. "It wasn't even on the air yet.
The origin of "Gilligan's Island" is a fascinating story already, with creator Sherwood Schwartz allegedly singing the theme song to a gas station attendant to see if the show sounded like something the average person would watch, but just as interesting is how groundbreaking the show was behind the camera.
Namely, by inviting decorated actress and history-making director Ida Lupino to helm a few episodes.
Although Rod Amateau is credited as directing the pilot for the series, CBS comedy show supervisor Sol Saks was quoted as claiming in William Donati's "Ida Lupino: A Biography," that Lupino had been brought in to help shape a struggling show. "It was 'Gilligan's Island,'" Saks said. "It wasn't even on the air yet.
- 8/11/2024
- by BJ Colangelo
- Slash Film
The only woman director to work in Hollywood in the 1950s, Ida Lupino earned full marks as a creative innovator and a positive force in the industry. It was a restrictive time for the movies: politically, socially, every which way. But Lupino’s independent film about a rape victim passed through the censorship gauntlet — as long as the ‘R’ word was never spoken, of course. Mala Powers is the distraught victim who tries to run away from life in the powerful drama, which remains valid and topical.
Outrage
Region-Free Blu-ray
Viavision [Imprint]
1950 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 75 min. / Street Date December 29, 2021, January 7, 2022 / Available from Viavision, Available from Amazon
Starring: Mala Powers, Tod Andrews, Robert Clarke, Raymond Bond, Lillian Hamilton, Rita Lupino, Hal March, Kenneth Patterson, Jerry Paris, Angela Clarke, Roy Engel, William Challee, Joyce McCluskey, Albert Mellen, Vic Perrin.
Cinematography: Archie Stout
Production Designer: Harry Horner
Film Editor: Harvey Manger
Original...
Outrage
Region-Free Blu-ray
Viavision [Imprint]
1950 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 75 min. / Street Date December 29, 2021, January 7, 2022 / Available from Viavision, Available from Amazon
Starring: Mala Powers, Tod Andrews, Robert Clarke, Raymond Bond, Lillian Hamilton, Rita Lupino, Hal March, Kenneth Patterson, Jerry Paris, Angela Clarke, Roy Engel, William Challee, Joyce McCluskey, Albert Mellen, Vic Perrin.
Cinematography: Archie Stout
Production Designer: Harry Horner
Film Editor: Harvey Manger
Original...
- 3/22/2022
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
The Notebook Primer introduces readers to some of the most important figures, films, genres, and movements in film history.Above: The Light that FailedShe had the beauty and talent of the most captivating star, the unwavering determination of the most ambitious producer, and the fervent creative vision of the most gifted director. Ida Lupino could fall into any number of categories, yet with a significance that remains almost immeasurable, perhaps the one word best describing this groundbreaking artist is simply this: she was a pioneer. Born February 4, 1918, in South London, Lupino belonged to a revered family of entertainers. Her mother, actress Connie O’Shea (also known as Connie Emerald), and her father, music hall comedian Stanley Lupino, were part of an ancestral dynasty of performers, and young Ida was accordingly encouraged to take the stage during her earliest years. In addition to writing her first play at the age of seven,...
- 7/27/2020
- MUBI
More than a movie star: America’s one female Hollywood director working in the 1950s receives a four-title boxed set well worth the investment — one noir mini-masterpiece is accompanied by a pair of independent social issue movies better than what the studios were turning out. It’s all thanks to Lupino’s fine dramatic direction. She emphasizes basic human values: cooperation over competition, and interior conflict. Her company ‘The Filmmakers’ lasted only about six years, but as an independent experiment it consistently turned out ‘special’ pictures anybody could be proud of.
Ida Lupino Filmmaker Collection
Blu-ray
Not Wanted, Never Fear, The Hitch-Hiker, The Bigamist
Kl Studio Classics
1949-1953 / B&w / 1:66 widescreen (1) 1:37 Academy (3) / 91, 81, 71, 79 min. / Street Date September 24, 2019 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95
Starring: Sally Forrest, Keefe Brasselle, Leo Penn, Hugh O’Brian, Joan Fontaine, Edmond O’Brien, Ida Lupino, Frank Lovejoy, William Talman.
Cinematography: Henry Freulich; Archie Stout; George E. Diskant...
Ida Lupino Filmmaker Collection
Blu-ray
Not Wanted, Never Fear, The Hitch-Hiker, The Bigamist
Kl Studio Classics
1949-1953 / B&w / 1:66 widescreen (1) 1:37 Academy (3) / 91, 81, 71, 79 min. / Street Date September 24, 2019 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95
Starring: Sally Forrest, Keefe Brasselle, Leo Penn, Hugh O’Brian, Joan Fontaine, Edmond O’Brien, Ida Lupino, Frank Lovejoy, William Talman.
Cinematography: Henry Freulich; Archie Stout; George E. Diskant...
- 10/8/2019
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Ida Lupino (c. 1952). Courtesy Film Forum via Photofest.Much has been written about Ida Lupino’s centenary this year, and the renewed critical attention is a cause for celebration. The veteran screen actor and director of Golden Age Hollywood has too often been a name casually trotted out in lip service to women’s historical impact in the film industry. She most certainly did have that impact, but her films have proven difficult to see and completism with her work has been equally challenging. This began to shift after Martin Scorsese wrote an affectionate obituary of Lupino in a 1995 issue of The New York Times. Not long after, restorations and DVD releases would follow—some by Scorsese’s Film Foundation itself. Now, in her centenary year, both the British Film Institute and New York’s Film Forum are holding retrospectives to celebrate her, including works like her mother-daughter sports saga Hard,...
- 11/15/2018
- MUBI
Ida Lupino was the first woman to direct a classic noir film. In fact, she was the only woman working within the 1950s Hollywood studio system to direct a feature and she directed seven features and more than 100 TV episodes. She was the only woman to direct episodes of the original “The Twilight Zone” series, as well as the only director to have starred in the show.
She was born in London on Feb. 4, 1918, during a German zeppelin bombing. Her father’s forbears were traveling players and puppeteers in Renaissance Italy. Later generations migrated to England in the 17th century. Her father, Stanley Lupino, was a noted comedian, and her mother, Connie Emerald, was an actress who was also descended from a theatrical family. A cousin, Lupino Lane, was an internationally popular song-and-dance man.
As a child, she improvised and acted scenes with her younger sister, Rita, in a small...
She was born in London on Feb. 4, 1918, during a German zeppelin bombing. Her father’s forbears were traveling players and puppeteers in Renaissance Italy. Later generations migrated to England in the 17th century. Her father, Stanley Lupino, was a noted comedian, and her mother, Connie Emerald, was an actress who was also descended from a theatrical family. A cousin, Lupino Lane, was an internationally popular song-and-dance man.
As a child, she improvised and acted scenes with her younger sister, Rita, in a small...
- 11/10/2016
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
The AFI Fest is free! And it takes place in the heart of Hollywood at the Tcl Chinese 6 Theatres, the Egyptian Theatre, and the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. All you need is a ticket!SydneysBuzz is proud to be the official presenter of “The Hitch-Hiker” directed by Ida Lupino, one of the rare women directors in Hollywood in the 1950s and today being brought back to our collective consciousness by AFI!“The Hitch-Hiker”Ida Lupino
A deranged hitchhiker takes two all-American Everymen as hostages in the gripping film noir classic, “The Hitch-Hiker” by Ida Lupino, a pioneering director, writer, producer and actress who became the first woman to direct a film noir. She is one of a trio of diverse female trailblazers being celebrated in the 30th edition of AFI Fest presented by Audi. AFI Fest will also spotlight Dorothy Dandridge, the first African American nominated for a Best Actress Academy Award® and Anna May Wong,...
A deranged hitchhiker takes two all-American Everymen as hostages in the gripping film noir classic, “The Hitch-Hiker” by Ida Lupino, a pioneering director, writer, producer and actress who became the first woman to direct a film noir. She is one of a trio of diverse female trailblazers being celebrated in the 30th edition of AFI Fest presented by Audi. AFI Fest will also spotlight Dorothy Dandridge, the first African American nominated for a Best Actress Academy Award® and Anna May Wong,...
- 11/1/2016
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
Josh Olson on Noir! kicks off this week at Trailers from Hell, with screenwriter Olson introducing Fred Zinneman's "Act of Violence," starring Ryan, Heflin, a world-weary Mary Astor and a 21-year-old Janet Leigh.Moviegoers seeking easy answers should steer clear of Fred Zinneman’s hardboiled thriller from 1948, Act Of Violence. Zinneman uses the then recent horrors of World War II as the springboard for this complex morality play starring Van Heflin and Robert Ryan as two ex-POWs whose shared humanity has been corrupted by the Nazi prison camps. Just how corrupt they are is the subject of Robert Richards’ screenplay (from the story by Collier Young). The cast, including Janet Leigh and Phyllis Thaxter, is interesting from top to bottom and features a vivid turn from Mary Astor as a prostitute who gives Heflin shelter.
- 1/27/2014
- by Trailers From Hell
- Thompson on Hollywood
Oscar-winning actor who played threatened heroines for Alfred Hitchcock in Rebecca and Suspicion
It was hard to cast the lead in Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca, filmed by Alfred Hitchcock in 1939. The female fans of the bestseller were very protective of the naive woman whom the widower Max de Winter marries and transports to his ancestral home of Manderley. None of the contenders – including Vivien Leigh, Anne Baxter and Loretta Young – felt right for the second Mrs de Winter, who was every lending-library reader's dream self.
To play opposite Laurence Olivier in the film, the producer David O Selznick suggested instead a 21-year-old actor with whom he was smitten: Joan Fontaine. The prolonged casting process made Fontaine anxious. Vulnerability was central to the part, and you can see that vulnerability, that inability to trust her own judgment, in every frame of the film. The performance brought Fontaine, who has died...
It was hard to cast the lead in Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca, filmed by Alfred Hitchcock in 1939. The female fans of the bestseller were very protective of the naive woman whom the widower Max de Winter marries and transports to his ancestral home of Manderley. None of the contenders – including Vivien Leigh, Anne Baxter and Loretta Young – felt right for the second Mrs de Winter, who was every lending-library reader's dream self.
To play opposite Laurence Olivier in the film, the producer David O Selznick suggested instead a 21-year-old actor with whom he was smitten: Joan Fontaine. The prolonged casting process made Fontaine anxious. Vulnerability was central to the part, and you can see that vulnerability, that inability to trust her own judgment, in every frame of the film. The performance brought Fontaine, who has died...
- 12/16/2013
- by Veronica Horwell
- The Guardian - Film News
Hollywood stalwart Joan Fontaine, best known for her roles in director Alfred Hitchcock's 1939 Rebecca and her Best Actress Oscar-winning role in his 1940 film Suspicion, died Sunday at her northern California home, according to several reports. She was 96. Details of her death were not immediately available. In addition to playing a mousey spouse in both the Hitchcock films, first alongside Laurence Olivier and then to Cary Grant, Fontaine's other well-known movies included 1943's The Constant Nymph, which got her a third Oscar nomination, 1944's Jane Eyre with Orson Welles, 1952's Ivanhoe with Robert Taylor, and 1957's controversial Island in the Sun with Harry Belafonte.
- 12/16/2013
- by Stephen M. Silverman
- PEOPLE.com
Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: Oct. 15, 2013
Price: DVD $24.95, Blu-ray $29.95
Studio: Kino Lorber
Edmond O’Brien, Frank Lovejoy and William Talman hit the road in The Hitch-Hiker.
Directed and co-written by actress Ida Lupino (Private Hell 36), 1953’s The Hitch-Hiker is the only classic film noir crime drama to be helmed by a woman.
One of the more nightmarish motion pictures of the 1950s, the movie was inspired by the true-life murder spree of Billy Cook. Its tense story involves two men on a camping trip (Edmond O’Brien and Frank Lovejoy) who are held captive by a homicidal drifter (William Talman). He subsequently forces them, at gunpoint, to embark on a grim joyride across the Mexican desert, which doesn’t bode well for any of them…
The Hitch-Hiker was independently produced, which allowed Lupino and ex-husband/producer Collier Young to work from a treatment by blacklisted writer Daniel Mainwaring, and thus...
Price: DVD $24.95, Blu-ray $29.95
Studio: Kino Lorber
Edmond O’Brien, Frank Lovejoy and William Talman hit the road in The Hitch-Hiker.
Directed and co-written by actress Ida Lupino (Private Hell 36), 1953’s The Hitch-Hiker is the only classic film noir crime drama to be helmed by a woman.
One of the more nightmarish motion pictures of the 1950s, the movie was inspired by the true-life murder spree of Billy Cook. Its tense story involves two men on a camping trip (Edmond O’Brien and Frank Lovejoy) who are held captive by a homicidal drifter (William Talman). He subsequently forces them, at gunpoint, to embark on a grim joyride across the Mexican desert, which doesn’t bode well for any of them…
The Hitch-Hiker was independently produced, which allowed Lupino and ex-husband/producer Collier Young to work from a treatment by blacklisted writer Daniel Mainwaring, and thus...
- 10/2/2013
- by Laurence
- Disc Dish
Joan Fontaine movies: ‘This Above All,’ ‘Letter from an Unknown Woman’ (photo: Cary Grant, Joan Fontaine in ‘Suspicion’ publicity image) (See previous post: “Joan Fontaine Today.”) Also tonight on Turner Classic Movies, Joan Fontaine can be seen in today’s lone TCM premiere, the flag-waving 20th Century Fox release The Above All (1942), with Fontaine as an aristocratic (but socially conscious) English Rose named Prudence Cathaway (Fontaine was born to British parents in Japan) and Fox’s top male star, Tyrone Power, as her Awol romantic interest. This Above All was directed by Anatole Litvak, who would guide Olivia de Havilland in the major box-office hit The Snake Pit (1948), which earned her a Best Actress Oscar nod. In Max Ophüls’ darkly romantic Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948), Fontaine delivers not only what is probably the greatest performance of her career, but also one of the greatest movie performances ever. Letter from an Unknown Woman...
- 8/6/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Joan Fontaine today: One of the best actresses of the studio era has her ‘Summer Under the Stars’ day Joan Fontaine, one of the few surviving stars of the 1930s, is Turner Classic Movies’ "Summer Under the Stars" star today, Tuesday, August 6, 2013. I’m posting this a little late in the game: TCM has already shown six Joan Fontaine movies, including the first-rate medieval adventure Ivanhoe and the curious marital drama The Bigamist, directed by and co-starring Ida Lupino, and written by Collier Young — husband of both Fontaine and Lupino (at different times). Anyhow, TCM has quite a few more Joan Fontaine movies in store. (Photo: Joan Fontaine publicity shot ca. 1950.) (TCM schedule: Joan Fontaine movies.) As far as I’m concerned, Joan Fontaine was one of the best actresses of the studio era. She didn’t star in nearly as many movies as sister Olivia de Havilland, perhaps because...
- 8/6/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
The Hitch-Hiker
Directed by Ida Lupino
Written by Ida Lupino and Collier Young
U.S.A., 1953
How is it that when topic of film noir comes up, most of the names connoisseurs and fans bring up are of the men who partook in the development of this fabled, legendary genre? Is it that the women were less important? Did they not feature as prominently in front of or behind the camera as the boys? While those hypotheses are partly true, lest that encourage people to honestly believe that the woman of the American movie industry in the 40s and 50s did not influence the quality of such films. True enough, what instantly recognizable names some would rattle off are those of actresses primarily who played the femme fatales or the wives and girlfriends of the doomed protagonists. Ida Lupino was one, co-starring in one of this reviewer’s all time favourite movies,...
Directed by Ida Lupino
Written by Ida Lupino and Collier Young
U.S.A., 1953
How is it that when topic of film noir comes up, most of the names connoisseurs and fans bring up are of the men who partook in the development of this fabled, legendary genre? Is it that the women were less important? Did they not feature as prominently in front of or behind the camera as the boys? While those hypotheses are partly true, lest that encourage people to honestly believe that the woman of the American movie industry in the 40s and 50s did not influence the quality of such films. True enough, what instantly recognizable names some would rattle off are those of actresses primarily who played the femme fatales or the wives and girlfriends of the doomed protagonists. Ida Lupino was one, co-starring in one of this reviewer’s all time favourite movies,...
- 9/15/2012
- by Edgar Chaput
- SoundOnSight
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