Carol Reed’s The Key must be one of the most forlorn
of all English-language films from the 1950s.
Despite its pristine black-and-white Cinemascope photography, it is
permeated with a looming dread and a madness that threatens to erupt at any
moment. Following up from his role in
the previous year’s British WWII film The Bridge on the River Kwai,
William Holden plays David Ross, a somewhat cynical Canadian sailor sent to aid
the English tugboat brigade, a group tasked with the virtually suicidal job of
rescuing naval ships being torpedoed by Nazi subs. Unarmed, the tugs are not only sitting ducks
but are even used for target practice by German trainees. David's old friend Chris (the even more
worldweary Trevor Howard), is a fellow boat captain who is shacked up with the
mysterious Stella (Sophia Loren) in a flat on the top floor of a seedy
apartment building. Stella is severely
damaged emotionally, probably clinically depressed, due to her succession of
affairs with sailors who have been killed in action. She keeps a photo of the first next to her
bed and his engagement ring on her hand; and Chris, followed by David, seem to
be mere surrogates of this original lover.
Because she is quiet, beautiful, maternal and (most importantly)
sexually available, this string of men see her as a respite in a terrifying and
bleak world, and don’t care much about her personal problems. Only David makes some effort to really get to
know her and inquire about her past. In
ways similar to Lean’s River Kwai, The Key is a downbeat answer
to all the propagandistic films about war since the 40s. The hero has the shakes due to battle trauma
and at one point flatly refuses to fulfill an assignment; (though ultimately he
proves a strong leader when the chips are down). Director Carol Reed isn’t usually listed
among the major auteurs, but he was one of the finest directors of his era,
creating such sober and mature masterworks as The Fallen Idol (1948), The
Third Man (1949) and Outcast of the Islands (1952). Even his later, more Hollywood-friendly
movies like Trapeze (1956) and The Key still showcase his
allegiance to the Pure Cinema principles shared by his more famous fellow Brits
of the same generation; Powell, Lean and Hitchcock.
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