Hard Traveling

{{Use mdy dates|date=February 2026}} {{Infobox film | name = Hard Traveling | image = | caption = | director = Dan Bessie | producer = Helen Garvy | based_on = {{Based on|''Bread and a Stone''|Alvah Bessie}} | writer = Dan Bessie | starring = {{Plainlist| * J. E. Freeman * Ellen Geer * Barry Corbin }} | music = Ernie Sheldon | cinematography = David Myers | editing = Susan Heick | studio = | distributor = New World Pictures | released = {{Film date|1986|8|27|New York City|ref1=<ref name=nyt/>}} | runtime = 98 minutes<ref name=lat/><br>99 minutes<ref name=nyt/> | country = United States | language = English | budget = | gross = }} '''''Hard Traveling''''' is a 1986 American drama film written and directed by Dan Bessie and starring J. E. Freeman, Ellen Geer and Barry Corbin. It is based on the 1941 novel ''Bread and a Stone'' by Alvah Bessie, the father of Dan Bessie.<ref name=nyt/><ref name=lat/>

==Premise== Illiterate and unemployed, Ed Sloan marries widowed schoolteacher Norah Gilbert and becomes the stepfather of her two sons; but after not being able to find employment, Ed ends up murdering a businessman.

==Cast== *J. E. Freeman as Ed Sloan *Ellen Geer as Norah Gilbert Sloan *Barry Corbin as Frank Burton *James Gammon as Sergeant Slattery *Jim Haynie as Lieutenant Fisher *Charles Martinet as District Attorney Cobb *W. Scott DeVenney as Bill Gilbert

==Reception== Walter Goodman of ''The New York Times'' gave the film a negative review and wrote, "A true story? Sure. It's true to an ideology-generated fiction that was always false to life and to art."<ref name=nyt>{{cite news|author=Walter Goodman|title=SCREEN: 'HARD TRAVELING,' A 40'S TALE|date=August 27, 1986|newspaper=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1986/08/27/movies/screen-hard-traveling-a-40-s-tale.html|accessdate=July 9, 2021|quote=The leisurely movie, which opens today at the Embassy 72d Street, is just as plain as a Saturday Evening Post illustration.}}</ref>

Kevin Thomas of the ''Los Angeles Times'' also gave it a negative review and wrote that the film "is all the more disappointing because it so clearly could have been so much better."<ref name=lat>{{cite news|author=Kevin Thomas|title=MOVIE REVIEW : 'HARD TRAVELING' NOT WORTH THE TRIP|date=September 12, 1986|newspaper=Los Angeles Times|url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1986-09-12-ca-12043-story.html|accessdate=July 9, 2021}}</ref>

==References== {{reflist}}

==External links== * {{IMDb title|0089255}} * {{Rotten Tomatoes|hard_traveling}}

Category:1986 drama films Category:American drama films Category:1986 English-language films Category:1986 American films Category:English-language drama films