Film Review: The Hard Way

There's often a large disparity when it comes to classic films between what the producers wanted us to think about their films and what we actually think about those films from our modern perspective, and that is nowhere more true than in the genre of women's films, where some of the notions about gender roles and a woman's place in society seem outdated at best, and sometimes downright laughable. I've already talked about women's films here, but suffice it to say that during the thirties and forties, films marketed toward women were intended not only to appeal to female moviegoers but also, in many cases, to act as cautionary tales about how not to live their lives, especially relative to men; as such, they have a greater capacity than, say, Westerns or screwball comedies to seem archaic in our current, post-feminist landscape.

The Hard Way, released in 1943 and directed by Vincent Sherman, is a quintessential women's film, and it's also a prime example of how a film's message can become skewed and invalidated with the passage of time. What we're supposed to think when we watch The Hard Way is that the film's main character, Helen Chernan (Ida Lupino), is a cold, conniving woman who will do anything to ensure a better life for her younger sister Katie (Joan Leslie), including cutting herself off from all feminine attributes (except the manipulative ones, of course) and stepping on other people in her quest to make her sister a star. We're supposed to feel sorry for the rather dumb vaudeville actor Albert Runkles (Jack Carson), to whom she hitches her sister in order to get them both out of their small mining town, and we're supposed to agree with Albert's partner Paul (Dennis Morgan), the only other character in the film cynical enough to see through Helen and label her as what she is: a heartless machine. And while we're supposed to have some sympathy for Helen, being that her motives are honorable and she truly loves her sister, we're also meant to understand that, like all tragic heroes, she is undone by her own flaws -- that is, rejecting her womanhood and harboring a misguided notion of what constitutes a "better life."

An entirely different story comes across watching this film today, though. Helen is manipulative, yes, but aside from a few moments here and there, nothing she does is that bad, nor anything that doesn't need to be done in pushing yourself or someone you love to the top of the show business ladder. She plows down people who get in her way, but this determined quality is only deemed "heartlessness" because she's a woman; if she were a man, she'd be thought of as tenacious. Her one true flaw is that she doesn't listen when her sister stops wanting to pursue bigger and better things -- what starts as a desire to help her sister eventually becomes her own personal obsession -- but even this is understandable, because for most of the movie, Katie is complicit in what Helen does; The Hard Way is not one of those "stage mother" movies where the child has no desire to be in the entertainment industry in the first place. It is Katie's aspiration to be an entertainer that sets Helen on her quest; it is Katie's own plea to get out of their coal town that sets both of them in motion.

Pic via here

It is around the character of Katie that most of the dissonance between what we see in the movie and what we're supposed to see actually occurs, because she is the one who comes into closer contact with both of the male characters. As sorry as we're supposed to feel for the naive Albert, what actually happens between him and Katie is that they get married and form their own vaudeville act, traveling around the country and doing small gigs, but eventually a producer expresses interest in Katie as a solo act, and when Albert learns he isn't wanted, he throws a temper tantrum and decides he and Katie should break up their act, even as she begs to stay with him. (This is where we're supposed to realize that Helen is truly horrible, because she tells Albert and Katie about the solo opportunity, yet the film makes it quite clear that Albert and Katie's act is terrible, and Albert is the worst part.) When Katie finds success on her own, Albert returns in a dramatic fashion and tells her to drop everything and come back with him, which really only seems fair if you believe that a woman's proper, ultimate place is at her husband's side. Many people wouldn't agree with such a notion today, and I'm not so sure the filmmakers believed it then, either; I think they wanted to sell the idea, but part of the fun of women's films was that women in the audience got to see other women making the "wrong decision" and paying for it later, but making the wrong decision nonetheless.

The truly disappointing thing about The Hard Way is that it has many of the trappings of a great film -- and it is, in fact, quite a good film -- but because of its outdated gender statements and a few highly improbable plot points, it ends up seeming rather silly by the time the credits roll. Jack Carson and Dennis Morgan both do as much as they can with the characters of Albert and Paul, and Ida Lupino is fantastic as Helen, although she comes on a bit strong in the scenes in the coal town, punching each line when she maybe should have exhibited a quieter determination at that point in her journey; nevertheless, Lupino knows how to control the camera, and even when she's overacting, you don't really mind watching her. Joan Leslie was an interesting choice to play Katie, I think, because while she has the innocent charisma essential for the part, she is neither a great dancer nor singer, which makes an already weak spot in the film seem even more ridiculous: how does Katie, who is a fair performer at best, so quickly became a star on Broadway? Her star-making debut is truly nothing special, and Leslie, with her weak voice, is nothing special in it. What's more, although Leslie often got stuck playing good-girl roles, she has a stealth-bitch quality about her that Raoul Walsh used to great effect in the superior High Sierra (1941, also costarring Lupino), and which ultimately makes it hard to accept Katie as a victim of Helen's machinations; as it is, I never quite lost the feeling that the only thing separating Katie from Helen is the fact that, as Helen points out, Katie has Helen to guide her.

Grade: B