The Lady and the Mob

Ida Lupino is one of my favorite actresses. I'd watch her in anything. That's how I happened to watch this moronic comic gangster movie.

Ida's mother-in-law to-be is the title character. She's a wealthy woman who sets out to outfox the protection racket that's hitting on businesses she frequents.

Lupino has a reasonably good role. Of course she is wasted but she looks OK and isn't put through anything embarrassing.

Fay Bainter, on the other hand -- what a crime! This lovely looking, gentle woman is trashed in the title role. I will grant that she appears to be having fun with it.

But Bainter had the warmest eyes of any actress in movies I can think of. She gave many superb character performances and is marvelous as the title character in the unduly maligned "Mother Carey's Chickens." (She is Mother Carey, not a chicken.) Here she is done up to look like May Robson. Robson was also a delightful actress but a very different type.

The whole thing is truly painful. If you're a die-hard Lupino fan and you want to see her entire oeuvre, watch it. If not, do yourself a favor and don't.

Lady and the Mob, The (1939)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Slight but mildly entertaining comedy about an elderly woman (Fay Bainter) who grows sick and tired of the gangsters taking over her city so she forms her own gang to run them out of town. This film runs just 65-minutes and for the most part it moves along pretty good, although the ending gets dragged out longer than it should have. Bainter is good in her role but a young Ida Lupino seems out of place and fails at all of her comedy scenes. Seeing as when this film was released, there's some big speeches about standing up for your country, taking down dictators and other things to that nature. Joe Sawyer plays one of the woman's gang members. Another interesting tidbit is that this Columbia picture also shows off another one of their films, You Can't Take It With You, during one scene.

There's only so much a person can take of watching Ida Lupino. She escaped me as an actress in the 30's and 40's only to reinvent herself as a director in the 50's and 60's. I think that's where she belongs: behind the camera.

"There's never been a run on this bank !" -- Hattie Leonard.

That's one of the tasty little nuggets of comedy which gets tossed about, seemingly in a most haphazard manner, in this excellent and user-friendly "gangster comedy," from 1939. In a very real sense, the writers and the director of this film were seeking to do something that is always difficult and sometimes impossible ... which is ... to make a social satire that has more laughs than bites.

Consider that "The Lady and the Mob" is a window on a time before our times, before the cruelties and barbarities of World War Two, the Cold War, the Korean War, the Viet Nam War and the never-ending Gulf War, burned away all pretense of innocence from what was once called "the American Dream." Consider that Faye Bainter's character, Hattie -- and she is delightful in the goofiest possible ways -- lampoons the stuffy, hypocritical matrons so often created in the posh comedies of the 1930s.

To call this a feminist film would be entirely wrong, and yet the strength of the satire, and the plot, lies entirely in the hands of Faye Bainter and Ida Lupino. Indeed, Ms. Ida Lupino gets a plum in this second billing, a role as juicy and sweet as her character is tart with her tongue ! Wealthy Hattie Leonard owns a bank and has a conscience, something most average people who lived during the 1930s and those Depression years probably could not believe -- unless they saw it in a motion picture !

One only has to see "Stagecoach" with John Wayne, Claire Trevor and John Ford directing, to understand how deeply-felt the animosity of "regular folks" was, towards bankers. Both of these films were released in the early part of 1939 and they both tell a tale of truthfulness about how badly damaged people can become decent again, and what it means to be "a True American".

Since there is every prospect that Turner Classic Movies will run this fine, funny, film again soon, it would be spoiling things to give away much of the satirical plot of this comedy. Faye Bainter's classic looks and poise are a salute to all that's ever been the best about the actresses of the United States, and Ida Lupino plays her role cleverly. It is a definite mark of natural ability, as Ms. Lupino -- who is quite gorgeous at twenty-five -- darts in and out of the scenes with Bainter and "her Mob". The character actors selected to play Hattie's "stumble bums" are simply hilarious -- unless the viewer happens to know absolutely nothing about the 1930s and American slang.

Even then, their comedic posturing works really well and is simply visually entertaining. This is a great little gem of a movie and while it does not quite carry the social and satirical "punch" of Frank Capra's "Lady for a Day," from 1933, it is well worth viewing, and for capturing on the digital video recorder to have on a lazy, rainy afternoon. Eight stars for comedy, satire, and snappy jokes.

I watched this film on TCM and mostly wanted to view it because it featured a 21 year-old Ida Lupino, an actress who I adore. The movie tries to be funny, and the old lady who this film is mostly about is as cute as a button, but I think that the film tries too hard to be funny instead of simply being naturally funny. But Ida Lupino is not to blame for any problems with the film -- the writers are! She has always been a powerhouse actress and once she took on being a director, as always, she gave it her all! So watch this film if you are looking for something light-hearted and harmless fun. It's nice watching this elderly woman take on the mob in her own way and bringing them to their knees!