Ida Lupino and Joan Leslie play a pair of sisters in The Hard Way. Leslie's your ordinary American teenager from the 30s and Lupino is her older sister and acts more like a mother. Both are from a sleepy small town and would dearly like to escape it. Leslie with her talents of singing and dancing and Lupino as her Jo Van Fleet like stage sister.
Their meal ticket turns out to be traveling song and dance team Dennis Morgan and Jack Carson. Lupino pushes Leslie into marriage with Carson, but Morgan sees right through her schemes always.
The Hard Way boasts a lot of musical numbers some just portions showing the rise of Leslie. When she does do her dancing it was very reminiscent of Marilyn Miller who had died in 1936. Having seen all three of Miller's films two of them were versions of stage musicals she starred on Broadway I could see the resemblance quite clearly. So would have a 1943 studio audience. Leslie becomes quite the party animal as Miller was reputed to be.
There's a great bit in the film for Gladys George who plays an over the hill musical comedy star. In her rehearsal scene on stage and later in a bar with Lupino, Lupino achieves her desired result.
Structurally the film is told in flashback the same way another 1943 Warner Brothers film The Big Shot. Both are told from the same perspective by the top billed player Ida Lupino here and Humphrey Bogart in the other film.
Ida Lupino really shines in this movie and the rest of the cast gives her great support.
Their meal ticket turns out to be traveling song and dance team Dennis Morgan and Jack Carson. Lupino pushes Leslie into marriage with Carson, but Morgan sees right through her schemes always.
The Hard Way boasts a lot of musical numbers some just portions showing the rise of Leslie. When she does do her dancing it was very reminiscent of Marilyn Miller who had died in 1936. Having seen all three of Miller's films two of them were versions of stage musicals she starred on Broadway I could see the resemblance quite clearly. So would have a 1943 studio audience. Leslie becomes quite the party animal as Miller was reputed to be.
There's a great bit in the film for Gladys George who plays an over the hill musical comedy star. In her rehearsal scene on stage and later in a bar with Lupino, Lupino achieves her desired result.
Structurally the film is told in flashback the same way another 1943 Warner Brothers film The Big Shot. Both are told from the same perspective by the top billed player Ida Lupino here and Humphrey Bogart in the other film.
Ida Lupino really shines in this movie and the rest of the cast gives her great support.