The Bigamist (1953): A Review

THE BIGAMIST

Can a man love two women simultaneously? If we go by The Bigamist, it appears so. Skewing sensationalism for a more somber take on the subject, The Bigamist at times plays like the cast and crew are living out their own lives on screen. However, a short runtime and an engaging production all around makes The Bigamist worth watching.  

Posh Eva Graham (Joan Fontaine) wants to adopt a child after finding that she is unable to have any. Her husband Harry (Edmond O'Brien) seems happy to join her in this endeavor. The child agency official Mr. Jordan (Edmund Gwenn) senses something slightly off about Harry, as if he is attempting to show enthusiasm but is hiding something.

Mr. Jordan begins investigating the Grahams. It is routine to look into the background of potential adoptive parents. However, Mr. Jordan is in for a wild surprise when it comes to Harry, a traveling salesman. While Harry and Eva live in San Francisco, work takes Harry to Los Angeles often. Following up on a hunch, Mr. Jordan begins to wonder why Harry leaves no real impression when in Los Angeles: no hotel reservations, no dining out, not even sending out for laundry. 

Mr. Jordan eventually finds "Harrison Graham" and discovers a shocking secret. Harrison and Harry are one and the same, only Harrison has another wife and a child, a boy named Danny in Los Angeles. Before he calls the police, Harry begs Mr. Jordan to listen to his story first. 

Life can be lonely on the road. While Harry loves Eva, she had grown distant owing to their successful business. While in Los Angeles, he meets Phyllis (director Ida Lupino), a waitress with no interest in being a pickup for anyone. Despite this, they end up bonding after taking a tour of movie stars homes. Eventually, they begin an affair. Eva realizes that she has pushed Harry away and they begin to reconcile, but then her father takes ill. 

It is now that Harry discovers that Phyllis is pregnant. She does not ask him to marry her, but Harry decides to do the honorable thing and legitimize their child. Phyllis, who knows nothing of Harry's current marriage, does her best with him and their baby. Harry's wild scheme is to stay with Eva long enough for her to formalize the adoption, then divorce her to stay with Phyllis. However, this scheme fell apart when here comes Mr. Jordan. With the secret out, Harry is arrested for bigamy. Which one of the two Mrs. Grahams will ultimately end up being wild about Harry?

The backstage story of The Bigamist is as interesting as what is on the screen. Ida Lupino already was breaking barriers when she went into directing, though she ultimately directed only seven features. She, I believe, was one of the first actresses to direct themselves in film. I think she was the first woman to direct herself in an American film, because I think Leni Riefenstahl directed herself in The Blue Light in 1932. 

That, however, does not cover the strange connection between actress/director Lupino and her costar Joan Fontaine. Like Phyllis and Eva, Lupino and Fontaine shared a husband. Collier Young, who coproduced The Bigamist and wrote the screenplay, was Lupino's second husband. They divorced in 1951. In 1952, he married Joan Fontaine, who became her third husband. The Bigamist was made in 1953. As such, you had the second wife directing the third wife in a film written and produced by the second wife's second husband and the third wife's third husband.

One wonders if all of them thought anything about all this was just a bit nutty. 

Something that was driving me nutty were not one but two inside jokes about Edmund Gwenn. O'Brien as Harry quipped that Mr. Jordan looked like Santa Claus. If that had been the one nod to Gwenn's Oscar-winning role in Miracle on 34th Street, that would have been fine, even amusing. However, they did it again when Phyllis and Harry are on that Hollywood Tour of Stars Homes. The tour guide points out the home of Edmund Gwenn, star of that beloved film Miracle on 34th Street. 

At that point, my eyes rolled. We get the jokes. We just don't think that they are funny or clever.

As a side note, The Bigamist has four Oscar winners in the cast: Fontaine (Suspicion), O'Brien (The Barefoot Contessa), Gwenn (Miracle on 34th Street) and Jane Darwell (The Grapes of Wrath), who has a small role of a cleaning lady in Jordan's office. 

If not for all these "Mr. Jordan is Santa Claus" bits, I would have ranked The Bigamist higher. Still, the film itself is a well-acted and directed film tackling a dicey subject with restraint and taste. O'Brien probably has the hardest job in making Harry/Harrison's duplicity not come across as selfish or lascivious. His Harry is quite soft-spoken in his delivery. We see that Harry did a bad thing in cheating on Eva with Phyllis. As much as the screenplay can, it makes his fall to temptation appear understandable. Phyllis is not a designing woman out to seduce a man. In fact, she initially tells Harry that she would not want him to marry her after learning of her pregnancy. She won't "trap a man" in this fashion.

We also see that events continue to work against Harry. He is about to tell his wife about his affair when he learns that Eva's father died. He knows that these back-to-back blows would be too much for her. It is a case of "damned if you do, damned if you don't". 

Lupino ably directs herself to make Phyllis both a tough cookie and a vulnerable woman. She carries herself with a unique grace and courage but also loves Harrison. I found Fontaine a bit patrician as Eva, the wronged woman. However, I think that was the character, so I am not holding that against her. Gwenn was if not impish at least pleasant as Mr. Jordan. However, he was able to rally his anger at the various deceptions going on. "I despise you, and I pity you", he tells Harry before leaving Harry's love nest. 

We are left with an ambiguous ending. Harry has been caught and will go to prison. He will also have to support both women as well as Phyllis' baby (I do not think Eva's adoption went through). However, we do not know if either Phyllis or Eva will stand by their man or even want to. It is only at the end when we do see the three of them together. That vague ending works because we now can ask what our own reactions would be at the situation.

The Bigamist works on almost all levels. The Gwenn quips were a bit silly. On the whole though, The Bigamist looks at what could be a sordid topic and has an intelligent, adult manner to it. Short at 80 minutes, The Bigamist packs a lot into this sad story of love and deception. Only you can answer for yourself what you would have done if you had been Harry, Eva or Phyllis. 

Love certainly is strange. 

DECISION: B+