About

‘After years of accepting Bette Davis’ cast-off casting offers, under-utilized leading lady Ida Lupino has her chance to dazzle as the worldly, callous creature that would help define her legacy as an on-screen performer. Her hardboiled turn as a pushy, stern ‘stage sister’ to the moderately-talented, sequin-eyed Katie (Joan Leslie) substantiated Lupino’s nuanced talents to the critical elite, earning her the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress. Based on a story by famed American playwright Irwin Shaw, The Hard Way features self-serving personalities who sink their heels deep into this drama’s malevolent core. Unfolding as an elongated flashback, a narrative technique considered shockingly fresh in the early 1940s, the sisters’ dead-end mining town is quickly abandoned for a co-dependent, hollow life of ever-escalating fame—achieved by any means necessary.’ – UCLA Film & Television Archive

Ages 15+