'The Glass Key' is an early representative of the film noir style and the Ladd-Lake pairing of jointly undersized leads. It has sequences of brutal physical confrontation and stand offs with very little use of weapons. Brawn and bottles are the instruments of injury and intimidation for almost all the films violence.
There are some wonderfully sleeze filled and compromised characters, dialogues and plot machinations as well as a murder mystery plot thread that compromises the relationships of most of the characters.
Almost all the characters portrayed are compromised morally and situationally by their circumstances and the unfolding events of the plot.
But personally I can only rate a good 6/10; probably a 6.5/10 to be accurate because there's a central issue if suspension of disbelief that 'The Glass Key' doesn't achieve for me.
For all it's highlights and engaging features, of which it genuinely has many, the whole is less than the sum of it's parts in my mind.
I think that the problem is the protagonist as a characterisation, and his perspective on the film's narrative that we follow via Ladd's character Ed.
Simply, as I saw it, the film is trying to make him a hero: it is always backing away from him being a full blown anti-hero; and it really undersells and undermines the whole ambience and drama of 'The Glass Key'.
He's a good chap in a shady world, dragged in by his boss to whom he has an unfathomable bond, seldom touched on, and never seriously broached.
This leaves a gaping hole in the atmosphere and the dramatic validity of the rest of the film.
The ending, conventionally happy and trite, as entirely befits the time frame in which the film was made; and was almost certainly, I would guess, a studio imposition from the get-go; fits the protagonist better than it should. Redemption and resolution befit his character and everyone else bends to this end.
This falsity in the treatment of the protagonist is why a film with so many enjoyable film noir parts doesn't go beyond a "genuinely good" level to a superior score in my assessment.
Technical credits are nice and high with action, stunts, make up and sets being very good. Photography and lighting are satisfactory in their early 40's design and the director gets mostly what's required from the actors and scenes.
With an honest approach to the protagonist this scheming, sleezy and strikingly violent early film noir could have been an absolute classic.
As it is, it's worth watching for any film fan, I rate a 6.5/10, and I recommend it!
There are some wonderfully sleeze filled and compromised characters, dialogues and plot machinations as well as a murder mystery plot thread that compromises the relationships of most of the characters.
Almost all the characters portrayed are compromised morally and situationally by their circumstances and the unfolding events of the plot.
But personally I can only rate a good 6/10; probably a 6.5/10 to be accurate because there's a central issue if suspension of disbelief that 'The Glass Key' doesn't achieve for me.
For all it's highlights and engaging features, of which it genuinely has many, the whole is less than the sum of it's parts in my mind.
I think that the problem is the protagonist as a characterisation, and his perspective on the film's narrative that we follow via Ladd's character Ed.
Simply, as I saw it, the film is trying to make him a hero: it is always backing away from him being a full blown anti-hero; and it really undersells and undermines the whole ambience and drama of 'The Glass Key'.
He's a good chap in a shady world, dragged in by his boss to whom he has an unfathomable bond, seldom touched on, and never seriously broached.
This leaves a gaping hole in the atmosphere and the dramatic validity of the rest of the film.
The ending, conventionally happy and trite, as entirely befits the time frame in which the film was made; and was almost certainly, I would guess, a studio imposition from the get-go; fits the protagonist better than it should. Redemption and resolution befit his character and everyone else bends to this end.
This falsity in the treatment of the protagonist is why a film with so many enjoyable film noir parts doesn't go beyond a "genuinely good" level to a superior score in my assessment.
Technical credits are nice and high with action, stunts, make up and sets being very good. Photography and lighting are satisfactory in their early 40's design and the director gets mostly what's required from the actors and scenes.
With an honest approach to the protagonist this scheming, sleezy and strikingly violent early film noir could have been an absolute classic.
As it is, it's worth watching for any film fan, I rate a 6.5/10, and I recommend it!