Jeu, set et match

"Hard, Fast, and Beautiful" from 1951 sounds like one of those racy '50s films that has a luridly colored poster, some babe in a strapless dress being attacked by lecherous man. It is instead a film about a tennis player and her mother - go figure.

This is a small film directed by Ida Lupino. Sally Forrest plays Florence Farley, a young tennis player who shows real talent, so much so that the local country club gives her a membership and then offers to sponsor her in a competition.

Claire Trevor plays her ambitious mother, Millie, a disappointed woman who feels that her husband never amounted to anything. Now she has focused all of her attention on her daughter and plans on hitching her wagon to Florence's star.

Florence is eventually discovered by a promoter, Fletcher Locke (Carleton Young) who believes that with the right training on her backhand, she can go all the way. He also is very good at getting around Florence's amateur status and getting money for her.

All this is fine with Millie. Then Florence and her boyfriend decide to get married, and he wants her to quit tennis.

I love Claire Trevor, and it's a shame to see a talent such as hers in what is essentially a B movie. The film has a few problems, one of which is, seen today, it's badly dated.

A young woman who has devoted hours upon hours of work and wins the U. S. Open, and her fiancé tells her to quit, not bother with a European tour, and she's going to?

I understand it was a different time, and women often married and stopped pursuing careers. Nothing wrong with that, but in this case, with a professional career just beginning, it seems odd.

The best parts of the film are the scenes with Flo's father (Kenneth Patterson) who is a gentle man, very proud of his daughter, hurt by his wife, and who just wants Florence's happiness.

All in all, not a very convincing film, with an excellent performance by Trevor, and uneven acting by Forrest and her not very likable boyfriend (Gordon McKay).

Claire Trevor stars and owns this movie about a woman who decides that the best way to get the good things in life is through her daughter's skill with a tennis racket. Sally Forrest is the daughter who if she had her own way would settle down with Robert Clarke the boy next door and play tennis for fun. Stan Musial had a great philosophy in that he knew it was time to quit when he no longer had fun just playing the game. Too many don't feel that way.

And too many live vicariously through their children. The best portrayal of that phenomenon was Jo Van Fleet in I'll Cry Tomorrow. But Lillian Roth's stage mother had nothing on Trevor as she guides and manipulates Forrest and her career.

Hard, Fast And Beautiful also joins the ranks of films that takes a solid look at our peculiar view of amateur and professional sports and the problems that causes.

The scene when Trevor and Forrest finally level with each other is a classic. So is the deathbed scene with them and her beloved but weak father Kenneth Patterson. Look for Carleton G. Young as well as the tennis coach also hoping to live off the Forrest gravy train.

Most of all this is for fans of Claire Trevor.

Another of Ida Lupino's low-budget, guerilla entries she hoped would find an intimate place between the twin behemoths of 1950's TV and big screen Technicolor. Too bad her effort largely failed. The odds, I suppose, were just too great. Nonetheless, her productions typically tackled difficult subjects otherwise avoided by the behemoths, e.g. rape in The Outrage (1950) and bigamy in The Bigamist (1953). Unfortunately, this obscure entry, dealing with the perils of success, doesn't rise to the level of the other two, but does have its notable moments.

To me, those moments come with the effect that Florence's (Forrest) tennis star success has on her middle-class family, which to that point, seems fairly happy. However, with the success, Mom (Trevor) exults, because now she has a chance to escape a dull suburban existence and indulge her secret desire to social climb among the rich and famous. Meanwhile, daughter Florence starts out as a sweet, unassuming girl, but eventually has her head turned by the new world of big time tennis. These are interesting, but fairly routine developments.

Instead, the really compelling few moments come from Dad and the effect of his daughter's success on him. Now Kenneth Patterson is a name I don't recognize. But here he delivers a really affecting performance as a man who sees his family slipping slowly away from their conventional lives leaving him in an uncertain limbo. Worse, he sees his very manhood undermined by slick promoter Locke (Young) who politely but insistently takes over the lives of his wife and daughter. Catch those few close-ups of Dad trying quietly to comprehend while his home slips away beneath him. Whatever pain he's feeling on the inside, manfully, he won't let it show on the outside. These are minor masterpieces of the collaborative art of camera, script, and performance. The poignancy is made all the more intense by Patterson's refusal to go over the top, and Lupino's awareness that this should be the movie's low-key highpoint.

More generally, Forrest delivers a sprightly performance as an ace tennis player, even if she's not very good at being bitchy. On the other hand, Trevor knows exactly how to convey the self-indulgent behavior of an unfeeling woman, while Clarke has the thankless role of the patient boyfriend. Too bad, Lupino didn't try to buck the banality of the conventional romance, which mars the otherwise rather tough-minded 80-minutes. All in all, it's a well done little film from one of Hollywood's gutsiest figures, and is still worth catching up with.

Despite the title, it's not a J.D. story....HARD: the egotistic, driven opportunist mother (Claire Trevor), FAST: the vacillating but easily influenced ace tennis player daughter (Sally Forrest), and BEAUTIFUL: the always polite, handsome boyfriend with the patience of Job (Robert Clarke) That just about sums it up. Viewers will marvel over how the girl's caring father is completely left out of the whirlwind tours and trips to Europe and ignored while pursuing her career. Outside of her devoted boyfriend, he's the only one who truly cares about her. It takes far too long for the girl to wise up and put her mother in her place, but it's worth watching to finally see it happen.

Mom is very manipulative but film seems to say a woman's place is being married at home--yet the film was directed by Ida Lupino! Husband is a chauvinist I generally enjoyed "Hard, Fast and Beautiful". Its message about success and a 'stage mother' is timeless. However, it also gives an odd message about women and domesticity that really made no sense--but more about that later.

Sally Forest plays Florence Farley--a young lady who is incredibly gifted at tennis. However, her mother Millie (Claire Trevor) is bent on making her daughter a REAL success. Now this isn't just because she wanted to see the girl succeed but also because the mother loved all the perks that go with it--travel, nice clothes and attention. And, her husband really wasn't important to these plans....just Millie. Now I really liked this, as it seemed like a great indictment of the concept of the stage mother--those insane parents who wan to live vicariously through their famous kids.

There is a serious problem, however. At one point in the film, Sally's boyfriend becomes her fiancé--and he insists that she give up tennis and be the dutiful housewife. Now considering that she just won the US tennis championship and was about to go pro, this seemed just as selfish as Millie. He did NOT ask Florence what she wanted either. BUT, the film showed this as a GOOD thing--like Florence was a fool for not doing 'her master's bidding'--a typically sexist 1950s attitude. Think about it--she was poised at becoming world champion but he really only would accept her if she gave this up!! Now this is VERY hypocritical when you think about it, as the film was made by a woman and stars women! Ida Lupino directed this film--the same actress/director that blew through three famous actor husbands!! So, with this message of domesticity running through the movie, it all seemed like bull and really, really diluted the message.

I would have LOVED the film if it portrayed BOTH the mother and fiancé as selfish and had Florence at least once talk about what she wanted. Instead, the message seems to tell women watching the movie that the ONLY way to success is to completely lose yourself and your dreams to your husband's! It's focus on the manipulative mother and her quest for glory was great--the rest of it really seemed sexist--even for the 1950s. For a better but silly version of this sort of film, try watching "Pat and Mike".