Jennifer

It has been almost 50 years since I saw "Jennifer" for the first and only time. I did not know the name of this movie until I looked it up on this web site, but I have told many people (especially my grandchildren) how movies do not have to include graphic details in order to frighten you and leave powerful impact. The story skillfully introduces you to concepts which if true put Ida Lupino in a very dangerous situation. Each time Miss Lupino discovers a new "fact" she draws the viewer into her confusion and fear.

This movie has such impact on me that almost 50 years later I still list it as one of the most frightening movies that I have ever seen. Yet this movie does not contain the blood and gore which became popular shortly after this movie was made. It's amazing what impact a good story and great actors can make.

I wish I could have met Ida Lupino. When people ask who you if you could have 6 extraordinary 20th century persons over for dinner, well, for me one person would be her. I think she is now one of the great unsung and unprofiled personalities in the film industry. Her life story would make a great tele movie (Hey, Mr Bogdanovich........). Ida Lupino has been the driving force in many fascinating noir films of the 40s and 50s. I can remember being saddened at seeing her reduced to a horrible part in a ghastly AIP film is the late 70s. She was bitten by a big worm at the kitchen sink. Ugh. I should have contacted her then as she died not long after.. more from the part than the worm too. From High Sierra, Roadhouse and the extraordinary RKO thriller On Dangerous Ground, Ida Lupino was often the producer and the lead actress. Later, with her husband Howard Duff they produced many now timeless noir dramas that are still very engrossing today. One of them is JENNIFER which I think is the last film with a Monogram Pictures copyright. Monogram changed the company name formally to Allied Artists in 1953 and JENNIFER has both company names on the opening credits. This is a superior haunted house thriller equally as scary as both The Innocents and The Haunting made 8 years later. Really chilling and very creepy, this tiny film is exactly the sort of really good film Ida Lupino made and was responsible for. Try and find it...you will always remember it and as I feel, much admiration for this great and almost forgotten actress/producer.

Jennifer stars real-life married couple Ida Lupino and Howard Duff from 1953, directed by Joel Newton.

No wonder Ida fell for Howard - he was quite the handsome hunk back then.

Lupino plays Agnes Langley, who takes a job as caretaker of a spooky mansion, where Duff is Jim Hollis, the financial manager for the family. The previous resident was a cousin, Jennifer who supposedly disappeared. Agnes is assured Jennifer won't be back.

Curious, Agnes begins to suspect there was more to Jennifer's story. She hears from a handyman that Jennifer worked for a big attorney and stole valuable papers. She finds Jennifer's diary and bank book and comes to two conclusions- Jennifer is dead somewhere in the house, and she was a blackmailer.

Gothic drama innovatively photographed with some good effects as Agnes wanders around the house hearing noises and looking nervous. Duff is a true gothic character- you don't know if he had anything to do with Jennifer's disappearance or if he's a good guy interested in Agnes.

Some scary moments and not much of a dénouement. Of note, this film introduced a Sinatra favorite, Angel Eyes.

Worth seeing.

Ida Lupino gets a job as the caretaker of an abandoned estate. The previous owner, Jennifer, according to her cousin, Howard Duff, simply vanished. Something, however, was going on, and Miss Lupino comes to believe that she was killed... and that Duff, whom she is growing fond of, did it.

It's one of the many projects that Mr. & Mrs. Duff acted in together, and they do a nice job, even if some of the production makes me wince, particularly Ernest Gold's "Lookit me, maw!" score. But with James Wong Howe as the cinematographer, you know you're in for a good time, and he uses his deep focus techniques to make miss Lupino look tiny and trapped in a house that looks Caligariesque.

Watching Ida Lupino in a nearly one-woman show of a movie was enthralling, but its shaggy-dog story let me down. Too bad, because this is a small-budget Allied Artists release that boasts top talent at work: James Wong Howe as cinematographer and Ernest Gold with a strong music score. There's even Matt Dennis on hand in a party scene at the piano singing his jazz standard "Angel Eyes".

But the director is Joel Newton, either a one-shot or a pseudonym. His pacing is lugubrious, basically following Ida around as she is on screen almost throughout, except for a brief plot line sequence featuring co-stars Howard Duff and Mary Shipp.

Casting of Duff, ida's frequent co-star and husband, robs much of the film of maximum suspense, as he seems way too comfortable opposite her, when for dramatic purposes a more sinister Zachary Scott type would have been preferable. Similarly, the 19-year-old delivery boy is played by Robert Nichols, way too old and way too bland for the rather significant (functionally) role.

I enjoyed the atmosphere generated by Howe's location photography, but Ida deserved a better vehicle.