This was the second of two ‘B’ Pictures Ida Lupino made at Columbia in early 1939. Director Ben Stollof had become known for comedy short films and then B pictures at RKO. Ida Lupino had already made one film with him in 1937, Fight For Your Lady, when she was loaned out to RKO by Paramount. Now Stollof appeared to be making a film to be ‘presented’ by Columbia. Ida would at least have had some idea of what to expect. She was upset to be working on films like this, a 66 minute ‘gangster comedy’, but she was also grateful for the work after ending her contract at Paramount.

The plot is straightforward. Ida’s character Lila has fallen for Fred Leonard (Lee Bowman) in New York. They have agreed to marry and Lila is to travel ahead to Macklin City where Fred’s mother Hattie is a rich widow and the owner of a bank. Hattie (Fay Bainter, the star of the film) tends to treat each of Fred’s successive girlfriends as a replacement secretary and she sets a bemused Lila to work on her correspondence. But then by chance she discovers that a protection racket is being operated in the city which bizarrely seems to be focused on all the dry-cleaning shops. Hattie is not the kind of woman to take any kind setback lying down and when she is charged a little extra by her dry cleaner to cover his rising costs, she finds out about the protection racket and sets out to fix the problem. The police and the city mayor seem to be powerless so Hattie determines to fight the local gangsters herself. This involves re-visiting one of her previous ‘good deeds’ when she reformed a mobster who is now her loyal helper. Frankie O’Fallon (Warren Hymer) is charged with finding a gang of reformed criminals to act as a ‘counter-mob’, breaking up this new racket.

Fay Bainter as Hattie (left) and Ida Lupino as Lila, obliged to become the older woman’s secretary.

Hattie is rich and can therefore pay the men and equip them with an arsenal of weaponry and a bullet-proof car. A crime comedy ensues with familiar characters. Fay Bainter (1893-1968) was only in her mid-forties but is dressed almost as a Victorian matriarch. She therefore refers to the familiar figure of the warring granny, the older woman who appears almost as a motherly figure towards the reformed mobster. Jokes can be made about her naïvety but we know that she is much sharper and more resourceful than the average dim-witted hoodlum. Bainter was in fact a distinguished stage actor who had not been long in Hollywood. In 1939 she was still ‘hot’ having achieved the rare accolade of two Academy Award nominations in 1938. One was for Best Actress, playing opposite Claud Rains in White Banners for Warner Bros. She didn’t win for that but she did as Best Supporting Actress for another Warners film, Jezebel – now remembered as a Bette Davis classic directed by William Wyler. Davis won the Oscar for Best Actress. Fay Bainter played ‘Aunt Bessie’ but she was only 15 years older than Davis. There is a story here I think about how Fay Bainter goes from double Oscar nominee to lead in a ‘B’ picture in the space of a year. It was only a temporary setback and she returned to ‘third-billed’ roles in ‘A’ films during the early 1940s. Ironically she would work with Lupino again in 1947 on Ida’s last Warners’ picture The Deep Valley, when Ida  Lupino was the star and Fay Bainter was fourth-billed.

In this film, Lupino has little to do apart from point up the antics of Bainter’s character. She does give the film a little sex appeal, at the beginning offering a passionate farewell to her fiancé and later donning a slinky black dress in order to entrap the lead hoodlum in a nightclub. Overall, however, this is perhaps the flimsiest role for Ida that I’ve come across so far. Fortunately, she would soon get the more prestigious role in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes that would give her a stronger promotional platform.

The Lady and the Mob can be found online by searching for the title.