The Hard Way 10/07/25

Underdog Warners actress Ida Lupino could hold her head high, turning out pictures like this — a Bette Davis reject that proved a winner. It’s a backstage musical soaper using some of the studio’s ‘A-minus’ talent, and definitely an overachiever. Lupino moves heaven and earth to carve out a starring showbiz career for her younger sister Joan Leslie, only to make everyone miserable. With a screenplay rooted in real-life anxieties that the actors knew well, Vincent Sherman’s direction makes everybody look good: Gladys George, Dennis Morgan and especially Jack Carson. When Crawford ‘went noir,’ she must have seen this movie as something to emulate. On Blu-ray from The Warner Archive Collection.
10/07/25