Not Wanted

To dismiss Not Wanted (alternate title: Shame) as a dated glimpse into the socio-sexual mores of the bad old days is to forget how revolutionary it was. Ida Lupino – one of the first women to make the break from glamorous stardom into the male preserve of directing – co-wrote and co-produced this movie about what we would now call single motherhood but was then whispered about as illegitimacy. (Tellingly, though Lupino took a reportedly large hand in directing as well, she spurns the credit, leaving it to Elmer Clifton.)

Sally Forrest plays a scatterbrained young woman who can't even remember to bring home duct tape for the leak her dad's trying to fix or potatoes for mom's stew. She slings hash by day but at night dreams moonily of a lusher life, as represented by the hot piano-man at a night club (Leo Penn). She throws herself at him, and he catches (his flicked-away cigarette drifting slowly down a stream encodes their rapture). But, footloose and fancy-free, Penn packs up to try his luck in that provincial Paris, Capitol City. In a huff, Forrest packs up, too, and follows him there, only to be brutally blown off.

She takes a job as a gas jockey at a station managed by lame veteran Keefe Brasselle, but resists his tepid approaches at first (scant wonder: he plies her with his model trains.) But joining him at an amusement park, she swoons; a doctor called in diagnoses her as pregnant, much to her surprise. Without a word to her family back home or to Brasselle, she packs up yet again and checks herself into The Haven Hospital, a home for either (take your pick) unwed mothers or wayward girls. Much as she'd like to keep the baby, it's an unworkable option, so she grudgingly gives it up for adoption. But soon she's wandering the streets eyeing other women's babies a little too loonily. Next, the police are involved....

A more or less `happy' ending – undoubtedly the only condition under which the picture got made at all – can't compromise Not Wanted's unblinking look at what pregnancy without a wedding ring spelled for women who proved less than vigilant about their chastity. It's a compassionate (if melodramatic and sentimental) assault on a complacent mind-set that, disrupted by the exigencies of wartime, was striving to reassert itself (and strives still). Whatever else may be said about single parenthood, it's no longer a cause for scandal and indignation. Lupino can take at least a little of the credit for that.

Ida Lupino after a successful career as actress, settles work behind the cameras, even uncredited as director it was her first film debut as producer and director as well, she was one of the first women that took over a field strictly mastered by men only, she made several thematic movies touching in neuralgic subject as "Outrage" "The Bigamist" and "Not Wanted", if today it's quite usually on the late forties was a taboo, be an unmarried mother in those time was a sentence of death for women and upcoming marriage, this small docudrama portraits this matter sharply, narrating a moving story of grow up girl around eighteen Sally Kelton (Sally Forrest) that caught in love by a restless pianist Steve Ryan (Leo Penn), after a couple months of affair, he disappear to another town, Sally follows him, soon she understood that Steve hasn't any feeling over her, too late, meanwhile she receives a fresh approach of courtship of a fine guy Drew Baxter (Keefe Brasselle), haplessly she already was pregnancy of Steve that no longer stays around, Karen hasn't no money to afford himself on those hard days, the ill-fated girl there no choice and is admitted at those charity hospital allowed for those spurned girl, Karen having a little boy, then came up the defining moment , keep with a child to raise in harsh conditions or release him to adopting process, a movie that blow the whistle and berate about the social rejection over the unmarried women, fine subject lifts by the great Ida Lupino!!

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First watch: 2020 / How many: 1 / Source: DVD / Rating: 7

This was the first of Ida Lupino's magnificent efforts to use the power of the screen to tackle desperately important but socially taboo social issues between 1949 and 1953. Although Elmer Clifton is credited as director, he had a heart attack during production, and most of the film was directed by Ida Lupino herself, who also produced and co-wrote this powerful drama. It was her first directorial effort, was completely successful, and launched her brilliant directing career. The 'social films' which she made during this period dealt with unwed mothers (a totally taboo issue at that time), rape, physically handicapped people, and even the extraordinary subject of bigamy ('The Bigamist', 1953). Ida Lupino pulled no punches, she was right in there, and got straight to the point, with the most overwhelming scenes of intense drama. The choice of Sally Forrest for the lead in this film about an unwed mother was perfect. The feckless fellow she falls in love with is played by Leo Penn, father of Sean Penn, and the likeness of father and son is clear, but then so is the type of character played! Leo Penn is very good, and plays the piano extraordinarily well in the film, where he is an emotionally disturbed and embittered failed pianist (but Sally Forrest does not know that, as she is only 19 and thinks he is Vladimir Ashkenazy.) Keefe Brasselle is superb in the touching role of the man who loves Sally despite all, the 'really nice guy', from whom she must run away because she is 'fallen'. Younger people today may find all of this incomprehensible, but that shows how quickly everyone forgets. If we think the Muslims are strange for killing their daughters for falling in love, try 1950s America. It was only better in that they didn't actually kill them, they merely disowned them and left them on the streets. Lest we think we are morally superior, we should remember that Ida Lupino did not make her films for their shock value. She was no sensationalist. She was addressing serious social wrongs being done by the majority of the population to unfortunates who strayed, and she took her social compassion far enough actually to make a film about a perfectly nice man who merely happened to have two wives. Shocking? Well, how about the hypocrisy then: in Utah there are admitted to be thousands of practising polygamists. Where's the shock? If only Ida Lupino were with us now, what would she be showing us about ourselves? She was a heroic figure, and this film was merely the first of a series of dramas that will tear your heart out, if you have one.

A gripping drama of motherhood when complications without end set in. Sally has a relationship with an irresistible pianist, he actually plays quite well, but he is too occupied with his work and problems to be able to provide Sally with any proper support. He gets away, and Sally finds herself in the hands of a garage worker with a passion for toy railways. When she is pregnant from her former relationship, she runs away and ends up in a home for unwed mothers.

The film is mostly remarkable for being Ida Lupino's debut as a director, and at the time the subject was etremely sensitive and taboo and could not be discussed openly. This taboo situation has in an interesting way marked the film like in a haze of mystery, and you get insights in the lives of unwed mothers and their tough luck that shine with fascinating intimacy. This is a women's film about women made by a woman, and as such it is precious, to say the least.

Sally Forrest makes a tremendous performance, she is just a common woman, this part would have been ideal for Susan Hayward, and Sally actually reminds of her, but she is practically as good as Susan, with her weakness, her fits, her tensions and uncontrollable impulses, it's all perfectly real. The music is also quite good, and the piano scenes touch on great romanticism. It's a minor film, but the smallest jewels can sometimes be the most precious ones.

Ida Lupino was a very gifted actress, but unlike the vast majority of actresses in the Hollywood jungle, she was able to go toe to toe with any man for both direction and production. She was a wily, knowledgable veteran of film and film production, and had nothing but successes behind the camera (which, quite frankly, she had grown accustomed to with successes in front of it as well). The lead actress Sally Forest does an admirable job with an emotionally difficult role. The opportunities for Lupino to get preachy in this film were numerous, yet her careful hand kept an even keel on the flow of the film. One has to decide these issues for themselves. Is abortion right or wrong? Is taking a child to term right or wrong? Is giving up a child right or wrong? The answer is always the same. No one can say if any of these things are right or wrong; only the woman involved can make that decision. It is easy to spout platitudes when you do not have to live with them yourself. A very good film with sobering content.