La flamme sacrée

Keeper of the Flame was made during the early days of World War II. It revolves around the life, beliefs, and death of one man but is a lesson for one nation, or one world, interested in the freedoms we were fighting for and the evils we were fighting against in 1942.

Spencer Tracy portrays a reporter-to-author who is to write the biography of a man recently deceased. The deceased was a very successful businessman who had launched a campaign for public office but was killed --- by accident, intention, or a combination of the two --- before he could claim his victory. And, it would have been a victory; The public was charmed by the man they believed embodied the American ideals of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness... or success. Hepburn plays the widow of this 'man of the people', and, as such, someone who must be interviewed by Tracy. The more questions Tracy asks of those near and dear to his subject, the fewer answers he finds. Our reporter eventually comes to believe there is one American ideal with which his deceased subject did NOT agree: The equality of all men, regardless of race or religion.

Ever the typical skeptical journalist, Tracy won't begin to write for publication until he can fully answer a few interesting questions: Who had this man really been? Had he been the steadfast and lone American patriot all believed him to be ... or had he been a member of an organization whose primary goal was to raise one ethnic, religious, and racial group above the rest? Had he really been killed in an 'accident'? And, if not, had he been killed by those who agreed or disagreed with his political motives?

Also of interest to our journalist: How well had Hepburn's character known her husband? Does she agree with his political agenda? How much does she really know about the 'accident' that killed him. And, most importantly, how far would she... or anyone else... go to make sure her husband was remembered as an honest American?

This movie is a mystery / political thriller / morality play / who-done-it. It is also a lesson to 'be careful what you wish for' and highly recommended.

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.

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.

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.