Ida Lupino could have and should have ranked up there with the best of film actresses, she could have been up with Bette Davis, Barbara Stanwyck and Katharine Hepburn. Picture for picture she never got the quality roles in quantity that the other three got. But outside of Bette Davis, Ida Lupino pushed more mediocre material before the movie going public and made them accept it through the strength of her talent.
The Man I Love is a great example of such. Other than her it features a good cast of competent second string performers. Even Robert Alda cast as the mobbed up club owner got his real stardom on Broadway in four years with Guys And Dolls. He figures prominently in the lives of Ida and her sisters.
Ida plays Peta Brown, a nightclub singer going home to Los Angeles where her two sisters and brother live and all in close proximity, like in the same building. In one way or another their lives connect with Alda. Andrea King works for Alda and spends a lot of time fending off passes. She has to work because her husband, John Ridgely, is in the VA Hospital recovering from shell shock from World War II. Martha Vickers has a hankering for neighbor Don McGuire who is the father of twin babies. McGuire's married to wild child Dolores Moran who Alda hires for his chorus also because he's got designs. Vickers is also married to Warren Douglas. Finally Jimmy Dodd the little brother is working for Alda in some unnamed capacity. Alda has him doing a bit of dirty business that brings everything to a head in the climax.
Through all of this Ida finds time for a little romance with former piano prodigy Bruce Bennett whose a bit of drunken lout and carrying a statue of liberty size torch for his ex-wife who was a prominent socialite, a would be Paris Hilton. Why Ida's bothering with him is totally beyond me.
But Ida's arrival seems to sort out all the problems except for one individual who winds up dead. And I'll give you one hint, if you're thinking the dead one is Robert Alda, it's not.
On the strength of her considerable abilities, Ida Lupino makes The Man I Love rise to the level of mediocrity. It would get a far lower rating from me if she wasn't in the film.
The Man I Love is a great example of such. Other than her it features a good cast of competent second string performers. Even Robert Alda cast as the mobbed up club owner got his real stardom on Broadway in four years with Guys And Dolls. He figures prominently in the lives of Ida and her sisters.
Ida plays Peta Brown, a nightclub singer going home to Los Angeles where her two sisters and brother live and all in close proximity, like in the same building. In one way or another their lives connect with Alda. Andrea King works for Alda and spends a lot of time fending off passes. She has to work because her husband, John Ridgely, is in the VA Hospital recovering from shell shock from World War II. Martha Vickers has a hankering for neighbor Don McGuire who is the father of twin babies. McGuire's married to wild child Dolores Moran who Alda hires for his chorus also because he's got designs. Vickers is also married to Warren Douglas. Finally Jimmy Dodd the little brother is working for Alda in some unnamed capacity. Alda has him doing a bit of dirty business that brings everything to a head in the climax.
Through all of this Ida finds time for a little romance with former piano prodigy Bruce Bennett whose a bit of drunken lout and carrying a statue of liberty size torch for his ex-wife who was a prominent socialite, a would be Paris Hilton. Why Ida's bothering with him is totally beyond me.
But Ida's arrival seems to sort out all the problems except for one individual who winds up dead. And I'll give you one hint, if you're thinking the dead one is Robert Alda, it's not.
On the strength of her considerable abilities, Ida Lupino makes The Man I Love rise to the level of mediocrity. It would get a far lower rating from me if she wasn't in the film.