Never Fear
Director: Ida Lupino Run Time: 82 min. Format: DCP Rating: NR Release Year: 1950
Starring: Sally Forrest, Keefe Brasselle, Hugh O’Brian, Herb Butterfield
Carol Williams (Sally Forrest) is a beautiful young dancer whose body, and promising career, is suddenly crippled by polio. Carol’s dance partner and fiancé, Guy Richards (Keefe Brasselle), wants to see her through her illness, but the angry, self-pitying Carol prefers to go it alone. Her father (Herb Butterfield) takes her to the Kabat-Kaiser Institute for rehabilitation, where she meets fellow patients like Len Randall (Hugh O’Brian) on her tough road to recovery.
The second feature directed by Ida Lupino, who herself had been stricken with polio as an adolescent, Never Fear is a psychologically probing look at coping with chronic illness. Co-written and co-produced by Lupino and her partner Collier Young and wonderfully shot in black-and-white by Archie Stout.