Key to the City

This is a very entertaining film with two great actors, Clark Gable, (Steve Fisk) and Loretta Young,(Clarissa Standish) who performed like magic together in this film. These two actors made this film a great success with lots of laughs, romance and drama. In real life, Clark Gable and Loretta Young had a baby and kept it a secret until many years later. This warm feeling between these two actors made this film even more enjoyable. Frank Morgan, (Fire Chief Duggan) gave a great supporting role and lots of comic fun to this film along with Marilyn Maxwell, (Sheila) who played a sexy role as a platinum blonde who did a balloon dance with the balloons all being exploded. Raymond Burr, (Les Taggart) plays a rough and tough longshoreman who gets into a big fight with Steve Fisk. There is nice old scenes from San Francisco and this is truly a great film classic from 1950.

In this romantic comedy from MGM and director George Sidney, there's a mayors convention in San Francisco, and small town Maine mayor Clarissa Standish (Loretta Young) encounters Puget City mayor Steve Fisk (Clark Gable). Steve is a rough-and-tumble ex-dockworker with a boisterous attitude, while Clarissa is a prim and proper Ivy League graduate and the niece of a famous judge (Lewis Stone). Naturally the two opposites attract, but not before getting into all sorts of trouble, some which will be exploited by Steve's political opponent Taggart (Raymond Burr).

I enjoyed bits of this comedy that often flirts with outrageousness. The assemblage of Gable, Young, Lewis Stone, Frank Morgan, and James Gleason may of seemed like a lineup from a 1930's film. This was Frank Morgan's final film, as he died even before its release, and Lewis Stone didn't look too far away from the end, himself. But everyone puts on their game face and tries to seem like they're having fun, even with the uncomfortable pairing of Gable and Young, given their history that's now public knowledge. I must say that I never expected to see a fistfight between Gable and Raymond Burr. Rhett Butler trading uppercuts with Perry Mason is the stuff of odd dreams.

Fifteen years earlier Clark Gable and Loretta Young did Call of the Wild for her studio which was then 20th Century Fox. They had a most discreet affair which resulted in the birth of Young's daughter Judy. Back in those days Young indulged in an elaborate charade and 'adopted' her own daughter as a single mother.

Nothing quite as earth shattering as that happened on the set of Key to the City which was made for Gable's MGM. Still it's an interesting comedy drama about a pair of small city mayors who meet at a convention in San Francisco and fall in love.

Young is a proper New England mayor from an old stock family in Wynona, Maine. Gable is mayor of the small city of Puget City on the Pacific coast and started out as a longshoreman. He ran on a reform ticket, but the special interests that he beat are still very much alive and represented here in the person of sinister Raymond Burr.

It's a convention and people kind of let their hair down at conventions, Clark and Loretta are no different. And San Francisco is quite the romantic town.

One of MGM's most beloved players, Frank Morgan, plays Gable's fire chief complete with brogue and all. It was one of his last films and Morgan kind of borrows a bit from Ed Wynn and his famous Texaco fire chief from radio.

Also featured well is Lewis Stone as Young's uncle, a federal judge and a most proper and aristocratic gentlemen and Marilyn Maxwell who Gable rejects for Young and is determined to get a little payback. Highlight of the film is the chick fight going on between Young and Maxwell while Gable and Burr are slugging it out.

Key to the City is not on the top ten or even top twenty of either Clark Gable or Loretta Young's film credits. But it is still quite amusing even after almost 60 years.

Key to the City (1950)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Coming fifteen years after teaming up for THE CALL OF THE WILD, Clark Gable and Loretta Young finally made another film together even though both had remained at MGM over the course of time. Their love child from the making of that 1935 film might have had something to do with this but in this film they play Mayors who meet at a convention in San Francisco. At first, naturally, they can't stand one another but soon they begin to fall in love even though Gable is facing some heat in his political job. When you know the troubled history that Gable and Young went through it's somewhat amazing that MGM would force them into this film but what's even more amazing is that they turn in such fine performances and the charm that's on display here is the same that was seen in that 1935 film (which I highly recommend). That's certainly the sign of great actors but it's a shame that the studio, knowing the trouble, wouldn't deliver a better screenplay. This is certainly another example of great actors having to work their tails off to make material seem a lot better than it actually is. This certainly isn't a bad movie because it does have several good moments but with these two stars you'll be hoping there was more here. What does work is naturally Gable and Young, both extremely charming and making the film fun to watch. The two work perfectly well together as both make you believe their characters and makes you believe everything they do. The supporting cast is also quite good with Raymond Burr as Gable's political rival, Frank Morgan (in his final film; he died before this was released) sweet as the fire chief and Lewis Stone. The screenplay makes a few bad mistakes including the silly political stuff that ends with a pretty over the top sequence inside of Gable's office at the end. This political stuff also keeps Gable and Young away from one another, which is another mistake as it's them carrying the film. Fans of the two stars will certainly want to check this out but others will find much better films from the two.

This movie is pretty good but falls into a period of Glark Gable's career when many of his films just looked like they were quickly churned out and could have been a lot better if they had a little bit better writing and if there was more energy to the film itself. In other words, Clark Gable and cast seem more like they are going through the motions to get a paycheck and this film offers nothing particularly new or exciting. In fact, the film is a step back because the plot seems even more trivial and forgettable than most of his films of the day. You would think that with Loretta Young and Clark Gable you'd get a film that is more than just a time-passer--particularly when you think of how marvelous they were together in CALL OF THE WILD. This film is for fans of Gable or Young but is pretty skipable for others.