Hard, Fast And Beautiful (1951)

An ambitious mother (Claire Trevor) uses her tennis ace daughter (Sally Forrest) to get her out of the drab middle class existence she's mired in. The daughter isn't very ambitious but with the prodding of her mother and a promoter (Carleton G. Young), the girl becomes a tennis champion, sacrificing her personal life like the boy (Robert Clarke) back home to fulfill her mother's dreams. But she finds herself becoming cynical and hardened during the journey. Based on the novel by John R. Tunis and directed by actress Ida Lupino, who was one of the few women directors in the Hollywood of the 1950s. The film seems unnecessarily hard on the mother, treating her with disdain rather than understanding how suffocated her existence must be in the conservative 1950s which didn't offer much options for women. There are worse things than being the world's woman tennis champion! Kenneth Patterson is sympathetic as the husband and father who isn't quite the dupe he's made out to be. Lupino and Robert Ryan pop up in cameos as part of the crowd at one of the tennis matches. With William Hudson and Joseph Kearns.