The Glass Key (1935)

Simply A Masterpiece

good back-story, and good acting

It's funny watching the elements come together in this complicated scam. On one hand, the set-up isn't quite as complex as it seems, but there's an easy sense of fun in every exchange.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

This 1935 version of The Glass Key is not often seen, the 1942 film with Alan Ladd, Veronica Lake, and Brian Donlevy is far better known. Still this one has some interesting features, notably for the one and only time in his career George Raft played a Dashiell Hammett hero.It is one of the legends of Hollywood that George Raft turned down three of the roles that made Humphrey Bogart a legend, High Sierra, The Maltese Falcon, and Casablanca. The middle one of these was taken from the Dashiell Hammett novel and Ed Beaumont is very much like Sam Spade.They have the same laconic personality, but unlike Spade who is a partner in a detective agency and for hire, George Raft as Beaumont is the personal retainer and fixer for political boss Edward Arnold. And Arnold is heading for some trouble. He's decided to join the 'reform' element in his town headed by Senator Charles Richman and that does not please gangster Robert Gleckler who has had a working relationship with Arnold up to this time. But Arnold who has worked his way up from poverty sees a chance at respectability and the thing that makes him interested is Claire Dodd who is Richman's daughter and who plays along with Arnold's interest in her for her father's sake.At the same time Richman has a wastrel son in Ray Milland who has added Arnold's daughter Rosalind Keith to his list of conquests. He's needing some money real bad to pay off gambling markers to Gleckler. Later on Milland winds up dead and suspicion falls on Arnold. It's up to Raft to investigate and get him out of the jackpot.Three big changes from this version of The Glass Key are readily apparent. First in the 1942 version the daughter of Arnold becomes the sister of Brian Donlevy played there by Bonita Granville. Secondly the character of Emma Dunn is here as Arnold's mother, the mother isn't in the 1942 film. Finally a most unfunny comic relief character in this film played by Tammany Young is dropped altogether from the later film. Otherwise if you know what happened in that film the same occurs here with the same ending.But the leads are the exact same, tightlipped and tough. George Raft and Alan Ladd are just about the same as actors except for hair color. Veronica Lake is a bit more sultry than Claire Dodd, but then again she was more sultry than most of the women ever born on planet earth.I think Donlevy convinced himself in his version that he was really in love with Veronica Lake. Arnold whose character mouths the words was married before and now that he's a widower is looking for that all important trophy wife this time around.It's hard to choose between Guinn Williams and William Bendix who played the sadistic Jeff who was the button man for Gleckler. Williams could be brutal in films if he had to, though most of the time he played amiable lunkheads. There's no element of latent repressed homosexuality in Williams's performance as there is with Bendix however. Although both versions from Paramount of The Glass Key standup well today, it's really a pity that Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall never got to do this story. It would have been perfect for both of them.

This is before noir. There aren't any noir elements in it. But there is something else: the type of tough guy that would become a staple. It seems to have started with Hammett. We already had the loyal man, strong and true and sometimes coming back from a beating. But this guy's a rascal, womanizer and gambler. A tough guy dedicated to someone who by ordinary standards isn't worth it. George Raft is as good in this as Bogart ever was later after the type had been established. The story is pretty interesting too if you make allowances for the bizarre coincidences, the circular personal connections and the trite resolution. What's interesting is the twist. By itself, it is ordinary, but Hammett seems to have known that the twist also has to reinforce the types because the whole thing is about the types.This surely is not the first time a hoodlum is portrayed sympathetically. But it is the first time I know that it is done well and integrated with the structure of the story. There's a particular scene worth noting. Our hero was nearly beaten to death by a big thug. He escapes. This really was brutal.Later, he goes to a bar where he knows this guy is. The thug is drunk. They to an upstairs room by themselves to have some more drinks before the thug plans to finish off Raft. We know this thug has just violently killed a simple man. Raft is supremely cool and of course comes out more than okay. If this were noir, he wouldn't; he wouldn't be in control. But this is an anti-noir where a human can be in control. He is.Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.

This early adaptation of Hammett's novel is not as well known as the Alan Ladd version but is very much worth seeing. Different in some ways, eerily similar in some ways, it's usually a little more raw than the later remake (the car crash that opens the film is still jarring today). And as the other reviewer notes, it has all the classic noir elements. Definitely worth seeking out.

In the unlikely event that the term "film noir" means anything, it must be the meeting of the US detective film and the sinister Germanic look.The process can be seen well and truly evident in this rarely seen version of the Hammet story. This one has the down beat view of human nature, sinister nocturnal scenes, notably Raft's discovery of Ray Milland's body and the grim shadowed world of thug Williams in his best rôle.Neglected in favour of the Alan Ladd version which borrows from it - disposing of the stroppy brother with a kick on the shins, the dog attack - this one plays better because it's easier to believe Arnold is running a city and for director Tuttle's use of comedy actors like Irving Bacon, in serious material. Raft as Ned Beaumont, the minder, fits right in here.Notice the significant difference is the presence of the mother character in the space that the fiancée takes in the later film. The spectacular auto stunt opening gets things moving rapidly too. This one doesn't work up the intensity of the best of the forties thrillers - no erotic smolder and feelings of growing doom but it's still a good viewing that stands with the best crime films of its day.