The Bigamist (1953)

Lack of good storyline.

Instant Favorite.

Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

An adoption agent (Edmund Gwenn) investigating a couple wanting to adopt discovers the husband (Edmond O'Brien) is hiding a secret. Confronted, the man tells the story of how he came to be married to two women (Ida Lupino & Joan Fontaine).Interesting soaper helped a lot by sympathetic performances. O'Brien actually made me feel sorry for the guy....for a minute. Fontaine and Lupino are both terrific, as well. In addition to starring in this, Lupino directed it. It's one of her best directorial efforts. The actress playing the landlady is Lillian Fontaine, the mother of Joan and sister Olivia de Havilland. It's a thoughtful film that tries to present its story without vilifying anybody completely. Not entirely successful but better than most movies today that deal with similar themes.

A poor shlub doesn't get enough love from his high-powered wife. One day the lonely traveling salesman meets the perfect shoulder to cry on -- a simple waitress who asks nothing of him, whom he impregnates. Edmund O'Brien somehow manages to be sympathetic in the role of a man who is dominated by his emotions and then tries to deal with the consequences. I also enjoyed Edmond Gwenn as an elderly adoption investigator who shows interest and empathy as Harry unravels his strange tale. It isn't clear from this film how the authorities get wind of Harry's crime. But that they did and he's convicted. His sentence and the identity of his destined domestic partner -- or lack thereof -- is left to the viewer's imagination, an excellent use of ambiguity. In all, this was an odd and memorable surprise.

This film is unique among production code era dramas in that everyone is painted in shades of gray. It is not unique among production code dramas in that it displays some very old fashioned ideas, primarily that a woman will go somewhat bonkers if she finds out she cannot have children, and a symptom of a married woman gone bonkers is for her to take a deep interest in big business.In this film Eve Graham (Joan Fontaine) discovers about six years into her marriage to Harry Graham (Edmond OBrien) that she cannot have children. As a result she plunges herself into her husband's business and is always telling him that she trusts him completely while he is on the road in Los Angeles - something Harry actually takes as a bit of a rebuke. While on one of his many long business trips in L.A. Harry meets waitress Phyllis Martin (Ida Lupino). Harry intends just to keep it friendly between the two of them, but on the road and alone on his birthday things go too far and Phyllis becomes pregnant as a result. Phyllis is alone in the world, and having a rather difficult pregnancy, so Harry feels needed by her. He decides to call Eve, make a clean breast of it, and ask for a divorce so he can marry Phyllis. Unfortunately, the recent death of Eve's father has shocked her out of big business mode and the conversation Harry was going to have with Eve that was going to end it between them winds up being a conversation about adoption. So his new plan is this - marry Phyllis - who does not know Harry is already married - and stay married to Eve long enough for the adoption to go through because he doesn't want to leave Eve with nothing.The film paints Harry as a sympathetic albeit a somewhat weak character. He is torn between the sweetheart of his youth and the mother of his child, who, unfortunately, are two different people. In more simplistic directorial production code era hands Phyllis would have conveniently died in childbirth after producing Harry the son he always wanted, Harry would have confessed all to Eve who would have forgiven him, and the two would have lived happily ever after raising Harry's biological child. In this film things don't work out that tidily and how Harry, society - and the wives for that matter -handle this situation and its complete resolution are left somewhat up in the air.

The film starts with a husband and wife, Harry (Edmond O'Brien) and Eve (Joan Fontaine), going through the procedure of adopting a child with adoption official Mr Jordan (Edmund Gwenn). Mr Jordan senses something strange about the behaviour of Harry and so investigates his past which takes him to Los Angeles where he discovers that Harry uses a different name and has another wife Phyliss (Ida Lupino) and child. The main bulk of the film is told in flashback as Harry explains the circumstances to Mr Jordan. At the end, we are left to decide who, if any, of the women will stand by him as a judge announces that sentence will be passed in a week's time.....The film plays out so that you are sympathetic to all 3 major stars - O'Brien, Fontaine and Lupino - and has an ambiguous ending to some. I find that the ending is clear as the final shot says it all. From the beginning, I thought that Mr Jordan was suspicious for no good reasons and that his delving into the past as he did was unrealistic. We are led to believe that he had made a mistake in the past to explain his thoroughness, but he was still a jobsworth to the power of a million. I didn't like him! When Harry goes on a Beverly Hills tour of houses of movie stars (where he meets Phyliss), we are shown the house of Edmund Gwenn, who plays Mr Jordan in the film. Harry should have stopped the bus and torched the place! I think the film needed more excitement but its OK.