This "Key" Is Hard To Fit, But It Does If You Persist
Added 2/14/2009
This is one of a handful of films I kept giving chances to like and finally did on the third viewing. Maybe I expected too much on the first viewing, when I first began to appreciate film noir and had become a fan of Veronica Lake. In The Glass Key, though, Lake didn't have her usual snappy dialog, and that was one of the disappointments, along with too-confusing a storyline.
By the third viewing, I guess I finally understood what was going on in this Dashielle Hammet story. Hammet's stories weren't always the easiest to understand.
Even with knowing what to expect, William Bendix in this film still is so brutal in here he almost makes me uncomfortable. Well, he DOES make me uncomfortable. He plays one of the meanest, sadistic thugs I have ever seen on film and one of his punches literally knocked out Alan Ladd when they were filming this.
Brian Donlevy is perhaps the best character in here as the slightly-corrupt politician. It's an okay Ladd-Lake film but nothing special. If you're a collector of film noir, then you should have it, but don't expect the zip in here that the other Ladd-Lake noirs possessed. Speaking of that, it's a pity and an outrage this, and another Ladd/Lake/Bendix movie - The Blue Dahlia - are still not out on DVD as of early 2009.
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
|
Where's the DVD for this film noir classic?
Added 8/7/2008
This is one of my favorite films, and has the classic on-screen pairing of Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake.
And it's not available on DVD???
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
|
Veronica!
Added 3/21/2008
I think this is by far Lake's most enchanting appearance (although she's also very good in This Gun For Hire). Yowza! The chemistry with Ladd is magic. William Bendix is marvelous. Hoping for it to be on DVD some day...
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
|
VERONICA LAKE DESERVES DVD.....
Added 12/3/2007
WHEN OH WHEN ARE WE GOING TO BE MADE HAPPY WITH VERONICA LAKE ON DVD. THERE ARE SO MANY BAD GIFT SETS OUT THERE AND NOT ONE FOR THIS ALLURING BEAUTY. PLEASE LETS GET A BEST OF VERONICA LAKE AT LEAST!!! IF THATS NOT POSSIBLE THEN PLEASE RELEASE AS MANY OF HER MOVIES AS POSSIBLE.
1 out of 1 people found this helpful.
|
"The Glass Key (1942) ... Alan Ladd ... Paramount Pictures Film Noir"
Added 3/21/2007
Paramount Pictures present "THE GLASS KEY" (1942) (85 mins/B&W) (Dolby digitally remastered) --- Starring Alan Ladd, Veronica Lake, Brian Donlevy, William Bendix, Joseph Calleia & Bonita Granville --- Directed by Stuart Heisler released in October 23, 1942, our story line and film, In this Dasheill Hammett tale, Ladd stars as Ed Beaumont, the right-hand man to Paul Madvig (Donlevy), the head of the local voter's league. Madvig built his little empire by turning a blind eye and granting favors to low class criminals like Nick Varna (Calleia), but decides to back the reform candidate, Ralph Henry, in the governor's race after he gets a look at Henry's daughter Janet (Lake). Things turn ugly when Madvig tries to stop his baby sister (Granville) from dating Janet's brother Taylor (Denning), a young man with no future and a ton of gambling debts. When Taylor is found murdered, it's up to Ed to prove Madvig's innocence before Nick and his newspaper friends railroad Madvig into the big house as payback for all the trouble he's causing them ... Ed has his hands full trying to save Paul's future from the malicious machinations of his enemies, the circling curiosity of the police and the furtive attacks by his sister and Janet, proclaiming Paul's guilt to anyone who will listen --- Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake made 7 films together, "The Blue Dahlia" (1946), "Duffy's Tavern" (1945), "The Glass Key" (1942), "Saigon" (1948), "Star Spangled Rhythm" (1942), "This Gun for Hire" (1942) and "Variety Girl" (1947). "In Variety Girl" (1947), "Star Spangled Rhythm" (1942) and "Duffy's Tavern" (1945) they appear as themselves.
Under Stuart Heisler (Director), Fred Kohlmar (Producer), Dashiell Hammett (Book Author), Jonathan Latimer (.Screenwriter), Theodor Sparkuhl (Cinematographer), Victor Young (Composer (Music Score),Archie Marshek (Editor), Haldane Douglas (Art Director), Hans Dreier (Art Director) - - - - the cast includes Alan Ladd (Ed Beaumont), Veronica Lake (Janet Henry), Brian Donlevy (Paul Madvig), Bonita Granville (Opal Madvig), William Bendix (Jeff), Richard Denning (Taylor Henry), Joseph Calleia (Nick Vama), Frances Gifford (Nurse), Donald MacBride (Farr), Maggie Hayes (Eloise Matthews), Moroni Olsen (Ralph Henry), Eddie Marr (Rusty), Arthur Loft (Clyde Matthews), George Meader (Claude Tuttle) - - - - - Film noir is a cinematic term used primarily to describe Hollywood crime dramas that set their protagonists in a world perceived as inherently corrupt and unsympathetic...Hollywood's classic film noir period is generally regarded as stretching from the early 1940s to the late 1950s...Film noir of this era is associated with a low-key black-and-white visual style that has roots in German Expressionist cinematography, while many of the prototypical stories and much of the attitude of classic noir derive from the hard-boiled school of crime fiction that emerged in the United States during the Depression...the term film noir (French for "black film"), first applied to Hollywood movies by French critic Nino Frank in 1946, was unknown to most of the American filmmakers and actors while they were creating the classic film noirs..the canon of film noir was defined in retrospect by film historians and critics; many of those involved in the making of film noir later professed to be unaware at the time of having created a distinctive type of film ... featuring top performances from the '40s and '50s with outstanding drama and screenplays, along with a wonderful cast and supporting actors to bring it all together ... another winner from the vaults of almost forgotten film noir gems
SPECIAL FEATURES BIOS:
1. Alan Walbridge Ladd
Date of Birth: 3 September 1913 - Hot Springs, Arkansas
Date of Death: 29 January 1964 - Palm Springs, California
2. Veronica Lake (aka: Constance Frances Marie Ockelman)
Date of Birth: 14 November 1919 - Brooklyn, New York
Date of Death: 7 July 1973 - Burlington, Vermont
3 Brian Donlevy (aka: Waldo Brian Donlevy)
Date of Birth: 9 February 1901 - Cleveland, Ohio
Date of Death: 5 April 1972 - Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California
4. William Bendix
Date of Birth: 14 January 1906 - New York, New York
Date of Death: 14 December 1964 - Los Angeles, California
5. Stuart Heisler (Director)
Date of Birth: 5 December 1896 - Los Angeles, California
Date of Death: 21 August 1979 - San Diego, California
Hats off and thanks to Les Adams (collector/guideslines for character identification), Chuck Anderson (Webmaster: The Old Corral/B-Westerns.Com), Boyd Magers (Western Clippings), Bobby J. Copeland (author of "Trail Talk"), Rhonda Lemons (Empire Publishing Inc), Bob Nareau (author of "The Real Bob Steele") and Trevor Scott (Down Under Com) as they have rekindled my interest once again for Film Noir, B-Westerns and Serials --- looking forward to more high quality releases from the vintage serial era of the '20s, '30s & '40s and B-Westerns ... order your copy now from Amazon where there are plenty of copies available on VHS, stay tuned once again for top notch action mixed with deadly adventure --- if you enjoyed this title, why not check out VCI Entertainment where they are experts in releasing B-Westerns and Serials --- all my heroes have been cowboys!
Total Time: 85 min on DVD ~ Universal Home Video ~ (3/01/1992)
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
|
Lake Makes The Film Fun
Added 2/23/2009
This is a fairly humorous story with decent special effects, especially considering it was made over 40 years ago. The key ingredient for success in this film was Veronica Lake. She's known more for her peekaboo blonde locks and for starring with Alan Ladd in several hit film noir movies, but Lake was a good comedienne, too.
Susan Hayward does well playing a snotty woman and Cecil Kellaway always plays an interesting character. Frederic March plays opposite Lake and I wish I hadn't read Lake's biography in which she explains how much she hated March. In made the love scenes lose a lot of impact when I learned how "forced" those scenes were.
Oh, well. It's still a nice, lightweight comedy, nothing special but entertaining for the most part.....but it helps to be a fan of Lake, which I am. I'm surprised this movie still isn't availabe on DVD, at least here in Region 1.
1 out of 1 people found this helpful.
|
Father and Daughter
Added 6/29/2007
Cecil Kellaway makes I MARRIED A WITCH a scary film indeed, and I suspect that John Huston must have recalled Kellaway's portrayal when he undertook the role of the evil, incest-driven patriarch in Roman Polanski's CHINATOWN. Against all odds, Kellaway has kept his daughter to himself for 270 years, thanks to the Puritans who have condemned him to live, as a ghost, in the form of smoke, under a giant oak tree on the ancestral property of the Wooley family. And in turn Kellaway has cursed the Wooleys, ensuring that, in each generation, no man shall find happiness in love, all will be married to plain battleaxes.
Meanwhile Daniel (the warlock played by Kellaway) had Jennifer (his lovely daughter, played by the uniquely talented Veronica Lake) right where he wants her--he's the only man in her universe. When a lightning storm topples the tree, releasing father and daughter, it spells trouble for Daniel who risks losing the undivided love of his daughter, as, like Miranda in THE TEMPEST, she discovers a brave new world of cute guys and sort of begins to neglect dear old Dad. Daniel's fury is right out of the Chinatown playbook, and he tries everything he knows to break up Jennifer and her new love interest, Wallace Wooley (Fredric March, looking pretty dumpy only a few years after his killer sex appeal in the Wellman version of A STAR IS BORN).
Some will love Veronica Lake, some will be puzzled, but everyone must admit that in her early scenes, before love makes her more "human," she makes some of the oddest acting choices ever captured on film (Surrealist or otherwise). She employs a squeaky, oltrano voice, as though entrapment in an oak tree for centuries has blanched away her voice to mere oxygen. In her memoir, Lake told the story of how French director Rene Clair directed her from moment to moment, coaching and acting out her every phrase and expression, every mincing step. It is a performance more in bits and pieces than a whole, but it is extraordinary nonetheless. Readers of VERONICA, Lake's memoir, will also recall that she got tired of Freddie March always feeling her up during their scenes together and she arranged a rocking chair scene in which she managed to steer the rocker part right into his most vulnerable area. See if you can spot it in the finished film and look for his momentary expression of ghastly testicular pain.
1 out of 2 people found this helpful.
|
Delightful romantic comedy fantasy which shows all concerned at the top of their form...
Added 1/2/2007
Veronica Lake's fooling, charming, biting witch (released from the trunk of a tree by a freak lightning storm, she returns to upset the household and descendants of the man who had her burnt a few hundred years earlier) was a role that suited her to perfection: she was a spry, punchy little cockerel from Broolklyn - breeding ground of other feisty spirits such as Clara Bow, Barbara Stanwyck, Mae West and Susan Hayward - whose beauty hid brains, and whose brains worked fast to seize a chance and make the most of it... She also had an explosive temper which she unleashed on those bigger than she, in size and power, resulting of course in the destruction of her career... But in her youth these qualities supplied her an electric current that switched a lot of people on...
Veronica resented being known for her long blonde hair, but fame draws on strange things to single out one person for the attention of others: with Bette Davis it was acting; with Crawford it was staring; with Hayworth it was dancing and with Lake it was her silky hair... But regardless of the gimmick that drew us to her, it was the unrepeatable quality within which made a star like Veronica Lake imitated and loved - not for what she may have thought she could do, but for the fact that she was there to do it at all...
4 out of 5 people found this helpful.
|
