Okay…not really being sure as to how these things work, I’m going to go with my favorite Plan B: talk and hope someone’s listening. First, an explanation of the title of this blog: throughout all of high school, I’ve been a big reader of books about the movie industry (yes, I also watch the movies I’m reading about. Bite me). But I’ve read–and I really hope these aren’t more of those delightfully copious rumors spawned by and about classic film stars–that both Greta Garbo and Marlene Dietrich had decidedly lesbian leanings and even tended to be a little butch. Therefore, the title of this blog is a tribute to that early twentieth century openness of sexuality and all mental images that it inspires (come on, Garbo a lesbian? Think about it).
Now, on to something a bit less lecherous. We finished The Glass Key in class today. May I be harsh? The only reason that movie is even remotely watchable is because of the underlying themes and the fact that it is based on credible material. Even the star pairing that probably made it a good business investment at the time is a bit hard to swallow now, although it’s still easy to see that Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake both had a definite charisma and star quality. Still, the one thought that was left in my mind at the end of the film was that if we’re going to watch a genre-salad type movie inspired by a hardboiled detective story with a famous pairing, then, by God, we watched the wrong one.
Because this movie was so incredibly reminiscent of The Big Sleep, the 1946 film starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall and inspired by the novel of the same name by Raymond Chandler. Except The Big Sleep is, I think, everything that The Glass Key is and more: an even more convoluted plot, even more palpable sexual tension between the two main leads, okay, probably just an equal amount of genres thrown in there, but still. I don’t think I could even give a one-sentence summary for either film, and in that complexity lies both their best selling points and their greatest faults. I just remember The Big Sleep coming off as a better film overall. It had that popping dialogue so characteristic of many films in the 1940s, the snapping one-liners that, especially when given to Humphrey Bogart and characters like him, just totally defined cool. And Lauren Bacall was like a stronger, more sophisticated version of Veronica Lake, with the come-hither eyes and vodka voice but more confident, less a waif and more a star.
The one area in which The Glass Key triumphs over The Big Sleep in my opinion is in the area of subversiveness. I need to watch it again to make sure, but I can’t remember there being such dangerous subtext lingering in the scenes of The Big Sleep. I would be very interested to know if there were.