Women's Pictures - Ida Lupino's The Trouble With Angels
Thursday, March 26, 2015 at 3:20PM
“The sex of a director doesn’t mean a hoot. The one all-important thing is talent. Somehow it has evolved that directing is a man’s profession. A woman has a tough, almost impossible time breaking down this case barrier. Miss Arzner managed it. Ida is doing it now.”
When Rosalind Russell said this to reporters on the set of The Trouble With Angels, neither she nor Ida Lupino could have predicted that this would actually be Ida’s last film. So how exactly did a writer/director who’d made her name on small budget social message pictures end up directing a Hayley Mills comedy co-starring Rosalind Russell as a mother superior? And who could have predicted that a noir director could do comedy?
When Ida Lupino’s production company The Filmmakers shuttered its windows in the mid-1950s, Lupino moved to the burgeoning world of television to continue directing. Then (as now), TV was a much more open to female creators, and so Lupino flourished. She directed in a variety of genres, from comedy (Gilligan’s Island) to thriller (Alfred Hitchcock Presents) to Westerns (Have Gun - Will Travel). In many ways, Lupino was already the ideal television director. TV shows were shot quickly, on a budget, and often on location - just like Lupino’s early pictures. What Lupino got from TV - besides creative control and consistent work - was a chance to expand and diversify her previously narrow (but successful) body of work. And all that new experience helped when her friend William Frye handed her the script to a Catholic schoolgirl comedy in early 1965.
Hijinks and nunsense after the jump.
The Trouble With Angels (based on the book Life With Mother Superior by ad woman Jane Trahey) is a fluffy movie about adolescent rebellion at parochial school. Joining post-Disney Hayley Mills and post-Auntie Mame Rosalind Russell are Gypsy Rose Lee, June Harding, and a gaggle of nuns played by character actresses who are now well known for playing nuns - Mary Wickes (Sister Act 1&2), Marge Redmond (The Flying Nun), and Portia Nelson (The Sound of Music). (I guess you could say they got into the habit. Sorry.) The film follows a fairly simple structure - the girls pull a prank, the Mother Superior pretends to punish them, the girls plot a bigger prank in detention. Far from repetitive, the entire thing comes off as (to borrow a line from Mary) a scathingly brilliant idea.
Lupino knows exactly how to use her stars to the film’s advantage. Though this was the first film Hayley Mills made after her contract with Disney expired, it follows fairly close to her Disney image - precocious teen with a rebellious streak as big as her heart - with “grown up” additions in the form of an occasional brassiere or cigarette. Mills’s child acting had on occasion bordered on cloying, but under Lupino’s direction she loses the “aw shucks” aspect without losing warmth. It’s a tricky thing to make a believable teenager, especially in the middle of a slapstick comedy, but Mills and Lupino manage it.
Rosalind Russell needed no such image assistance from Lupino, but Russell is given an opportunity she hadn’t had in a while - to play small. Russell’s last big comedy hits had been the deliciously over-the-top Gypsy and Auntie Mame. However, in The Trouble With Angels, Russell proves she was just as effective with a well-timed eye roll as with a big number. This movie is truly a master class in the reaction shot, because Russell can go from affectionate to exasperated to stern to smiling in a handful of beats. Though the film is from the perspective of the girls, the Mother Superior is the film’s center.
Lupino’s only foray into big budget film was a smashing success. It even spawned a sequel two years later, though by that time Ida had returned to television. She would continue to direct for another six years, and act for a decade after that, before retiring in the late 1970s. Ida Lupino proved conventional wisdom wrong: It was possible for a woman to direct. It was possible to make the public care about social message pictures. It was possible to run a successful independent production company at the peak of the Studio System. Defying convention was Ida Lupino’s legacy.
Next month on Women's Pictures:
You voted, we listened, so April is hereby declared Jane Campion Month! Join us for five films by our favorite Kiwi, including a very special Hit Me With Your Best Shot crossover!
4/2 - Sweetie (1989) - Jane Campion's first feature film explores superstitious sisters, family drama, and the power of tea leaves. (Amazon Instant Video) (Hulu+)
4/9 - An Angel At My Table (1990) - Campion tackles New Zealand history in this drama based on the autobiography of author Janet Frame. (Amazon Instant Video) (Hulu+)
4/16 - The Piano (1993) - Jane Campion became the second woman in history to win an Academy Award nomination for this multi-Oscar winning drama about a mute woman in nineteenth century New Zealand. (Amazon Instant Video)
4/23 - Holy Smoke (1999) - Campion turns her camera towards India, where Kate Winslet may have joined a cult. (Netflix) (Amazon Instant Video)
4/30 - Bright Star (2009) - Join us for the Hit Me With Your Best Shot crossover with Campion's latest feature about poet John Keates. This is going to be a tough one to choose just one shot for. (Amazon Instant Video)
Reader Comments (16)
I LOVE this movie so much. As soon as I saw that shot of Rosalind Russell I knew where it was in the movie and what her line was directly after. Jim Hutton says progress was on his side and Roz gives classic side eye and says in that wonderfully dry way of hers "God is on ours".
It is a shame Ida didn't pursue more feature work. She was apparently offered others but would have had to travel out of the country for them and because her daughter was young and her marriage to Howard Duff, who had a wandering eye, very troubled she chose to stay closer to home which meant TV work.
I've really enjoyed this four week look at her directing career, it would be great if her acting career got an overview as well. She was a very talented woman and it seems absurd now that she never received an Oscar nomination for either acting or directing.
I remember watching this on tv as a kid and just loving it but I never knew the background to it. Time for a re-watch!
Roz Russell was the last great cinema-nun 'til Whoopi . And our favorite typecast nun, Mary Wickes, was in this, its sequel, Where Angels Go Trouble Follows, as well as both Sister Act films.
It was years before I realized that Lupino directed this, and I promptly blocked it out for another few decades. I could never reconcile Hayley Mills and Ida Lupino, lol.
I loved this movie and the book by Jane Trahey. I was fascinated by Jane Trahey, such an innovative and fun advertising force, and the head of her own agency, not working for someone else. I like that in the story Jane/Rachel is the more reticent of the two friends.
I interpreted it as all the cheerful possibilities of the world, female friendship, artistic and professional fulfillment and independence.
I can see Hayley Mills and Ida Lupino working together. Mills came from a British acting/ theatrical family. (When Walt Disney wanted Hayley to play Pollyanna, dad John Mills struck a deal where he also got a Disney lead in Swiss Family Robinson). British acting families can be very practical about the difficulties of going from child actor to adult actor, so the director can get professionalism without teenage angst.
And of course, Ida Lupino and Jane Trahey were trailblazers in their fields.
I've never seen this film -- it's in the queue now -- but I did just re-watch Ms. Russell in "His Girl Friday." For all the overwhelming verbiosity of that film, it's also notable for what you're recognizing here, Anne Marie. Rosalind could do subtle, pointed reactions as good as anyone ever on screen, and to delicious comic effect.
Rosalind Russell was such a talented and unique performer and she stayed an above the title star all the way up to her last feature film and yet she's not talked about much today. Certainly not as much as Davis, Crawford and Stanwyck. A real pity.
I love this movie. I remember seeing it on first release After Parent trap, Hayley could do no wrong and the family saw everything she did.
Russell was so terrific. Just eating up the screen no matter what the role or film.
Thank you for teaching me more about Lupino's directing career. I appreciated her as an actress a great deal, but knew little of her directing career beyond some of the titles.
It was great to see Russell doing more understated work. Post-1950 she seemed to play everything bigger and bigger. Picnic was particularly unfortunate. Maybe she should have worked with Lupino more often, since she was able to reign in Russell.
I saw this just a month or so ago at MoMA and it was delightful if too long by design. Russell was wonderful.
This was a favourite of mine whenever it came on TV, and I read the book as well.
This adaptation from the book kept very true to the content and the spirit. I really related to the sewing scene since I flunked my sewing component of Home Economics.
@Joel6: Actually, I think Rosalind Russell is very loved and respected by movie lovers. Everyone loves "His Girl Friday" and lots of female journalists say Hildy was an early influence. I also think she is a role model for actresses when it comes to comedy. Elizabeth Banks says that she used Auntie Mame's voice as her inspiration for her role as Effie Trinkett in the Hunger Games.
Anne Marie: Lupino was a true pathfinder during the decades when women were expected to stay home. Thanks so much for this series. Looking forward to Jane Campion.
Yay! So glad you included this. I had no idea this was directed by Lupino. We watched this film a couple of summers ago as part of our own Hayley Mills marathon, and after The Parent Trap, it came in second.
Looking forward to the Campion series!
I LOVE this movie. Mostly for Ms. Russell, who is divine as always, but also because it's a lot of fun. Who'da thunk Lupino would be so good at a comedy like this? When I realized it was her in the director's chair for this one I couldn't believe it. Thank you, Anne Marie for this series and for choosing Ms. Lupino. A true trailblazer in every sense of the word!
No mention of Marvel-Ann?
Wish people would view Russel's earlier work, she was an A+ dramatic actress, completely captivates the screen with her presence.
Interesting post, but I have loved this movie since it first came out and I'm a 62 year old guy. I never saw this as a "women's picture".
Many of the 5-star reviews on Amazon of by men.