Keeper of the Flame - 1942

Keeper of the Flame (1942) is a daring examination of the existence of fascism in this country. We had come late to the fight against fascism in Europe, and in wartime it was easy to identify those monsters.  But this movie takes a hard look at American fascism. We were not safe from it then; we are not safe from it now.  However, Hollywood, that fantasy factory that brought us so many upbeat, escapist movies prettied up by the Production Code, could still be remarkably vigilant when it came to the depiction of American ideals on screen—when they were being maintained and when they were not.

This is the fourth film in our series on the treatment of fascism in classic films.  We’ve already discussed the foreign-born variety in The Mortal Storm (1940), Address Unknown (1944), and then our home-grown variety among racist thugs in Storm Warning (1951).  Today we take up a film that tackles the notion that the bad guys aren’t always the ones in the propaganda posters, and that fascism often comes to us from the minds, and wallets, of rich and powerful people.  Evil in our midst is always a tricky subject. The audience does not like being preached to; the studio does not like being accused of taking a partisan political position, in order to protect its bottom line.  It was reported that studio head Louis B. Mayer was not happy with this film, feeling it equated fascism with wealth.

But Keeper of the Flame, directed by George Cuckor, brilliantly transcends that with an eerie mystery story, a moody and atmospheric setting, and stellar acting. It is an early example of film noir.

Spencer Tracy stars as a reporter, a foreign correspondent just back from Europe where things have become too hot for him to remain. Though we had many terrific political correspondents back in that era, for me he brings to mind William L. Shirer, whose Berlin Diary was published soon after Mr. Shirer left his political beat in Germany when things got too hot for him. His voice was one of the earliest to warn a complacent America on the danger of Adolf Hitler’s powers of seduction.

This post also serves as our entry into the TCM Summer Under the Stars blogathon, hosted by Kristen Lopez at Journeys in Classic Film. Today is Spencer Tracy day on Turner Classic Movies, and though Keeper of the Flame is not on the roster, this move is a great example of his cool, understated acting, and of how Tracy, however troubled he was in private life, or what private demons he fought ( or didn't fight), embodied the image of the decent American. He was quiet, cool, contemplative, intellectual in a sort of masculine regular-guy way. He could be wry, sarcastic, but his characters were basically humble, even if he didn't take any guff from anybody.

It was as if he could see straight through any situation and see the truth of it.

But in this movie, he has a little trouble getting down to the truth.  Keeper of the Flame is probably my favorite in the Tracy-Hepburn partnership.

Yes, Kate’s in this one, too, and I think it is one of Katharine Hepburn’s best roles, though many feel she is too passive a character here. I like her work in this film for its hesitancy, its reserve. We are used to seeing her bounding through a set like a gazelle. In an unusual twist, she commands our attention by trying to avoid it. We don't know if she's stuffy, haughty, reclusive, or just deeply hurt.  She’s photographed beautifully here, and her grieving widow is, like Tracy, played in an understated manner that complements her enigmatic character.

The cinematography is splendid, and the telling of the story reminds one of Citizen Kane (1941).  We begin with screaming headlines and the sudden, shocking death of Robert Forrester, a much-beloved national figure, as his car plunges into a ravine one stormy night. We don’t know much about him, but bit by bit through the film the layers are peeled away and we have a better picture of him through the people that knew him best: his employees, his household staff, his mother, and his wife—Katharine Hepburn.  Even the great man’s home, a large, remote, wooded estate, is reminiscent of the “Shangri-La” of Charles Foster Kane.  Yet, there are even darker tones here, and it is not just the stormy weather.

Spencer Tracy comes to the nearby town where the great man lived where tributes are being paid, and a flurry of reporters are trying to beat each other’s time to get inside scoops, spinning flowery prose on the loss to the country.  The funeral is witnessed by thousands. Tracy, a great admirer of the great man, is also here to pay his respects.  He is not here to write any stories; he has had enough of politics in Europe.  He’s back home in the U.S. for the first time in years, and he’s looking forward to kicking back and relaxing.

His reporter colleagues include a competitive Stephen McNally, who we’ve covered in previous villain roles, but here he was in his first year of film acting, in, amazingly, his 11^th bit part of 1942.

Especially delightful is Audrey Christie as a wisecracking “girl reporter,” who teases the Production Code by helping out Tracy, who needs a room, by inferring to the desk clerk at the local hotel that she and Tracy are married.  The flippancy of the reporters adds a lot of fizz and sparkle to the early part of the movie and throws us off the scent.  We might be prepared to think we are entering a romantic comedy, but very soon, and quite unexpectedly, a mystery pops up.

It is entirely due to Tracy’s powers of observation. In all the throng watching the funeral procession, he is most curious about a young boy, clinging to a lamppost to get a better view, sobbing over the death of the great man.  Tracy comforts him, befriends him, and soon finds himself roaming around the great man’s estate because the boy has found a secret entrance for him.

The boy, very well played by Darryl Hickman, is the son of the great man’s gatekeeper, played by Howard Da Silva.  He is making himself sick over a sense of guilt because he did not warn the deceased that the bridge was out, which led to the great man’s auto crash. Soon, Tracy finds himself on a hunt for some truth—but he doesn’t know what. He only senses that there is a greater story going on, one that he is reluctant to cover, but that he cannot ignore.

Through the mysterious, rather bitter, remarks of the gatekeeper, through a bizarre stolen interview with the great man’s vague mother, played by Margaret Wycherly, and through the careful wall put up by the grieving widow, Tracy slowly finds himself smack in the middle of a huge conspiracy. The great man may have been murdered. At least, that’s what his mother thinks. “Men like Robert aren’t killed by accident. They’re stabbed in the back.”  She doesn’t like her daughter-in-law at all.

Now Tracy is compelled to ferret out the truth he can no longer ignore, not just because he is a reporter and that’s his job, but because he admired this man so deeply, that it is a matter of honor to avenge his death by bringing the murderer to justice.

But his mother also drops another odd remark: “Big people have big houses and little people work for them.”  It turns out to mean a lot more.

Clues point to the grieving widow.

Spoiler time.  Go get yourself a snack if you don’t want to hear.  But if you’re going to stay and listen, then pour yourself a stiff drink.

Kate knew the bridge was washed out that night.  She could have warned her husband.  She chose not to.

Tracy, who has been falling for her a little bit, impressed and almost transferring his hero worship from the deceased to his valiant widow, is gobsmacked and disgusted. He’s only too happy to turn over this venomous—but wait. There’s more.

It doesn’t come out all at once, that’s the brilliance of this film.  Like Tracy, we must become observant searchers of the truth.  We cannot just sit back and be entertained with a mystery story, we are obligated to participate, to assemble the jagged puzzle pieces in our mind and come to terms with what we cannot possibly believe.

Kate unwillingly, as one sickened, relates to Tracy her realization in the early years of her marriage her discovery of her husband’s populist fascism. “They didn’t call it fascism.  They painted it red, white, and blue and called it Americanism.”

His supporters were private individuals who wanted power, but couldn’t get it democratically.  The campaign was a tapestry of hates. Hates for Jews, for city dwellers, for Catholics, for blacks, which appealed to the Ku Klux Klan.

“What was really shocking to me was the complete cyniscm of the plan. Each of the groups was simply to be used until its usefulness was exhausted.”  Again, as we mentioned earlier in this series, the cannibalistic nature of fascism that attacks its own.

“In the end, all the poor little people who never knew what the purpose they were lending themselves would be in the same chains.”

Tracy, coming to terms with the shock of this news about his hero, merely whispers his name, “Robert Forrester.”

Miss Hepburn adds, like a whimper, “He envied the dictators.”

Tracy whispers again, in horror, “Robert Forrester.”  His hero.

Hepburn’s further revulsion intimates a greater, more personal horror for her in her humiliating marriage, where she was, “A poor creature who couldn’t give him sons.” It’s a long speech, which she delivers delicately, with levels of awe and shame.

When she failed to warn her husband of the collapsed bridge, it was a moment’s decision. His paid saboteurs were waiting for his cue to begin the plan of taking over the government. His chief lackey and henchman is his oily and conniving secretary, played by Richard Whorf, who is terrific in the role.

Also look for Percy Kilbride as a laconic cab driver, and Forrest Tucker as Kate’s ne’er do well cousin in an excellent supporting cast.

“Now he’s in your hands,” she tells Tracy.  The great man’s legacy, as well as the weakness of a great society to be exposed is a terrible crisis. She tried to keep his murder secret not to protect herself, but to protect the country from tumbling off into the ravine, too, in its blind devotion to a con artist.

Tracy counters, “People are not children. Sometimes they act like children when you get them scared or confused, but down in their hearts they know and they’re not afraid. They want the truth, and they can take it.”

It is a speech for the ages, and the hope on which I pin the outcome of the coming presidential election and the millions of Trump supporters who are apparently blind to his lack of integrity, his lack of intelligence, and the evil of the man.  Are they, too, lacking in integrity and intelligence?  Are they, too, evil?  I don’t know.  Like Hepburn, I, too, am horrified at the danger my country is in.  But like Tracy, I have hope in the basic decency of the American people, and I feel that courage is needed now more than ever to face the crisis.

Hollywood faced this issue unblinkingly with a fictional character. (We see another treatment in director Frank Capra’s Meet John Doe, covered previously here.) Movies today ignore the elephant in the room.

It ain’t over ‘til it’s over.  The evil henchmen step in to salvage the planned takeover of the government, and Tracy and Hepburn are trapped by fire, shot at, and one is them is murdered.  The ending gives us a comforting bit of flag-waving as the bad guys are exposed and the country is safe now that it knows the truth.

But our country knows the truth, and yet it is not safe. There are too many who do not care about the truth.  Fascism is too appealing to them.

Hitler would have been right at home at the Republican National Convention. It would have been a bizarre, but strangely comforting, homecoming for him. Trump campaign signs hammered into American front lawns would have made him smile.

Come back next week when we wrap up this series with Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas in a frightening and fascinating treatment of a planned military coup in Seven Days in May (1964) here. 

For more on entries in the Summer Under the Stars blogathon, have a look here.

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My audio book version of Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star., narrated by Toni Lewis, is now for sale on Audible.com, and on Amazon and iTunes. 

Free for All - 1949

Free for All (1949) is a comedy set in postwar Washington, D.C. about a country bumpkin who comes to the U.S. Patent Office to register his formula for turning water into gasoline.  So many elements of this movie are timely today, including the suppression of the idea by a greedy Big Oil company, but the film, despite some clever aspects, never manages to fire on all pistons. It’s most egregious fault is putting Ann Blyth in a role (the daughter of the Patent Office manager) for which any young ingénue just starting out in her career would be appropriate.  She's just too good for this part.

Though Ann was around twenty-one when this movie was filmed, she already had an impressive string of strong dramatic and comedic achievements as an actress under her belt (Mildred Pierce; Swell Guy; Another Part of the Forest; A Woman’s Vengeance; Mr. Peabody and the Mermaid; Once More, My Darling) playing opposite Hollywood’s top actors.  She is simply wasted here as the secretary Bob Cummings doesn’t have the nerve to ask out on a date.  It’s really Bob’s movie, and she’s just along for the ride.

Second billing...to Bob Cummings.  

Mr. Cummings, though some eighteen years her senior, still manages to project a bumbling boyishness that is sweet and appealing, though I couldn’t help but think that somebody like Gary Cooper or James Stewart would really run away with a role like this.  Cummings plays it utterly without any sex appeal, and just sort of sad.  I’ve always preferred him in dramatic roles, though much of his career, especially his turn as the star of his own TV sitcoms, was spent in comedy.  It’s his sadness, his take-a-deep-swallow-and-face-it-like-a-man quality that I find poignant in dramatic roles, but in this, what is supposed to be a very silly romp, it just seems to slow down the movie, without any real chemistry between him and Ann Blyth.  However, she expressed in at least one interview her pleasure at working with him in the romantic scene at the end of the film when he gives her a few befuddled kisses, “Bob is boyish about it, laughing all the time and taking the seriousness out of it.”

By the way, they appeared together before this film in an adaptation of Charles Dickens' Great Expectations on the Lux Radio Theater in October 1947.

Bob comes to town from Ohio seeking to patent his idea.  Percy Kilbride, in a vacation from his Ma and Pa Kettle series, is the Patent Office manager and Ann’s pop.  Bob has no place to stay, so Mr. Kilbride, brings him home, which he opens as a rooming house to other inventors.  

Percy Helton, who we’ve seen in dozens of movies as sweet little men, here is very welcome as another daffy inventor.  They’re all daffy, apparently.

Bob meets Ann when the Rube Goldberg bathtub fixtures nearly drown him, and she comes to his rescue.  

She works as one of the girls in the office at the Big Oil company run by one of our favorite gruff businessmen, Ray Collins, who was so adept at both drama and comedy.  Here’s he’s purely comedic, but no less evil, greedily trying to steal Bob’s idea to quash it.

Donald Woods plays a junior executive in the oil company, who’s sweet on Ann.  His bumbling, rather bland style is almost a mirror of Bob Cummings’ character, and there’s really not much different between them, except Mr. Woods wears a wide-eyed look of surprise through most of this film that is a little strange.  He’s another fellow I prefer in dramas, most especially his turn in Watch on the Rhine (1943), and in one of my favorite Christmas-themed short subjects, Star in the Night (1945). 

When he comes to take Ann out, he hums the peppy, “You’re a Sweetheart”, the same song the dorky sodajerk sings in Sally and Saint Anne (1952) which we covered last week here.  Must the song of young men who don’t get the girl.  He wears a straw boater, so we’re not supposed to take him seriously.

Another minor characters are Dooley Wilson as Percy Kilbride’s butler, Russell Simpson as a farmer in a white linen suit and string tie, and Frank Ferguson, another fellow who I prefer in dramas, who made such a strong impression here in Caught (1949).

  

One bright spot is Willard Waterman, who plays a daffy naval commander.  He is unimpressed with the idea that a formula for turning water into gasoline would help the navy fuel its tankers at sea.  Percy Kilbride tries to convince him, “They could stay at sea for months at a time.”

“That would be very boring.”  His first command was a tanker.  “Ah, I can still smell her,” he remembers fondly.  Taking potshots at Big Oil, and representing the military as a bunch of obtuse and lazy morons is rather daring for 1949 (only a few years before we wouldn’t think of it), but this film, for all it lacks, shows us a sea change in the postwar era.  I love the shots of them driving on the practically empty highways, the old roads just before the Eisenhower era gave us the Interstate Highway System and we milked it into eight lanes of chaos.

One of the pleasures of the film is seeing Ann Blyth and Bob Cummings strolling around Mount Vernon, and the Washington Monument on the Mall sightseeing.  Movies were beginning to leave Hollywood more and more.  We get a relaxing view of what life was like after the war, with none of the postwar angst the noirs were selling.  Strangely, the very mood of complacence gives this movie a certain otherworldly feeling.

But the problems with the film keep it from being all it could be.  The writing is hit-or-miss, with some clever lines, but many comic situations seem forced.  The funniest part of the movie to me, apart from Willard Waterman, was when Bob Cummings, a bit loopy from being injured, calls Ann Blyth by the wrong name.  Simple, but it’s a great delivery.  The end, a goofy kiss with Bob dressed in a woman’s flannel nightgown (because he had earlier fallen into a well) is a pointless and rather desperate attempt at a laugh.

The actors are all fine in their roles, gamely pushing through a very uneven script, but the direction is weak.  One of the most noticeable problems is very sloppy editing, and I have to wonder if the print I saw (which is a very poor copy as you can probably tell by these screen caps) might have been edited for television decades ago.  I don’t think this one has ever been released to VHS or DVD, and probably never will.  I would say the idea of the movie’s story is good, but the execution is weak.

It had a Screen Guild Theater version on radio in January 1951 with Ann reprising her role, but I’ve not heard it and am not aware if it is available.  

By the time this movie was released in November 1949, Ann had already been working on her next film, Our Very Own (1950), which we’ll discuss in a couple weeks as part of the Classic Movie Blog Association’s Fabulous Films of the Fifties blogathon. 

Free for All had its world premiere in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and Ann appeared there for a four-day publicity tour.  I don’t know what particular connection Milwaukee might have had for this film, or if the studio shrewdly wanted to open this weak film out of town.  The New York and Hollywood press tended to come down rather hard on most films, but everyplace in between showed a gentler appreciation for movies, and were especially thrilled at visits from movie stars.  I expect the studio was trying to save Free for All with the good will Ann would generate by her visit.

She arrived by train Tuesday, November 1^st with her Aunt Catherine Tobin as chaperone.  You’ll recall from our intro post to the series here that Mr. and Mrs. Tobin came to Hollywood to look after Ann after the death of her mother. They were greeted by the Marquette University Band, the Homecoming Queen, and a crowd. She was given a bouquet of roses, and was taken from the train depot to the Schroeder Hotel (which is now a Hilton) in an open car while college boys trotted alongside and “tried to make dates.”  Reportedly, she “gushed” to her aunt, “Isn’t this exciting?”  

She was at the age to be a college student herself, but lived a very different life. One wonders what she made of that.  (In 1973 she would return to Marquette University to receive the McElligott Medallion, an award given to women of national prominence who advance the educational and cultural interest of women. She was presented the award by Jane Wyatt, who was the first recipient in 1963.  Miss Wyatt played her mother in Our Very Own.)

In 1949, her press was different.

“She said she particularly looked forward to riding in the Marquette University homecoming parade Thursday night.”

“A high voltage smile constantly plays across her face, but she does not affect the slinky movie screen appearance.  She is just a little Irish girl who sparkles with friendliness.”

A few months later, in February 1950, Ann took another public appearance trek to college and the Midwest with a visit to the two-day Mardi Gras carnival at Notre Dame University.  From their yearbook: 

“The successful 1950 Mardi Gras Carnival will always be remembered as the carnival at which glamorous Ann Blyth came, saw, and conquered the hearts of Notre Dame men. Miss Blyth ' s appearance on the final night, climaxed the two day Student Council  NFCCS affair held in a colorful Navy Drill Hall. Miss Blyth drew the winner of the Buick Riviera, visited several of the booths, and joined with the Glee Club in singing several numbers."

This was perhaps the occasion she sang with the glee club at a benefit before a crowd of 20,000 at the Chicago Stadium,with Pat O'Brien.

From the school paper, the Scholastic: 

"It isn't every day that a movie star visits the campus, and when Miss Ann Blyth appeared at the carnival last week, WND engineers were on hand with their brand new tape recorder. The machine was apparently in good shape that night, because Miss Blyth's interview by Ed Farrell, as well as her rendition of "Toora Loora" and "When Irish Eyes Are Smiling" were flawlessly recorded for posterity. The station is considering transferring the tape onto records, if enough souvenir hunters and/or Ann Blyth fans on the campus would want to acquire same."

I'd love to know if anybody still has any of these recordings. 

She wasn't through with college.  We mentioned the honorary doctoral degree she was awarded from St. Joseph's College in Emmitsburg, Maryland in our post here.  In 1969 she received an honorary degree from the University of Portland, Oregon.

But back in November 1949, her Milwaukee tour schedule included radio interviews, three performances at the Warner Theater on Friday where Free for All would premiere, and an appearance at the Wisconsin Education Association meeting at the Milwaukee Auditorium.  She attended a press conference at the old Schlitz Brown Bottle restaurant, which had been founded in the late 1930s and was a famous eatery in Milwaukee until it closed, I believe, some ten years ago.  We have a ringside seat courtesy of the Milwaukee Sentinel:

“Wearing a simple, light green tweed suit, the short jacket edged with a dark green braid, Ann Blyth, movie star, chatted with local folk…She’s mighty pretty, with a clean scrubbed look, minus all affectation, and not too excited about the usual things you expect a young girl to be interested in.

"Her exquisite mink coat was tossed lightly over her shoulders, and her hair, worn in a long bob, was topped by a small, deep red velour cloche with a tiny veil.”

Buck Herzog, syndicated film critic, gave a diplomatic good review to the film,

“There are moments when the action might have been stepped up, but for the most part, Free for All runs a merry course….”  He also notes that the funniest part of the film is when Percy Kilbride takes the idea to the military, “It kids Washington in an hilarious manner.”

Interestingly, Mr. Herzog shows us just how little the general public knew of Ann’s ability to sing at this time (having forgotten, apparently, about her early Universal teen musicals).  It would be another two years before she sang in The Great Caruso (1951) and launched her MGM makeover, and most of her singing was limited to benefits local to the Los Angeles area.

Ann “surprised capacity audiences who believe her talents to be limited to looking pretty and acting.  She sings, too, and pleasantly.  She sang several current hits, of which “Bali Bali” [sic] from South Pacific was most enthralling.”

That alone might have made the trip worth taking for Ann.

Come back next week when we drop back to 1946 and her first film after Mildred Pierce, and after her year-long hiatus due to injury.  She's the town tramp…in the sinister Swell Guy.

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Dome Yearbook, 1950, University of Notre Dame, p. 307.

Knight Digest, Knights of Columbus, Union Council 4504, Union, New Jersey, November 1969, p. 1.

Milwaukee Journal August 22, 1949, syndicated article by Sheilah Graham, “Much Kissed Ann Blyth Says She Has Never Felt Romantic”; November 1, 1949, “Official City Delegation Hails Western Mayor in Mink Coat”, p. 2; November 2, 1949, “Blythely She Floats to City, and City Bows to Irish Eye.”, p. 1; February 1, 1973, "Marquette Women to Honor Ann Blyth", part 2, p. 5; March 18, 1973 article by Beth Slocum, "Jane Wyatt a Spry Aunt Polly", 

Milwaukee Sentinel, “Free for All Premiere to Be in Milwaukee,” October 31, 1949, p. 6.; November 2, 1949, “Ann Blyth, Star of Film, Pretty Picture in Tweed,” p. 9., November 5, 1949, “Review of New Shows” by Buck Herzog, p. 6.

Notre Dame Scholastic, March 3, 1950, p. 5
Toledo Blade, September 28, 1949.

University of Portland online almanac: http://www.up.edu/almanac/print.aspx?cid=4117&pid=1467

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THANK YOU....to the following folks whose aid in gathering material for this series has been invaluable:  EBH; Kevin Deany of Kevin's Movie Corner; Gerry Szymski of Westmont Movie Classics, Westmont, Illinois; and Ivan G. Shreve, Jr. of Thrilling Days of Yesteryear.

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UPDATE:  This series on Ann Blyth is now a book - ANN BLYTH: ACTRESS. SINGER. STAR. -

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The audio book for Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star. is now for sale on Audible.com, and on Amazon and iTunes.

Also in paperback and eBook from Amazon, CreateSpace, and my Etsy shop: LynchTwinsPublishing.

 "Lynch’s book is organized and well-written – and has plenty of amusing observations – but when it comes to describing Blyth’s movies, Lynch’s writing sparkles." - Ruth Kerr, Silver Screenings

"Jacqueline T. Lynch creates a poignant and thoroughly-researched mosaic of memories of a fine, upstanding human being who also happens to be a legendary entertainer." - Deborah Thomas, Java's Journey

"One of the great strengths of Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star. is that Lynch not only gives an excellent overview of Blyth's career -- she offers detailed analyses of each of Blyth's roles -- but she puts them in the context of the larger issues of the day."- Amanda Garrett, Old Hollywood Films

"Jacqueline's book will hopefully cause many more people to take a look at this multitalented woman whose career encompassed just about every possible aspect of 20th Century entertainment." - Laura Grieve, Laura's Miscellaneous Musings''

"Jacqueline T. Lynch’s Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star. is an extremely well researched undertaking that is a must for all Blyth fans." - Annette Bochenek, Hometowns to Hollywood

Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star. 
by Jacqueline T. Lynch

The first book on the career of actress Ann Blyth. Multitalented and remarkably versatile, Blyth began on radio as a child, appeared on Broadway at the age of twelve in Lillian Hellman's Watch on the Rhine, and enjoyed a long and diverse career in films, theatre, television, and concerts. A sensitive dramatic actress, the youngest at the time to be nominated for her role in Mildred Pierce (1945), she also displayed a gift for comedy, and was especially endeared to fans for her expressive and exquisite lyric soprano, which was showcased in many film and stage musicals. Still a popular guest at film festivals, lovely Ms. Blyth remains a treasure of the Hollywood's golden age.

The eBook and paperback are available from Amazon and CreateSpace, which is the printer.  You can also order it from my Etsy shop. 

If you wish a signed copy, then email me at JacquelineTLynch@gmail.com and I'll get back to you with the details.

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Congratulations to John Greco on publishing his collection of film noir essays from his great blog in Film Noir at Twenty Four Frames Per Second, now available at Amazon.