Rent The Bigamist (1953)

Poor quality DVD-R - The Bigamist review by SC

Very disappointed that this was a really bad quality print on a DVD-R. Watched about five minutes then put it back in the envelope to return.

This is not what i would expect from Cinema Paradiso.

Poor qualities - The Bigamist review by Dr Waerdnotte

I only managed ten minutes as the transfer quality was so poor. It looks like a transfer from video tape so the image is blurred and out of focus r needing the film unwatchable unless of course you don't mind your movies looking like your running a vhs video through an old Tv.

Three Hearts, No Way Out - The Bigamist review by griggs

I wasn’t expecting The Bigamist to be quite so gentle. With a title like that, you brace for moral fireworks, but Ida Lupino steers the whole thing with steady, unfussy control. What emerges is a far more empathetic tangle than the era usually allowed, shaded with enough doubt and disappointment to feel recognisably human rather than cautionary.

The film’s sly humour helps. There’s a wonderful early sequence on one of those star-home bus tours, complete with a perfectly delivered Edmund Gwenn in-joke that Lupino plays with a wink rather than a shove. It’s a small moment, but it tells you exactly how she wants this story understood: not as scandal, but as a set of quietly tangled lives bumping into the limits of their own choices.

The cast works beautifully within that frame. Edmond O’Brien brings a worn-down decency to the title role, while Joan Fontaine and Lupino herself find emotional textures the script only sketches. Nothing here is flashy, but it’s remarkably steady, humane, and surprisingly modern in its refusal to turn anyone into a villain.

A modest film, maybe, but one handled with real care — and sharper than its sensational title suggests.