Hard, Fast and Beautiful

Claire Trevor appears as Millie, a ruthless maternal figure who coerces her daughter, Florence into becoming a professional tournament tennis player. In this quest, Millie is aided by an unscrupulous promoter, Fletcher Locke, who attempts to seduce Millie and wreck her marriage to her long-suffering husband. Robert Clarke appears as Florence’s boyfriend and it is through his continual criticism that Florence begins to question the validity of her pursuit of sports stardom. At the film’s conclusion, Florence refuses to continue on as a tennis champion, thus forfeiting her title, in order to care for her ailing father. In this, Lupino restates her own desire to remain subservient – at least superficially – to the existing patriarchal order. As she observed in her article, “Me, Mother Directress”.

In this copy, one of the last, unfortunately missing 9 Minutes, which are narratively noticeably.