La llama sagrada

In the early days of the 1940's, America was being inexorably drawn into World War Two. During that time, there was a great national Isolationist movement which sought to keep America out of the global conflict. The strongest and perhaps the most influential figures which arose were America's heroes. Among them was famed aviator, Charles Lindbergh. Having visited Germany prior to the invasion of Poland, was convinced America could not win a war against Germany. This movie called " Keeper of the Flame " represents the views of the late Robert Forest, a rich industrialist, popular and civic leader who although groomed himself as a true American patriot, was in fact a 'sleeper' Fascist. Because he believed Forest was an American hero, Steve O'Malley (Spencer Tracy) a famous war correspondent, returns home. His mission is to write the biography of Forest. Instead, as he begins writing the story, he discovers that Forest's wife Christine (Katharine Hepburn) and her family is hiding a family secret which everyone wants to keep buried with the deceased. With Richard Whorf, Margaret Wycherly and Forrest Tucker in supporting roles, this mysterious film quickly becomes a spy vs spy drama. One which Tracy and Hepburn play to the hilt. Due to her association with her husband, I could not help but see Bogart in this movie. Nevertheless, this is a dark film which easily explains the title. Recommended to anyone wanting to recall why America eventually went to war. ****

This film is early in the Tracy-Hepburn canon, and not widely regarded as one of their best efforts. The thing is, coming out so shortly after their landmark Woman Of the year, it isn't properly a Tracy-Hepburn vehicle so much as a George Cukor-Donald Ogden Stewart movie in which they happen to appear.

It is the story of a newspaperman (Tracy) out to investigate the circumstances behind the death of a much beloved American hero, meets and falls in love with the man's widow (Hepburn)who, along with everyone else whoever knew the man, seems to be harboring some dark secrets as to the true nature of his character. The film owes some obvious debts to Citizen Kane in being the inside scoop on a recently deceased man presumed to be great but who was in actuality something else altogether. In its somber mood, forbidding mansion, enigmatic and generally paranoid aspect, Keeper of the Flame suggests Kane in many regards, but is, to be fair, its own film.

Tracy and Hepburn play their roles exceedingly well. The supporting cast is well-chosen, and Percy Kilbride does a nice turn as a cab-driver; while Margaret Wycherly is scarifying as the dead man's mad mother; and a young, Aryan-looking-as-all-getout Forrest Tucker scoots about on a motorcycle like he'd join Hitler's minions at the drop of a hat. Richard Whorf in what at the time must have seemed a 'daring' performance, plays a fussy secretary to the dead hero in a manner which suggests a combination of repressed mania and strong homosexual tendencies. His character is wholly unbelievable but awfully fun to watch.

The movie has a dark, gothic cast to it, and was obviously filmed on a studio back-lot, but the result is not so much unreality as the suggestion of a fairy tale or a fable strangely consistent with the film's intent, and hence satisfying, making its woods and country roads look at times like a weird and twisted perversion of a Norman Rockwell painting.

This film bears no resemblance to the other Spencer Tracy - Katherine Hepburn films. It is a very serious drama, with no hint of comedy.

And, while it sometimes veers into melodrama, it is a very important film that needs to be seen. It deals with the dangers of third columnists, those who, impatient with democracy, would bring fascism to this country. Meet John Doe hints at this as well, but not as powerfully as this movie.

Yes, it's melodramatic at times. But it tells, very well, a very important tale, one that we dare never forget.

Watch this movie, if you get a chance. And remember its message, which, alas, is for all times. Those with power, especially those who have acquired power through wealth, sometimes lose patience with democracy and want to by-pass it to get what they want. It is the function of a free press to expose them, and to save us from them.

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I just watched this movie again - I've seen it several times since I wrote the above review nine years ago, well before a certain real estate tycoon came to power. But that tycoon is not what I want to talk about here.

Reading over some of the other comments that have accrued since then, I see that for some the highly dramatic, indeed sometimes melodramatic style of the movie has been a problem. It's true: both in the way some of the actors - Hepburn, Wycherly - deliver their lines and in the way Cukor directed this film and had it lit, the movie comes off as a sort of Gothic horror story, like Frankenstein, about a mad man who wants supreme powers. I can see that that style may be off-putting to young people not accustomed to it.

It is also highly theatrical, even through it is adapted from a novel and not a play. In particular the final scene in the cabin between Hepburn and Tracy seems very much like a speech in a stage play. Hepburn's perfect enunciation contrasts with Tracy's equally clear but more natural speech. It's almost - almost - like a serious version of *Midsummer Madness*, the play that the movie *Auntie Mame* makes fun of.

Still, it would be a shame if the theatrical style of the movie put off modern viewers, since the message of this movie - and it very definitely has one - is so very important.

And that message is well told. It would have been easier, but much less effective, to present the newspaper reporter, Tracy, as suspicious of the great man, Robert Forrest, from the beginning. Instead, we get to watch him discover that his idol had feet of clay, even though that is not the truth he wants to find. Tracy does a great job of presenting that in the cabin scene, even while Hepburn is enunciating her long speech as if she were on stage. (Compare this scene with the end of *Amadeus*, where we watch the priest's ideals fall apart as his listens to Salieri recount the life behind his music and Mozart's.)

So I repeat my "must watch" recommendation from nine years ago. Even if the melodramatic style is not to your liking, it's worth paying attention to what this film has to say.

I'm sure anyone seeing this film will wonder just what is happening. This great cast made a very serious movie and were lines they could deliver powerfully dramatically and evenly to convey a whole range of emotions.

The plot is easily summarized. A reporter, O'Malley (Spencer Tracy) wants to write -- what? he's not certain -- a piece on an icon who people revere in the same way they might (say) Washington or Lincoln, The first part of the film is documents how to get to see the icon's wife. She's reclusive and her servants are dedicated to preserving her sanctity. What's behind this isolation? That in itself is a bothersome question for O'Malley. Something is not ringing right. She was the wife of a popular public figure. Why wouldn't she cooperate? As he digs, he finds he cannot write the story, at first because he does not know enough, and then because he knows too much of the wrong thing and finally because he suspects he does not know what is hidden from him and it is critical.

And as he untwists the Gordian knot that is presented to him, he finds there is duplicity and mendacity on every level. But nothing is as simple as it seems. Instead of writing about the icon, he picks the wife.

But that is not the depth of the film. The depth is revealed as we learn about the Hepburn character and Tracy's response. He moves from someone who can ignore genuine interest in him by a woman, (Audrey Christie), and seek his goal. What develops is first a genuine friendship followed by an admiration that transcends almost any other kind of relationship.

That is a very complicated situation to convey in the simple straight forward acting method of Tracy's (but he always manages to do what is required of him), and mysterious sophisticated quality that Hepburn always wears like some garment only given once by the gods who give such gifts.

This is not an easy exercise. Don't get caught in the datedness. Watch how the actors, directors and writers put together something that is admirable in its mixture of simplicity and complexity -- what others have called pealing the onionskin off the inion.

Tracy's speech at the end of the movie about the American public being able to handle the truth is a point that should be well taken by today's politicians. Nothing is worse than finding out you have been lied to. Instead of sweeping it under the rug, Tracy's character brings the deception to the forefront for all to see. We would all be better off if our media and representaives had the same courage.