Woman in Hiding (1950)

This movie was going really good, and I do love Ida Lupino, but after Deborah flees her her husband on their honeymoon; it is a down hill mess. Everybody besides the husband thinks that she's dead, he goes to search for her to make sure that she actually is dead shortly after the "accident", he wants to make sure that she never tells about him having possibly murdered her father in order to marry her and get control of the mill. This is something that she learns from his supposedly ex-girlfriend on their honeymoon. What bugs me is that while he is searching the woods for her with his flashlight, she keeps getting up from her hiding spot and moving around and making noise. Can't she just wait until she's sure he's gone? Every time she steps on a branch he comes back to look again, but she keeps making noise! Obviously if Deborah had an ounce of sense she would go straight to the police when she's able, but it's just as obvious that she can't do that because then there would be no movie. Deborah is an idiot. She meets a man who works at a newspaper stand who is even stupider than she is. This guy eventually thinks he recognizes her from the newspaper articles that the husband had written up offering a big cash reward for her return; since they didn't find a body he can't rest until he's sure she won't be trouble. The newspaper guy follows Deborah around getting to know her, or at least the fake her otherwise known as Ann Carter. She's going to hide out until she can find the ex-girlfriend to corroborate her story about the husband being a murderer instead of going to the police! The nice newspaper guy thinks that he's helping by calling the reward number and telling the husband that Deborah is indeed alive and is mixed up and confused and needs help. What business is this of his? Why would you do that? It wasn't about the reward. So the husband finds Deborah and tries to kill her but fails. Finally Deborah tells newspaper guy that she's on the run from crazy husband and needs his help. What does he do? He calls the husband again and sets Deborah up! She thinks they are getting on a train to escape but the husband is waiting for her on the train, she has been hand delivered by the helpful newspaper guy; otherwise known as meddling idiot. Of course not shortly after newspaper guy realizes his mistake and tries to fix things. More nonsense ensues. The ex-girlfriend is now back with the husband and sets Deborah up to be killed at the mill. The ex-girlfriend is accidentally killed by boyfriend who thinks he's killing his wife. Then he kills his on self by accident. Every main character in this stupid movie deserved to die! How Deborah could take up with the newspaper guy in the end is beyond me, but Deborah is slow and stupid so I should not be surprised.

As the opening credits roll, newly wedded Ida Lupino (as Deborah Chandler) desperately tries to stop herself from crashing her car. In an attempted murder, the brakes have been disabled. We see the car drive off a North Carolina bridge and listen to Ms. Lupino's ghostly narration. But don't assume she's dead, or that the accident ends the story… After the prologue fails to uncover a dead body, we begin earlier. Inheriting a profitable mill upon the subsequently suspicious death of her father, Lupino marries the plant's general manager Stephen McNally (as Selden Clark). Apparently, they were a long-term couple; the wedding is the first of several implausible story developments. Lupino asks, "Why didn't I see it?" Don't know...When they arrive at Mr. McNally's mountain cabin for a honeymoon, sexy Peggy Dow (as Patricia Monahan) is waiting. She reveals herself as McNally's "little business trips" lover and is understandably furious with Lupino's presence. After husband and lover smack each other around, Lupino decides she wants the marriage annulled, but McNally refuses. Lupino runs off, changes her name to "Ann Carter" and tries to hide from her homicidal husband. She meets handsome and helpful Howard Duff (as Keith Ramsey), but he isn't sure who is telling the truth. Beautiful black-and-white photography by William Daniels, effective direction from Michael Gordon and engaging performances make "Woman in Hiding" well worth following.******* Woman in Hiding (12/27/49) Michael Gordon ~ Ida Lupino, Howard Duff, Stephen McNally, Peggy Dow

This review is replete with spoilers. The plot-line of this movie is ridiculous. It begins with the car going into the drink, and the voice-over saying something like, "They think I'm dead. I'll have to stay 'dead'". Why? Why not come forward and tell everyone what has happened? She thinks they won't believe her? A quick examination of the car will reveal that it's been tampered with.Another major plot hole is where she flees to another town and then acts like Richard Kimble. She hasn't committed any crime, so why is she so afraid of everyone, especially the police? Then, the husband manages to convince the fellow who's been dogging her that she is "ill". Why is Duff so ready to believe that she is "ill"? I suppose it's understandable, since no one has ever murdered a spouse for gain.Then, when the husband finally gets his clutches on her, he informs her that he is going to put her in an institution, because she is "ill". It can't be that easy to put someone in an institution just because it is to someone else's benefit.The whole thing is a crock.

We first hear Ida Lupino's voice, in sepulchral voice-over, as we watch the wreck of a car that has plummeted over a bridge in North Carolina. "That's my body they're looking for..." she informs us. She's having a bad year; her father has died suddenly in an "accident" in the mill he owned and she up and married its general manager (Steven McNally), whom her father loathed (with reason: McNally killed him). On her wedding night she learned the truth about McNally (who seemed to specialize in deranged, controlling husbands, as in Make Haste to Live), and, trying to flee, found herself in a vehicle which he had rendered brakeless.She's presumed dead, leaving McNally to inherit the mill (his plan all along), but just to be sure he puts out a reward for finding her. And Howard Duff, a newsstand clerk at a bus station in a nearby town, spots her, now blonde and on the lam. They strike a few sparks, but McNally convinces Duff that Lupino is emotionally disturbed, insuring that she'll be institutionalized and under his thumb.All in all, Woman in Hiding's title says it all: It's a fairly standard woman-in-distress picture, but one with a superior cast. In addition to the tried-and-true team of Lupino and Duff (they were married at te time), Peggy Dow invests her few brief scenes as a ruthless rival for McNally's attention with memorable flair. The film looks good, too, especially in the darkened mill at the conclusion -- a conclusion which anticipates by a couple of years that of Sudden Fear, in which Joan Crawford fends of a homicidal busband who's got a bad girl on the side. Woman in Hiding is no masterpiece, nor is it one of Lupino's best performances, but it's well made, swift and satisfying.