Admission is free. No advance reservations. Your seat will be assigned to you when you pick up your ticket at the box office. Seats are assigned on a first come, first served basis. The box office opens one hour before the event.
The Bigamist
U.S., 1953
Considered the first Hollywood sound feature directed by its female star herself, The Bigamist marks another entry in Ida Lupino’s string of filmmaking efforts to squarely confront pressing, taboo social topics. This dramatic, haunting noir uniquely centers on fragile family man and traveling salesman Harry (Edmond O’Brien) torn between his matrimonial devotions to two women: the business-minded and barren San Francisco-based Eve (Joan Fontaine) and the independent, grounded and fertile Angeleno, Phyllis (Lupino). Caught in his lies by an adoption agent, Harry’s tangled romantic yarn is spun in a series of flashbacks. RKO was originally attached, but producers Collier Young and Lupino instead opted to self-distribute when they recognized the measly profits that were barely returning to their pockets.
35mm, b&w, 80 min. Director: Ida Lupino. Screenwriter: Collier Young. With: Joan Fontaine, Ida Lupino, Edmond O’Brien.
Restored by the UCLA Film & Television Archive, with funding provided by The Film Foundation and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association.