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Friday, June 18, 2010

The Glass Key-- A Study In Evil

A power hungry politician (Brian Donlevy)is falsely accused by a greedy gangster (Joseph Calleia) of killing the son of a very wealthy man who is running for governor. Donlevy wants to marry the sister (Veronica Lake) of the dead man so, for some strange reason, he chooses not to respond to respond to the accusations being made against him which are appearing daily in the city newspaper. Donlevy's right had man and friend (Alan Ladd) does not believe he committed the murder. Thinking the greedy gangster is setting his friend up, Alan Ladd tries to get a job working for the gangster.

The gangster does not believe that Alan Ladd would betray Brian Donlevy so he orders one of his henchmen (William Bendix) torture Ladd to get information on what steps Donlevy is taking to prove that he did not commit murder.

The questions I had as I watched this excellent 1942 video recording which can be found at Tacoma's Main Library are: who killed the wealthy man's son; why was he killed; will Veronica Lake marry Brian Donlevy...
This film is easily a two bags of popcorn delight. Check out one of the very exciting moments of the film below.

4 comments:

Kim Thompson said...

Hi! I love movies like this! My grandma told me that she was always told she was a Veronica Lake look alike back in the day! She WAS! I would love an afternoon with AMC watching this stuff.

JosephMcG said...

Kim and other film noir lovers:

check out this website... you've got the old time head busting movies there for free...

http://www.archive.org/details/Film_Noir

then either kindle, amazon, or contact the public library and check out this hard writing noir creaor... Martyn Waites... he's brought the noir genre right into
today's bookland!!!!

Stephanie Frieze said...

Dave & I love noir! This is one I will have to look for. Thanks, Joseph!

Kim Thompson said...

Great tips!