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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.

Keeper of the Flame is the answer to the trivia question, what film contained the only screen death for either Katherine Hepburn or Spencer Tracy in their joint projects.

This was their second teaming and after the comedy of Woman of the Year, they tried a change of pace with a melodrama. Pearl Harbor was still fresh in everyone's minds and so was the discredited isolationist movement.

It's chief spokesperson was Charles Lindbergh on whom the character of Hepburn's husband Robert Forrest was based. Lindbergh's too close association with Germany tarred him for the rest of his life.

Here Robert Forrest is killed right at the beginning of the film as he drives over a bridge that's ready to collapse. The death of Forrest brings out the grief of a nation and reporters flock to his Manderley like estate.

One of those reporters is Spencer Tracy who by some chicanery gains entrance to the place and meets the widow Forrest and her husband's chief aide Richard Whorf. The place reeks of sinister and Tracy's curiosity is aroused. He also meets Margaret Wycherly who is Hepburn's mother-in-law. She's one batty old dame. A far cry from Gary Cooper's mother a year before who Wycherly played in Sergeant York.

Hepburn seeks to preserve her late husband's reputation at the risk of her own in sending Tracy out on a red herring. He discovers the truth and how he does it and the result therein is the crux of the film.

Tracy and Hepburn are at their professional best working for the first time with George Cukor who later guided them through Adam's Rib and Pat and Mike. Richard Whorf is very good as the malevolent aide.

After over 60 years the film still packs a powerful dramatic punch.

I first saw "Keeper of the Flame" a few years after its original release (1942), probably around age 13, which would make it 1946. At the time of its release, it received mixed reviews at best. I, personally, was quite moved by it. Now, 53 years later, I've seen it again. Although the film is a bit dated and its central theme was better hyped at the time of its release, I believe it holds up fairly well. The film concerns itself with blind hero worship, as a mesmerized nation mourns the sudden accidental death of a national icon. A much respected reporter (Spencer Tracy), just back from Europe where he's witnessed the early horrors of World War II prior to U.S. entry into the conflict, has arrived just after the great man's tragic auto accident. He decides to write the hero's biography, so to immortalize his memory. While he manages to distance himself from the jostling pool of reporters, his biggest challenge is in seeing the great man's reclusive widow (Katharine Hepburn). In short, once the contact is made and the research process undertaken, we see the deceased as through a prism of characters: the eerily effective secretary (Richard Whorf); the down-home philosopher-cab driver (Percy Kilbride); the laconic and somewhat cynical doctor (Frank Craven, who observes of the mass hysteria: "Some of us held out;" a pouting cousin (Forrest Tucker), and an embittered caretaker (Howard Da Silva) who had been the hero's captain in World War I. Now, restricted physically by wounds he suffered, he has served the man he once commanded. He seems resentful of the man who saved his life in combat. The effect of unbridled hero worship on an impressioable young mind is captured in the caretaker's son (Darryl Hickman), convinced he is responsible for the death of his idol. His role becomes tedious, but is critical to the underlying psychology of the film.

Like the peeling of an onion, the film reveals layer after layer of the people in the life of a giant, his relations with them, and the passions stirred by his presence ... and his causes. We see that it is wise to temper emotion with information in selecting our icons. While Tracy and Hepburn are quite good in their roles, it is the supporting cast which drives the film. Whorf, Da Silva and Craven are outstanding in key roles. The Bronislau Kaper score and excellent black and white cinematography preserve the quality of the drama and help it through its dated moments.

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. ****