La clé sous la porte

Clark Gable and Loretta Young star in "Key to the City," a 1950 film featuring Frank Morgan, Marilyn Maxwell, and Raymond Burr.

Young plays Clarissa Standish, a somewhat uptight small-town mayor who attends a gubernatorial convention in San Francisco and runs into the somewhat wilder Mayor of Puget Sound, Steve Fisk (Gable). Before you know it, the two are innocently involved in one scandal after another, the first when a night club they are in is raided, and the second when they're both wearing Halloween costumes and a policeman thinks Fisk is trying to force himself on a young girl, Clarissa being in a little girl costume. Despite Clarissa's exasperation with Fisk, she falls for him.

This is a cute, predictable comedy starring two of the most attractive people from Hollywood's golden era, both of whom still look great, but who are now forced into inferior fare. Films were competing with television, so they were trying to be more like television, right down to the black and white film. This was the type of film producers gave older actresses: Claudette Colbert, Barbara Stanwyck, Joan Crawford, Bette Davis, and Young; all but Colbert and Crawford would go on to have tremendous success in television.

One bad section: the fight between Gable and Burr. The doubles for them were horrendous,looking nothing like them, making the scene ridiculous.

Mildly enjoyable, with the performances by Gable, Young, and Morgan elevating it.

Ordinary comedy of note more for its cast than any special quality the film itself possesses. Gable and Loretta Young are reunited for the only time after their torrid affair on the set of Call of the Wild resulted in a secret child who was one of Hollywood's most notorious open secrets. This was also Frank Morgan's final completed film, he started work on the disastrous Judy Garland version of Annie Get Your Gun but suffered a heart attack and passed away before the film was restarted with Betty Hutton. As for this picture's story its a bunch of silly nonsense of misunderstandings but the cast give it a game reading and Gable and Young have a good on screen rapport.

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.

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.

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.