The Bigamist

Directed by Ida Lupino, The Bigamist follows Edmond O’Brien’s Harry as he and his wife (Joan Fontaine’s Eve) attempt to adopt a child with the help of an inquisitive agent named Mr. Jordan (Edmund Gwenn) – with complications ensuing after it’s revealed that Harry has another family, including wife Phyllis (Lupino), on the other side of the country. Filmmaker Lupino, working from Collier Young’s script, delivers a lackadaisical drama that boasts its fair share of positive attributes, including strong performances and a handful of compelling sequences, and yet there’s ultimately not a point at which The Bigamist is able to become the searing, engrossing piece of work Lupino has surely intended – with the less-than-captivating vibe perpetuated (and compounded) by the somewhat uneventful bent of Young’s screenplay. It’s clear, then, that The Bigamist‘s sporadically watchable atmosphere is due almost entirely to a proliferation of admittedly compelling interludes, including Harry’s initial encounter with Phyllis on a bus tour of celebrities homes, and there’s little doubt, as well, that the picture’s engaging final stretch, detailing Harry’s legal reckoning, ensures that the whole thing concludes on a relatively memorable note – with the final result a consistently erratic endeavor that generally feels like it could (and should) be so much better.

** out of ****