‘This is a true story’: Women artists and narratives of disability in Ida Lupino’s Never Fear (1950, USA)

Ida Lupino was a prolific director and screenwriter in mid-century Hollywood; ever since, her career has been understood by critics and audiences as a herald – if not the herald – of feminist filmmaking. This chapter considers Lupino’s evocative film Never Fear (1950) as a meditation not just on the polio epidemic and the fear it inspired among the public but also on the ways in which such a disease could disrupt, delay and even paralyse the lives of working women, particularly women artists. The film tells the story of dancer Carol Williams, whose career was indefinitely put on hold due to her polio diagnosis. Centralizing her physical and psychological rehabilitation, Never Fear does not shy away from screening the extent of Carol’s physical therapy, nor does it temper the intense moments of grief and confusion in which she laments her inability to move and perform as she once did. Progressive in the way the film does not shy away from explicit discussions and depictions of disability and rehabilitation, Never Fear is presented from the onset as a true story. I will discuss how the film is in dialogue with its writer’s own experience, as Lupino herself was diagnosed with polio as a teenage girl in 1934. Ultimately, I will explore the film’s cultural significance in terms of how it shaped conversations about disability and artistry in the 1950s, particularly in the years leading up to the development of the Salk polio vaccine in 1955.

Keywords: 1950s female filmmakers ; disability representation ; Ida Lupino ; polio ; US films