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"The Key Hole" is one of those "If you've seen one, you've seen them all" type films, though it's certainly not bad. Francis plays Ann Brooks, married to a wealthy man (Henry Kolker).

Ann was married before, to Maurice (Monroe Owsley) who never got the divorce he promised her and is now blackmailing her because of it. She works out a scheme with her sister-in-law Portia (Helen Ware) to lure him out of the country, and then Portia would use her influence to have his visa taken away.

As part of the plan, Ann heads for Havana by ship, with Maurice following. Her suspicious husband has hired a detective, Neil Davis (George Brent) to try and seduce her, and along with Brent comes his spy, Hank Wales (Allen Jenkins). Wales meets Dot (Glenda Farrell), and these two provide the film's humor.

Well, you can guess what happens.

Kay Francis wears many fabulous gowns. I used to think the kind of lifestyle her character lived was just in the movies until I saw a 1930s Vogue magazine. What a formal time that was, with people dressing to the nines for lunch and to do any kind of traveling.

Almost all the ads in Vogue were for trips on ocean liners. We've come a long way, and I'm not sure that's a good thing.

Anyway, the film is predictable, but Francis is good, as are Jenkins and Farrell. Brent is very smooth and charming.

Kay Francis made these films by the truckload, and I have to admit I watch them when they appear on TCM. She really epitomizes that early '30s era for me - an era that has not one vestige of it visible today.

THE KEYHOLE has a clear plot hook, strong characters (you love 'em or hate 'em), non-static cinematography and colorful details that keep you entertained from the first frame. A number of Kay Francis movies had a similar plot structure: wealthy, beautiful, fashionable, sophisticated woman with man problems, usually triangular, but in this case quadrangular. Michael Curtiz keeps this one moving at a fast clip. In this particular plot, Francis's nasty ex-husband (Monroe Owsley) is blackmailing her while her jealous, aging current husband (Walter Kolker) hires a dapper private eye (George Brent) to follow her to make sure she's not seeing another man and of course Brent and Francis fall in love. Allen Jenkins (as Brent's dopey sidekick) and Glenda Farrell (as a crooked golddigger) are on hand as comic counterpoint to the lead players. Francis is charming as usual, exhibiting her trademark "look" - the raven hair swept back to show off her natural widow's peak, the unique eyebrow penciling that curves around her melancholy eyes, and the statuesque grace; and of course her character goes through about 15 costume changes in the 69-minutes of running time (a different drop-dead outfit for every segment of the day). The public inevitably tired of her, which is why she is forgotten today; she was more interested in her salary than in the quality of her roles, as she freely admitted. But when she was in her prime, wow, what a prime. Moving with feline grace in backless satin gowns, she is phantasmal and ravishing, yet still earthy, accessible and even vulnerable. You can't look away. So what if she couldn't pronounce her r's?

You just need to see a few seconds of this and you know exactly what you're getting. It's the sort of movie that can only be an early thirties Warner Brothers: wonderfully corny, fast moving fun.

Did the writers sit around a table playing a game of 'who can come up with the daftest story?' In this lovely chunk of 1930s life, a millionaire tests his wife's fidelity by seeing if gigolo, George Brent, whom he's hired to seduce her can tempt her into bed..... and to pointlessly over complicate things, she's also married to someone else as well. Only in pre-code!

It's no classic but it is classic Warner Brothers, encompassing every trope you'd associate with that studio - great stuff! The cast is also the classic ensemble of cold-hearted rich folk, a slightly shady hero, Kay Francis doing the thing she always did, an idiot friend, a saucy gold-digger and a Captain Hook type villain - only the bumbling Irish detective is missing.

If you enjoy those cheap and tacky Warner pre-codes which are nevertheless professionally made (Michael Curtiz was in the chair here) or just watching Kay Francis doing what Kay Francis does, this should float your boat.

Kay Francis was always watchable. George Brent for me was more variable, but in the right role he could be good. Need to see more of Glenda Farrell's work, but in the not enough already seen she came off well. Haven't seen enough of Allen Jenkins either, but from what has been seen when his material was good and gelled well with everything else he was fine. Always have considered Michael Curtiz a fine director, am not going to say what films of his are favourites of mine as it will sound too much of a broken record.

While 'The Keyhole' is watchable and Francis (not unexpectedly) and Brent (was not quite as certain) come off well, it didn't strike me as a particularly great film. In my mind it's lesser Curtiz too, as it was not material to properly engage in and not enough of his style comes through, this had a still settling feel instead. Some good things here and they are actually quite great, but 'The Keyhole' also has some serious drawbacks that in my mind are even more obvious.

Francis is glamorous and sophisticated and never plays her role too heavily. Brent is very charming, giving one of his most suave performances, and has a strong presence. Their chemistry is witty, endearing and elegant as one expects typically from golden age romance, so the romantic angle of the story convinces very much. Monroe Owsley is suitably oily and Farrell is amusingly brassy. Most of the cast come off fine.

'The Keyhole' also looks lovely, especially Francis' gowns which she looks quite a sight in. The music fits well with the tone of the film without sounding stock. There is some nice wit in the chemistry between Francis and Brent and the story tends to go at a lively pace.

Despite that, the story is predictable and can be nonsensical. Capped off by a suddenly introduced and that's it ending that makes one go what. Curtiz's direction usually has a lot more spark and style than here.

Script is uneven, often sparkling with Francis and Brent but flat too much everywhere else. Also agree with not seeing the point of Jenkins' character and Jenkins feels too out of place.

A just above average film but not great. 6/10

Kay Francis is being blackmailed by her first husband, Monroe Owsley, who seems straight out of an early silent movie, his villainy and makeup are so overdone. He does everything but twirl his mustache.

Unfortunately he never got divorced from Francis, who unknowingly married rich old Henry Kolker. Owsley is blackmailing her - she decides to go to Cuba, where apparently he will stranded on foreign soil. Francis poses as a single woman to avoid publicity.

Meanwhile, suspicious husband Kolker hires handsome detective/gigolo George Brent. There's a funny scene where we first meet Brent having set a governor's wife in a compromising position with him. Hearing there's a police raid, all of the men pour out of the rooms. When the elevator operator asks, "First floor, Mr. Smith?" all of the men go "Yes!" Brent's behavior is kind of uncomfortable. He stalks and pesters Francis throughout the ocean voyage and in Cuba, attempting to seduce her. She does her best to fend him off without telling him that she's married. But he refuses to take no for an answer. Francis even takes a room on another floor to avoid him but he founds out her room number and shows up. So does Owsley. So does Kolker, who is finally suspicious enough of Brent to fly there.

I'll leave it at that. Everything ties up nicely, even though Francis seems oddly unbothered that Brent was paid to seduce her. Brent is too boyish - I kept thinking how much better William Powell would have been. Allen Jenkins and Glenda Farrell lend comic support.

Her gowns are spectacular, a big part of why the film is enjoyable. There's a costume change in every scene!

Woman gets blackmailed by her old dancing partner-hubby, whom she married when she was young but broke up after which she gave him ten grand for a quickie divorce.

Then she marries a much older millionaire only to have the dude return to reveal he didn't obtain the divorce after all. Now he wants fifty grand to keep quiet.

A scheme is cooked up to get him out of the country so his visa can be revoked. Private dectectives hired to spy on the wife, whose sugar daddy is suspicious she's doing something naughty.. All kind of shenanaganz ensue.

It's not a bad pre-code. Not as racy as some pre-code, but there is some adult-ish material. Especially for the day.

Yes, it's a bit slow, but a preety decent flick.

Peeping through THE KEYHOLE we find an unhappy wife who sails to Cuba to shake off a blackmailing former lover, not knowing that her millionaire husband has sent a handsome detective to compromise her...

This elaborately plotted little picture is a very fine example of the kind of film Warner Bros. produced so effortlessly in the 1930's. Frothy, a bit silly & fun, it boasts entertaining performances and good production values. Depression audiences sat through scores of movies just like this, generally well made, but with interchangeable plots & stars.

Kay Francis & George Brent handle the romantic situations very nicely. Sophisticated & charming, they keep their stock characters from ever becoming dull. The humor is supplied by brassy blonde Glenda Farrell as a gold digging shill & dumb-as-dirt detective Allen Jenkins.

Henry Kolker as the suspicious husband, Helen Ware as his elderly, sympathetic sister, and Monroe Owsley as the oily Lothario, all add to the fun in their supporting roles. Especially enjoyable is little Ferdinand Gottschalk, appearing in only one scene as a comically flirtatious old banker.

Movie mavens will recognize sour-faced Clarence Wilson as the head of the detective agency.

There are so many elements of the storyline for THE KEYHOLE that were obviously re-worked years later for 1948's "Romance on the High Seas," Doris Day's first starring vehicle directed by Michael Curtiz, who is the director here.

This one too is about a suspicious husband who hires a private detective to follow his wife when she sails off to Cuba. Only big difference is that she's escaping the clutches of a former lover who wants to blackmail her. Naturally, it's the perfect set-up for KAY FRANCIS to wear fancy gowns and to carry on an affair with GEORGE BRENT, who is the man her husband hires to keep an eye on her.

It's predictable stuff, very formula and with the usual weak comedy support from GLENDA FARRELL and ALLEN JENKINS in an attempt to put some much needed life into the script. It doesn't work.

There are very few Curtiz touches in the direction but the photography is fluid and the sets are fairly interesting. Still, it's a minor item when you view it as a typical Kay Francis vehicle in the early '30s.

Was there any pre-Code actress more cooly glamorous than Kay Francis? The story that has her a married woman trying to resist the charms of a private detective (the less than amazing George Brent) who's trying to entrap her is pretty average fare, but it's livened up a bit by a con artist (Glenda Farrell) taking advantage of his assistant (Allen Jenkins), getting drunk on champagne cocktails among other things. In fact, this is one where I might have been more interested in the subplot of the supporting players.

The main story is set in motion because Francis's character is being blackmailed and she feels she can't tell her husband the truth, so he suspects her of having an affair. Without going into all the details, it's a pretty contrived scenario that leads her to Cuba. Aside from Francis's wardrobe and a glimpse of an airplane (the seating section for which was amusing to me) there aren't really a lot of interesting period details, and don't come here expecting any pre-Code naughtiness. Rather predictably, the detective and the woman begin developing feelings for one another in the moonlight, which I'm not sure I was really rooting for. The ultimate fate of the sinister blackmailer (the well-cast Monroe Owsley) was a nice touch though.

Henry Kolker suspects his young wife, Kay Francis, of having a lover. She is taking ship to Havana. So Kolker hires PI George Brent to shadow her and get the goods on her. What neither of them suspect at this stage is that the real issue is that Kay Francis is still married to her first husband, slimy Monroe Owlsley. Her plan is to get a divorce in Havana. She doesn't expect Owlsley to follow her to put on pressure, nor to fall in love with Brent, and he with her. That's just the inscrutable workings of fate and the Warner Brother script department.

It was originally planned as another team-up between William Powell and Miss Francis. I expect it would have worked better that way. Nonetheless, Brent acquits himself well. So does Allen Jenkins as his assistant. He falls for b-girl and kickback artist Glenda Farrell in a nice little comic subplot. Still, the focus is on the leads, with Miss Francis sporting her usual variety of Orry-Kelly gowns and portrait photography by Barney McGill.

Anne Brooks (Kay Francis) is married to a wealthy financier about twenty years older than herself. She was previously a dancer, and at a very young age married her dancing partner, Maurice LeBrun (Monroe Owsley). She found out he was a slime ball, and so when he asked for a divorce she was all for it. But he never got that divorce, and now he's blackmailing her over the fact that her marriage to Schuyler Brooks is not legal.

Ann goes to her sister-in-law, Portia, who comes up with a plan. Ann will lure Maurice out of the country by going on a ship voyage. Then Portia will use her connections in the federal government to get Maurice's visa revoked on grounds that he is an undesirable alien so that he cannot get back into the country. Then Ann can go get the marriage to Maurice annulled quietly.

But Schuyler, not knowing any of this, has separate plans of his own. All of Anne's skulking about, going to see Maurice secretly to try and stall him and keep him quiet have Schuyler believing Anne may be having an affair. He hires PI Neil Davis (George Brent) to follow Anne on her voyage and find out if she is the cheating kind. So far this sounds rather mundane, except that Neil has a natural skepticism towards women and their fidelity, and if he can't FIND infidelity, he sleeps with the women himself so that the husband has something in the way of evidence to take to court. But during the long time he is getting to know Anne, he begins to fall for her and determines that she is actually a good woman. Complications ensue.

The - I guess you'd call it courtship - between Anne and Neil takes a large part of the middle of the film, and it is rather slow going compared to the fast moving beginning and ending. Plus it doesn't show any of those Curtiz flourishes. It does show the great chemistry between Brent and Francis, and their later scripts were much better paced and suited to them.

Allen Jenkins, as a PI himself, actually helped this film, and he definitely livened up the rather slow middle as he struggles to be Neil's valet as a cover story for him being onboard the ship with him. But he also catches the eye of Dot (Glenda Farrell) who is a rich young woman on the ship. What does she want with Jenkins? Watch and find out.

There's a great bit of business towards the beginning where Jenkins goes to a hotel and warns a bunch of "Mr. Smiths" that there is about to be a raid. All of the Mr. Smiths leave their hotel rooms and head for the elevator at the same time.

Reviewer Ipeterson's headline below, "Kay's pretty but the movie is average", could read as the professional epitaph for Ms. Francis who was in more mediocre films than any other good actress I can think of. This is a representative sampling.

Kay Francis plays a woman being blackmailed by a former partner (Monroe Owsley). She discovers that he never got the divorce he promised and her new marriage is illegal. Hatching a scheme with her sister-in-law (Helen Ware), she flees to Havana, hoping the cad will follow. He does but so does the detective (George Brent) her husband hires to spy on her. Wild storyline becomes more believable as the film goes on because of the chemistry between Francis and Brent. Good support from Glenda Farrell, Allen Jenkins, and Clarence Wilson. This ranks as one of Kay Francis' best women's pictures of the early 30s--with One Way Passage and Confession.

"The Keyhole" starred Kay Francis which tells me just about all I need to know. She's either going to be the mistress to some married guy or she'll be married with a lover.

It began with her surreptitiously meeting a man named Maurice Le Brun (Monroe Owsley). Right away I figured she was married and stepping out on her husband with Maurice. Then it was revealed that Maurice was blackmailing Anne Vallee (pronounced val-lay) Brooks (Kay Francis), but why? Most likely because she'd been caught with another man, but I'd have to wait to find out.

It turns out that she used to be married to Maurice and he never granted her a divorce, yet she was now married to Schuyler (pronounced "skyler") Brooks (Henry Kolker). If she didn't give Maurice $50,000 he'd spill her secret.

After seeing Schuyler I knew that Ann was bound to leave him. He was an older, unattractive man. His only asset was his wealth and that doesn't mean a whole heckuva lot in a romance. So, who would Ann cheat on Schuyler with?

Ann wanted to go to Cuba to get her marriage with Maurice annulled thereby breaking his hold over her, but she couldn't tell Schuyler. She asked Schuyler for permission to go to Cuba alone and he granted it to her, but he also sent a private detective along to spy on her. He didn't know why she wanted to go to Cuba, but he was highly suspicious of her.

Once I saw the private dick I had all the data I needed. The private eye was a young, handsome man named Neil Davis (George Brent) and he had "love maker" written all over his face. The rest of the movie was just a matter of how and when they were going to hook up, not a matter of if.

"The Keyhole," even with the blackmail twist, was still another Kay Francis, society romance piece which is old hat. It's still stuffy people in suits and gowns drinking copiously and spending their time entertaining or being entertained.

Free on Odnoklassniki.

Anne Brooks (Kay Francis), wife of business tycoon Schuyler Brooks, is being blackmailed by her former husband Maurice Le Brun. She reluctantly makes another payment. Despite promises, he is unlikely to leave her alone. She travels to Havana followed by private eye Neil Davis (George Brent) who has been hired by Brooks.

Brooks may be suspicious, but he has a right to be. The marriage is in trouble mostly due to Maurice. Without an overtly bad marriage, I'm not really rooting for its dissolution. In the end, I don't know how much chemistry can Davis develop by tapping away at his typewriter. I'm not really loving the love in the love triangle. I'm not loving the hate either.

This also wants to be a comedy but it is only coming out of Dot and Hank. It's a side story with good hustle mechanics. This movie is borderline for the most part until the end. It all depends on how it ends. Something happens and I don't like it.

I've been watching Kay Francis for decades and this is one classy lady. Her career can best be compared to Greta Garbo, as they both experienced enormous success in the 1930s and a decade later left Hollywood, retired, never to be seen again. Fortunately, their films are still with us.

THE KEYHOLE is pure escapism. And let's face it, this would not be a Kay Francis movie without a dynamic wardrobe to match. Bottom line, whether you're going to dinner or going to jail, you must be dressed to impress. This is IT. Also, a few years before his pairing with Bette Davis, earnest George Brent was Francis' leading man, and in fine form here playing a detective, who --quite naturally -- falls for this beautiful lady in distress.

Kind of a corny plot, but it all comes smoothly together, because it's a Kay Francis movie. Best of the best at Warner Brothers are the supporting players. Who else but wise-cracking Glenda Farrell and Allen Jenkins are added to the cast to work their magic, and they do.

Michael Curtez directed, but considering the talent, the wisest thing he probably did was not get in their way and just let it flow. A real treat to watch from beginning to end. These 30s movies truly are like old friends who never wear out their welcome.

10 Stars.

Always on remastered WB dvd. Thank you so much to TCM for running this gem.