The Last Reel: Lois & Ida – A Different Point of View
Trailers From Hell Guru Allan Arkush’s The Last Reel video essay series is back with a look at two trailblazing filmmakers: Lois Weber and Ida Lupino.
In her day, the largely forgotten Lois Weber was the equal of DW Griffith. She ran her own production companies in Fort Lee, New Jersey, and then in East Hollywood and West Hollywood. In 1917, she became the first mayor of Universal City. Lois was a crusader for birth control, abortion and women’s rights.
Ida Lupino was an actress mostly at Warners and wanted to be a producer and director. Encouraged by her mentor Raoul Walsh, she did just that with groundbreaking movies about important topics like unmarried pregnancy, sexual assault, and rights for the handicapped. She was the second woman in the DGA, and she was the first woman to direct TV shows. Her specialty was action. She would quip, “As an actress at Warners, I was the poor man’s Bette Davis, as a director I was the poor man’s Don Siegel.”
Not bad company to keep.
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