The Hard Way / What Price Hollywood?

April 29, 2016 - 7:30 pm

Billy Wilder Theater

In-person:

Emily Carman.

The Hard Way (1943)

Ida Lupino won critical praise for her performance here as a woman with ruthless ambition who manipulates her kid sister’s naiveté and talent to find fame and fortune on Broadway. A classic hardboiled Lupino role, it was an exception to the frustrating experience she had finding acceptable stories under contract at Warner Bros., an experience that lead her to form her own production company in 1949.

35mm, b/w, 109 min. Production: Warner Bros. Distribution: Warner Bros. Producer: Jerry Wald. Director: Vincent Sherman. Screenwriter: Daniel Fuchs, Peter Viertel. Cinematographer: James Wong Howe. Editor: Thomas Pratt. Composer: Heinz Roemheld. Cast: Ida Lupino, Dennis Morgan, Joan Leslie, Jack Carson, Gladys George.

What Price Hollywood? (1932)

In this classic Hollywood exposé, the press comes in for particularly harsh judgment for its dehumanizing treatment of a star on the rise played by Constance Bennett, who had her own issues with fan magazines over her unapologetically cutthroat negotiating tactics and lucrative percentage deals. While What Price Hollywood? plays as show business tragedy, Bennett eventually assuaged her critics as a freelancer, once declaring, “Hollywood taught me to fight for my rights.”

35mm, b/w, 88 min. Production: RKO Pathé Pictures. Distribution: RKO-Pathé Distributing Corp. Director: George Cukor. Based on a story by Adela Rogers St. Johns. Screenwriter: Gene Fowler, Rowland Brown. Cinematographer: Charles Rosher. Editor: Del Andrews, Jack Kitchin. Composer: Max Steiner. Cast: Constance Bennett, Lowell Sherman, Neil Hamilton, Gregory Ratoff, Brooks Benedict.

Part of:

Independent Stardom on Screen: Freelance Women in Hollywood

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The Hard Way / What Price Hollywood?

The Hard Way (1943)

What Price Hollywood? (1932)

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