MovieChat Forums > The Bigamist (1953) Discussion > Movie of ironies

Movie of ironies

posted 15 years ago by jawebster2000
7 replies | jump to latest

As the Judge, at the end of the movie, said, had the protaganist not married the pregnant gal, he would not have been criminally punished, just snickered at. The young neighbor boy did just that. The obvious ironies were the showing of Edmund Gwen's home on the bus tour and in calling him Santa Claus, his most famous portrayal, on at least two occasions. Not mentioned: The guy with the scar sitting at the bar, in Ida Lupino's restaurant, may be the guy who was married to Ida Lupino and Joan Fontaine (at different times) in real life. Ida Lupino's landlady in the movie, was Joan Fontaine's (and Olivia de Havilland's) mother in real life. I think O'Brien and Lupino would have ended up together because of the child and Joan Fontaine would have ended up with the lawyer, Ken Tobey, depending of course, on his marital status. Final irony: Two of the actors had the unusual first name of Edmund, but in O'Brien's case, it was spelled Edmond.

[–] thum_andreas 13 years ago

those are some great observations. but: you have obviously no idea what irony means.

[–] Librarian1 11 years ago

A real irony is that in real life both Joan Fontaine and Ida Lupino were married to the same man Collier Young but at different times. I believe Ida was married to him first.

[–] alisotom 10 years ago

Ida Lupino was married to Collier Young, who wrote the screenplay of this movie while Ida directed it and costarred in it. During the filming of the movie, they divorced and she married Howard Duff while he married Joan Fontaine, Ida's costar in the movie. That's not ironic; that's just messy.

[–] fletchers_paradox 11 years ago

Socrates was a white 5%er. The savages killed him...

[–] jawebster2000 9 years ago

Reply to thum_andreas: You are right. I looked the word up and I'm still not sure what the word means. Instead of irony, I should have used that good old fallback word...interesting! BTW, I don't remember seeing and commenting on this movie before. After watching the movie tonight on my DVR, I came here and was surprised to see my comment from several years earlier. Interesting?

[–] goleafsgo27 8 years ago

Indeed. Irony is when the result is rather the opposite of what you'd expect.
Let's look at that silly song of some years back that asked "isn't it ironic, like rain on your wedding day." That was clearly not irony. That lamentable scenario could, however, qualify as irony if, say, one or both of the people marrying was a meteorologist. (Even that would be stretching it unless it was a last-minute decision to elope.)

I have seen enough to know I have seen too much. -- ALOTO

[–] thomas196x2000 8 years ago

Oh shut up. Another of the 10,000 blabbermouths going on about what irony truly means. Contribute to the conversation or go home...everyone knows what the guy means.