The reason this movie is not better known is probably its sleep-inducing (and misleading) title, and the fact that it was withheld from release for several years while the studio tried to figure out how to market it as actually being a sort of dark comedy, like the wildly popular "Arsenic and Old Lace," which it most definitely is NOT. Instead, it is a dark, atmospheric noir thriller that's not for everybody, but has several outstanding performances to recommend it. The 23-year-old Ida Lupino, as Ellen (written for the stage as the eldest, 60-year-old sister!), is a ball of nerves and pent-up hostility, desperate to protect her two odd sisters, Louisa and Emily, played memorably by Edith Barrett (who would eventually marry Vincent Prince) and Elsa Lancaster (long married to Charles Laughton). At the time of the making of the movie, Lupino was married to Louis Hayward, who while miscast here plays the character of Albert; by the time of the movie's eventual release, its director, Charles Vidor, would be married to Evelyn Keyes, who plays the maid, Lucy. In the "it's sure a small world" category, Keyes would go on to marry a more famous director, John Huston, who had directed a much more famous and successful noir the same year as this movie, titled "The Maltese Falcon." This movie may not quite rise to its heights, but it has its unexpected moments.7/10.
Review of Ladies in Retirement
