Review of Keeper of the Flame

I recently watched "Keeper" on TCM. It was one of two Tracy-Hepburn films I had never seen, and I would rank it as the least successful of their films together. Director George Cukor and cinematographer William Daniels give this movie the full-out Gothic treatment, with obvious allusions to both "Citizen Kane" and "Rebecca." With its dark, "Citizen Kane" lighting, its heavy-handedly sinister atmosphere, its creepy Xanadu/Manderly-like fortress-mansion, its mad mother in the dower house (an interesting variation on "Jane Eyre"), its inexplicably hostile and secretive characters (including Richard Whorf as a worshipful male equivalent of Mrs. Danvers), its bizarrely ambiguous performance by Hepburn (is she mad, evil, a murderess, a faithful grieving widow, part of a cover-up conspiracy, a dupe?), it is certainly something to behold. But lacking any subtlety, it's just not that good. Hepburn's first appearance, dressed in white from head to toe and bearing an enormous bouquet of white flowers--more like a bride or vestal virgin than a grieving widow--as she glides toward an idealized portrait of her dead husband, borders on the camp. Only Tracy's consistently understated performance as the reporter and Percy Kilbride's incongruously comic turn as the skeptical Yankee cab driver withstand this ponderous approach. Hepburn's long final monologue, in which she reveals the truth about her dead husband to Tracy, is awkwardly declamatory and politically vague. I would recommend the movie for Hepburn-Tracy completists; just don't expect a very good film. For the record, to me the top Hepburn-Tracy movies are 1)"Adam's Rib," 2) "Woman of the Year," and 3) "Pat and Mike." The first and last of these were also directed by Cukor, but with a decidedly lighter touch.