Ida Lupino, Forgotten Auteur

With this excellent, highly readable critical and archival study, Alexandra Seros joins a community of writers and fans who recognize the tremendous skills and collaborative vision of Ida Lupino. Heretofore unseen photos and a focus on archival documents make Ida Lupino, Forgotten Auteur: From Film Noir to the Director’s Chair a compelling reminder of Lupino’s major contributions to the history of American film and television. - Julie Grossman, author of Ida Lupino, Director: Her Art and Resilience in Times of Transition Alexandra Seros brings new depth to the auteur study by mapping Ida Lupino across the domestic and industrial terrain of the postwar period and presents a captivating portrait of a great director, filmmaker, and artist, equal parts hard-boiled and glamorous. - Maya Montañez Smukler, author of Liberating Hollywood: Women Directors and the Feminist Reform of 1970s American Cinema A discerning reevaluation of the directorial career of Ida Lupino… Seros’s nuanced takes on Lupino’s films and legacy reveal the frustrating strictures of the male-dominated mid-century film industry while making a strong case that her oeuvre deserves critical reappraisal. It’s an overdue celebration of an overlooked trailblazer. (Publishers Weekly) This academically written and accessible contribution to film history should please a wide range of readers. (Library Journal) Alexandra Seros has put together an impressive site for her forthcoming book, Ida Lupino, Forgotten Auteur. In a way, Farran Smith Nehme’s recent piece on Lupino as “one of the best, most vivid and original actresses in Hollywood” sets the stage for Seros’s critical study, which will be out next month. (The Criterion Collection) What Seros presents is Lupino’s heart, and maybe something of her soul, with plenty of ‘Gee, I never knew that’ epiphanies only an academic with an eye and ear on the other side of the tracks would spot. (Cineaste) [This book is] a fascinating overview of Lupino’s independently directed films and discusses such subjects as gendered labor in the film industry, the rise of consumerism in the United States after World War II, and the expectations put on women in their family lives during the postwar era. It’s a wonderful book…consider picking up a copy! (Be Kind Rewind)

Alexandra Seros is a screenwriter with a PhD in cinema and media studies. She is currently working with UCLA to preserve film and early television movies directed and written by Ida Lupino.