Hellen I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much

Rio Hayward All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Anoushka Slater While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Marva It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

kidboots With "The Glass Key" George Raft bounced back in popularity after some of the worst reviews in his career ("The Trumpet Blows", "Limehouse Blues") and I agree with the other reviewers, it is a pretty good movie. It was supposed to be Dashiell Hammett's favourite of the books he had written. The nominal female lead was the delectable Claire Dodd. She could play any role - as long as it was high class - no "dese, dems and dose" for her. She could be the archest "cat" or the perfect secretary when she played Della Street to Warren William's Perry Mason. Unfortunately here she is not playing opposite George Raft, what sparks they could have made. She was in her snooty society girl mode and played Janet Henry, daughter of "above reproach" Senator Henry. She has also turned the head of genial Paul Madvig (Edward Arnold) who is sick of always being called upon to get shady characters out of scrapes - he wants to clean up the town and his act.His right hand man Ed Beaumont (Raft) is also concerned about Madvig's daughter Opal (insipid Rosalind Culli) who is a bit too friendly with Janet's ne'er do well and obviously cad of a brother Taylor (Ray Milland). When Taylor is found murdered "someone" implicates Madvig, who was known to have disliked him and Ed has an uphill battle trying to convince Paul that he is not the "Mr. Popularity" around town that he thinks he is. He even goads Paul into a fight to find out who that "someone" is. It wouldn't be a George Raft movie without some pretty realistic fight scenes including one with an attack dog and another where Ed gets out of a sticky situation by kicking his protagonist in the shins!!! Roughed up by a vicious thug (Guinn "Big Boy" Williams in the role of his career) who is no match for Ed in the "smarts" department. After another playful going over, Ed has to start a fire in the hideout and then crash through a roof to the safety of a family who promply call an ambulance.The "someone" is finally found - he is Schloss, brother in law of a driver involved in a nasty car accident who had gone to Paul for help only to be turned away. You do get a feeling who the murderer is but it is all wrapped up very nicely. Unfortunately Raft's leading lady was not vivid Claire Dodd but boring Rosalind Culli. Culli? Keith? Culli-Keith?? What was her name?? In fact the only reason she is now remembered is for the confusion with her name. As Rosalind Culli she was announced to appear in "The Glass Key", during the filming her name was changed to Culli-Keith but when the movie opened, hey presto she was Rosalind Keith!!!

MARIO GAUCI Crime novelist Dashiell Hammett is best-known for penning THE THIN MAN and THE MALTESE FALCON and, like the latter's original 1931 film version was completely overshadowed by John Huston's classic 1941 remake, the same fate practically befell another of his filmed works. In fact, the original 1935 version of THE GLASS KEY has been all but impossible to see until recently, while its 1942 remake was easily available on DVD in Europe. Although I do own a copy of the latter, it has been ages since I watched it last and cannot sensibly compare the two versions now; having said that, the credits for the original – director Frank Tuttle (who would later make a star out of Alan Ladd in THIS GUN FOR HIRE and whose next picture, ironically enough, was the aforementioned remake of THE GLASS KEY!), stars George Raft (this obviously made him the first choice for Sam Spade in the remake of FALCON, but he turned it down to Bogie's eternal benefit!), Ray Milland and Ann Sheridan, plus character actors Edward Arnold, Guinn Williams and Irving Bacon – are sufficiently interesting to merit its re-evaluation as a worthy precursor to the noir subgenre.Raft is influential lawyer Arnold's right-hand man who, carrying on from his own star-making turn in Howard Hawks' SCARFACE (1932), has an eye for his boss' sister; when the former decides to become the ally of the local political candidate (because he too has his heart set on the latter's sister!), everything starts to go wrong for him, especially after turning down the defense of a drunken motorist from a manslaughter charge and when setting his foot down on the nightclub owned by the local underworld kingpin. However, it is the politician's inveterate gambler son Milland who proves to be the catalyst for disaster as, ostensibly pursuing the affections of Arnold's daughter, he is truly after milking the girl out of her funds to satiate the aforementioned criminal with whom he is indebted. This state of affairs naturally pits Arnold and Milland at loggerheads and it is up to the quick-witted Raft to shuffle his boss out of a murder rap when Milland's corpse is found lying in the gutter one night after the latest scuffle with his prospective father-in-law! At one point in the narrative – in a brutal sequence anticipating the later ones featuring Dick Powell's Philip Marlowe and Ralph Meeker's Mike Hammer in, respectively, Edward Dmytryk's MURDER, MY SWEET (1944) and Robert Aldrich's KISS ME DEADLY (1955) – Raft suffers greatly at the hands of the criminal's chief henchman Williams (effectively cast against type) and, eventually, ends up in hospital where he is nursed by a pre-stardom Sheridan. Yet, despite having also been assaulted by a massive dog, he goes back for more and, ultimately, defeats the thug by turning him against his own employer. The identity of the real murderer is not all that mysterious in itself but the journey to the denouement is an exciting ride and, indeed, it is kickstarted by a spectacular car-crash right in the very opening scene! For what it is worth, the characters of Arnold's mother and card-trick obsessed odd-job man, providing here the requisite elements of sentimentality and comic relief, were dispensed with for the remake in those somber days of WWII.

bkoganbing This 1935 version of The Glass Key is not often seen, the 1942 film with Alan Ladd, Veronica Lake, and Brian Donlevy is far better known. Still this one has some interesting features, notably for the one and only time in his career George Raft played a Dashiell Hammett hero.It is one of the legends of Hollywood that George Raft turned down three of the roles that made Humphrey Bogart a legend, High Sierra, The Maltese Falcon, and Casablanca. The middle one of these was taken from the Dashiell Hammett novel and Ed Beaumont is very much like Sam Spade.They have the same laconic personality, but unlike Spade who is a partner in a detective agency and for hire, George Raft as Beaumont is the personal retainer and fixer for political boss Edward Arnold. And Arnold is heading for some trouble. He's decided to join the 'reform' element in his town headed by Senator Charles Richman and that does not please gangster Robert Gleckler who has had a working relationship with Arnold up to this time. But Arnold who has worked his way up from poverty sees a chance at respectability and the thing that makes him interested is Claire Dodd who is Richman's daughter and who plays along with Arnold's interest in her for her father's sake.At the same time Richman has a wastrel son in Ray Milland who has added Arnold's daughter Rosalind Keith to his list of conquests. He's needing some money real bad to pay off gambling markers to Gleckler. Later on Milland winds up dead and suspicion falls on Arnold. It's up to Raft to investigate and get him out of the jackpot.Three big changes from this version of The Glass Key are readily apparent. First in the 1942 version the daughter of Arnold becomes the sister of Brian Donlevy played there by Bonita Granville. Secondly the character of Emma Dunn is here as Arnold's mother, the mother isn't in the 1942 film. Finally a most unfunny comic relief character in this film played by Tammany Young is dropped altogether from the later film. Otherwise if you know what happened in that film the same occurs here with the same ending.But the leads are the exact same, tightlipped and tough. George Raft and Alan Ladd are just about the same as actors except for hair color. Veronica Lake is a bit more sultry than Claire Dodd, but then again she was more sultry than most of the women ever born on planet earth.I think Donlevy convinced himself in his version that he was really in love with Veronica Lake. Arnold whose character mouths the words was married before and now that he's a widower is looking for that all important trophy wife this time around.It's hard to choose between Guinn Williams and William Bendix who played the sadistic Jeff who was the button man for Gleckler. Williams could be brutal in films if he had to, though most of the time he played amiable lunkheads. There's no element of latent repressed homosexuality in Williams's performance as there is with Bendix however. Although both versions from Paramount of The Glass Key standup well today, it's really a pity that Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall never got to do this story. It would have been perfect for both of them.

McGonigle This early adaptation of Hammett's novel is not as well known as the Alan Ladd version but is very much worth seeing. Different in some ways, eerily similar in some ways, it's usually a little more raw than the later remake (the car crash that opens the film is still jarring today). And as the other reviewer notes, it has all the classic noir elements. Definitely worth seeking out.