Jennifer

1953

Action / Drama / Film-Noir / Mystery / Thriller

2
IMDb Rating 5.8/10 10 591 591

paranoia caretaker gardner

Plot summary

A young woman is hired to take care of an eerie old mansion, where she finds herself entangled with an enigmatic murderer.

Director

Joel Newton Photo
Joel Newton

Top cast

Ida Lupino Photo
Ida Lupino as Agnes Langley
Howard Duff Photo
Howard Duff as Jim Hollis
Ned Glass Photo
Ned Glass as Grocery Clerk
Russ Conway Photo
Russ Conway as Gardener
720p.BluRay 1080p.BluRay
672.41 MB
1280*934
English 2.0
NR
Subtitles us  
23.976 fps
1 hr 13 min
Seeds ...
1.22 GB
1480*1080
English 2.0
NR
Subtitles us  
23.976 fps
1 hr 13 min
Seeds ...

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by bmacv 7 / 10

Lupino & Duff team up in wispy but atmospheric Gothic noir

I first caught up with Jennifer years ago while out of town when it showed up on TV in the middle of the night; I fell asleep before it ended but it stuck with me until I had to track it down. Its appeal is that, though there's not a lot to it, it weaves an intriguing atmosphere, and because Ida Lupino and Howard Duff (real life man-and-wife at the time) display an alluring, low-key chemistry. Lupino plays a woman engaged to house-sit a vast California estate whose previous caretaker -- Jennifer -- up and disappeared. (Shades of Jack Nicholson in the Shining, although in this instance it's not Lupino who goes, or went, mad). Duff is the guy in town who manages the estate's finances and takes a shine to Lupino, who decides to play hard to get. She becomes more and more involved, not to say obsessed, with what happened to her predecessor in the old dark house full of descending stairways and locked cellars. The atmospherics and the romantic byplay are by far the best part of the movie, as viewers are likely to find the resolution a bit of a letdown -- there's just not that much to it (except a little frisson at the tail end that anticipates Brian De Palma's filmic codas). But it's well done, and, again, it sticks with you. Extra added attraction: this is the film that introduced the song "Angel Eyes," which would become part of the standard repertoire of Ol' Blue Eyes.
Reviewed by boblipton 6 / 10

Visually Wonderful

Ida Lupino gets a job as the caretaker of an abandoned estate. The previous owner, Jennifer, according to her cousin, Howard Duff, simply vanished. Something, however, was going on, and Miss Lupino comes to believe that she was killed... and that Duff, whom she is growing fond of, did it.It's one of the many projects that Mr. & Mrs. Duff acted in together, and they do a nice job, even if some of the production makes me wince, particularly Ernest Gold's "Lookit me, maw!" score. But with James Wong Howe as the cinematographer, you know you're in for a good time, and he uses his deep focus techniques to make miss Lupino look tiny and trapped in a house that looks Caligariesque.
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