The Hard Way

Greatly enjoyed this 1942 film starring Ida Lupino,(Mrs.Helen Chernen) who was married to a man who worked in a coal mine and Helen took care of her younger sister, Katie Chernen,(Joan Leslie). Helen hated the town they lived in and also her husband and wanted a bigger and better future for Katie. Katie met up with Albert Runkel, (Jack Carson) who worked on the stage as a song and dance team with Paul Collins, (Dennis Morgan). Katie has a great singing voice and can dance and Albert falls in love with her and gets her into his act. However, behind the scenes is Helen who is scheming to get her sister into big time show business and decides to get her sister married to Albert and runs off and leaves her husband and goes away with her sister and Albert. This story is really about the great actress Ginger Rogers and how her mother pushed her daughter into show business at all costs. They even offered Ginger Rogers a part in this picture, but she refused. Great Classic film, don't miss seeing it on TV.

This is a very enjoyable film, with a terrific central performance from Ida Lupino. But there are times when she seems to be working harder than she needs to, so that we see her acting. This is not surprising given the very light-weight performance given by Joan Leslie. Ida has to work very hard to get anything out of her. It's a shame, because I think a great actress in the Leslie role might have turned this film into an unforgettable exploration of sisterhood. Just imagine someone like Anne Baxter or Susan Hayward in the role. The really laughable sequence is the musical number that launches Leslie to stardom. It's a horrible piece of choreography and a very ordinary song, and the routine climaxes in Leslie doing some truly ridiculous cartwheels, that would have made her the laughing stock of Broadway. Instead she is the toast of the town, and a top playwright immediately offers to write a play for her! The climax of the film is also very silly, as anyone who has worked in the theatre would know. The actions of Morgan and Leslie here are completely unbelievable.

There are shades of ALL ABOUT EVE in THE HARD WAY - although the dialogue lacks the wit of Mankiewicz. It's good to see Carson and Morgan playing more meaty roles than usual - they were both top notch performers. But the best performance in the film is given by the wonderful Gladys George, who plays an ageing stage star manipulated out of her lead role by Lupino, to be replaced by Leslie. She is funny, touching and utterly convincing in a powerhouse cameo - can't imagine her doing those cartwheels though!

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.

This is a forgotten classic.It shows the dark side of fame and fortune.Ida Lupino and Joan Leslie were great and this is the best dramatic film I've ever seen Jack Carson in.He really got a chance to show his acting talent being dramatic.Dennis Morgan was excellent and I was glad to see him sing a little even in a drama.I recommend that you see this movie and see all these actors at their best!

This movie is highly under rated. At the time of production, director Vincent Sherman agreed with his star, Ida Lupino; will this project hold up? The answer is...yes. The finale could be reworked a bit, but this film is appreciated more now with age.

Joan Leslie plays a young woman that has suffered a dismal life until it is discovered that she has enough talent to try the stage. Lupino is the overbearing, older sister that pushes her little sister to stardom. Soon the two woman are competing for the glory.

Good song and dance movie, evocative of the times.

Also features; Dennis Morgan, Jack Carson and Paul Cavanagh.