The Hard Way (1943)

User Rating:

7.3/10   

Director:

Vincent Sherman

Writers:

Daniel Fuchs (screenplay) and
Peter Viertel (screenplay)

Release Date:

20 February 1943 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Tagline:

There are two sides to every story -- and every woman!

Plot:

Ambitious Helen Sherman (Ida Lupino) pushes her talented younger sister Katherine (Joan Leslie) into...

Plot Keywords:

Marriage | Partner | Party | Cemetery | Engagement

Awards:

1 win

Cast

Ida Lupino	...	Mrs. Helen Chernen
Dennis Morgan	...	Paul Collins
Joan Leslie	...	'Katie' Chernen
Jack Carson	...	Albert Runkel
Gladys George	...	Lily Emery
Faye Emerson	...	Ice Cream Parlor Waitress
Paul Cavanagh	...	John 'Jack' Shagrue

Runtime:

109 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Sound System)

Certification:

Australia:PG | Sweden:15 | USA:Approved (PCA #8247)

Company:

Warner Bros. Pictures

Trivia:

Several actors with their character names listed in studio records and/or casting call lists were not seen in the movie. These were Eddie Coke (Variety Ad Taker), Frank Faylen (Policeman), Howard M. Mitchell (Policeman), Joel Davis (Jimmy, Six Years), Wilbur Mack (Stage Manager), Monte Blue (Assistant Stage Manager), Frances Morris (Telephone Operator) and Merrillee Lannon (Western Union Clerk).

Quotes:

The Morgan Twins: [in unison] Mr. Wade? We're playing in Jersey City. Can you catch our act? We're the Morgan Twins.
Max Wade: When you're triplets, come back and see me.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in The Damned Don't Cry: The Crawford Formula - Real and Reel (2005) (V)

Soundtrack:

Am I Blue?

Ida Lupino excels in archetypal tinsel-and-ashes melodrama

The siren lure of show business must have had a more irresistible song in the days when stars, in the flesh, came right to towns like Pocatello, Idaho and Biloxi, Mississippi. The dreams were delivered fresh and piping hot, not through the many scrims of television and movie screens, and not through the machinations of crafty publicists and a fawning press. That's the milieu of Green Hill, a sooty steeltown where Helen Chernen (Ida Lupino) has cut her losses and her hopes until her little sister (Joan Leslie) gets a whiff of the greasepaint and hears the roar of the crowd. Lupino up and leaves her laborer husband to propel sis right to the boulevard of broken dreams. First steps on the stampede to the top are the mediocre vaudeville duo of Jack Carson and Dennis Morgan; Leslie marries Carson but leaves him in the dust at Lupino's bidding. Soon Leslie is poised to be the toast of all Broadway, but the tinsel is turning to ashes, and she's turning against her unstoppable bulldozer of a big sister. The bookends of this story told in flashback involve an ermine wrap, a pier on New York's waterfront, and a couple of New York cops....You get the idea. The Hard Way still packs a punch (after all these years), if a punch somewhat softened with a tinge of nostalgia. This is one of Lupino's strongest roles (along with Lily in Road House), and at her best she makes you wonder why she didn't achieve the superstardom of a Davis, a Hepburn, or a Stanwyck. She's just that good.