The Glass Key (1935)

Frank Tuttle: The Glass Key (US 1935).

Frank Tuttle: The Glass Key (US 1935). The gangster boss Robert Gleckler (Shad O'Rory)
is visited by Ed Beaumont (George Raft). As the waiter opening the door: Irving Bacon (542 credits in the IMDb from the years 1915–1965).

La chiave di vetro
    US 1935. Director: Frank Tuttle. 77 min
    Sog.: from the eponimous novel (1930) by Dashiell Hammett – in Finnish: Lasiavain, translated by Kalevi Nyytäjä / WSOY, SaPo-sarja, 1973. Scen.: Kathryn Scola, Kubec Glasmon. F.: Henry Sharp. M.: Hugh Bennett. Scgf.: Hans Dreier, Earl Hedrick.
    Int.: George Raft (Ed Beaumont), Edward Arnold (Paul Madvig), Claire Dodd (Janet Henry), Rosalind Keith (Opal Madvig), Charles Richman (senatore John Henry), Robert Gleckler (Shad O’Rory), Guinn ‘Big Boy’ Williams (Jeff), Tammany Young (Clarkie), Ray Milland (Taylor Henry), Ann Sheridan (infermiera).
    Prod.: E. Lloyd Sheldon per Paramount Pictures. 35 mm
    Unreleased in Finland.
    Bologna: Il Cinema Ritrovato 2020: Guns for Hire: Frank Tuttle vs. Stuart Heisler
    Print from NBC Universal by concession of Park Circus
    E-subtitles in Italian by Sub-Ti Londra.
    Viewed at Cinema Jolly, 27 Aug 2020.
    The title. The expression "a glass key" appears in the dialogue as Paul Madvig states that "He's [the senator] practically given me the key to his house." Ned Beaumont: "Yeah? A glass key. Look out it don't break off in your hand." The reviewer of The New York Times commented that the "glass key" is an underworld figure of speech for an invitation "which is motivated by expediency rather than genuine friendliness." The Glass Key was considered Dashiell Hammett's best novel, also by himself. The Glass Key Award is a prize for the best Nordic crime novel.

Ehsan Khoshbakht (Il Cinema Ritrovato 2020): "Based on a celebrated novel by Dashiell Hammett, The Glass Key focuses on the relationship between a crooked businessman and his loyal associate, whose plans for the upcoming election are blown apart by a murder. The story first appeared in “Black Mask” magazine in 1930. Paramount bought the movie rights for $25,000 before the hardcover edition was even published in 1931. Though Gary Cooper was announced as the leading actor, the film was not made until 1935, possibly due to a fear of failure (the crime cycle of the early 1930s was quickly falling out of fashion). However, Tuttle’s take was very different, shaping the characters in a more psychologically nuanced way. Ed Beaumont (played by George Raft in one of the better roles of his career) is a rye-drinking, sharp-dressed gambler who protects businessman Paul Madvig (Edward Arnold) against rival gangs and is smart enough to tell him what to wear too. Madvig is backing a local senator in his electoral campaign, and also plans to marry his daughter; meanwhile Madvig’s own daughter, Opal, is in a relationship with the senator’s troubled son. Ed stays cool-headed, balancing these conflicting interests, which are increasingly open to exploitation by a rival gang. When the senator’s son (Ray Milland) is killed, the rival gang mobilise their newspapers to accuse Madvig of the crime. The film stays low-key, although there are two or three truly outstanding scenes with a good dose of action, directed in a style equivalent to Hammett’s stripped-down, descriptive approach – including when a brutally beaten Ed escapes from the place where he is being held captive. It proposes that ‘nobody’s tough enough’ (a theme to which Tuttle returns in some other films) but also that ‘nobody’s innocent enough’. Essentially this is a film about loyalty, but although the director was genuinely interested in the subject he would nevertheless fail his own test: Tuttle named fellow communists in front of HUAC – an action with which he evidently never came to terms. With the 2020 US election only months away, and with the controversy of Russian interference still hanging in the air, this crisp and fast-paced crime drama about political corruption and family ties not only reflects contemporary concerns but also prefigures at least one other film by Tuttle, Hell on Frisco Bay." Ehsan Khoshbakht (Il Cinema Ritrovato 2020)

AA: The Glass Key (1935) is the first film adaptation of Dashiell Hammett's novel about two rivalling gangsters battling about the domination of a city by means of corruption, politics, mass media, coercion and violence.

The twist: the big boss Paul Madwig (Edward Arnold) decides to reform in order to marry the senator's daughter Janet (Claire Dodd). But her brother Taylor (Ray Milland) lands into gambling debt, is murdered at night, and the rival gangster Shad O'Rory (Robert Gleckler) launches a campaign to discredit Madwig.

The protagonist is Madwig's right hand man, master gambler Ed Beaumont (George Raft), who pretends to switch camps to find out what really happened. He uses psychology to sow discord into the rival camp with the result that Shad O'Rory is strangled by his own henchman Jeff.

In Dashiell Hammett's hard-boiled novels, characters appear in impenetrable masks. It is impossible to read thoughts or feelings from their poker faces. We can only interpret them through their actions in a complex network of shifting relationships.

Weak in psychology and emotion, the stories intrigue us as action dramas and social exposés. There is a nominal romantic plot in The Glass Key, at the end of which Ed takes Madwig's daughter Opal (Rosalind Keith) out on a date. But there is only one compelling emotional relationship: the one between Ed and Paul.

The Glass Key was the first gangster film directed by Frank Tuttle, best known for his comedies and musicals, although he had also directed silent crime dramas and a cycle of Philo Vance mysteries starring William Powell. Tuttle brings his sense of the absurd and his mastery of the dream logic to the gangland nightmare and stages frightening setpieces, most memorably Ed's brutal torture in the hands of Shad O'Rory's henchman Jeff. It is a sequence of true agony and courage, prefiguring Raven's gauntlet in This Gun for Hire.

Tuttle coached George Raft to what is often seen as a career-best performance.

BEYOND THE JUMP BREAK: SYNOPSIS FROM AFI CATALOG ONLINE:

"Crime boss Paul Madvig, who has been running the city for ten years, decides to reform and joins the campaign to re-elect Senator John T. Henry, whose daughter, Janet, Paul hopes to marry. When bibulous gang member Walter Ivans kills a man in a car accident, Paul refuses to help clear him. Paul then threatens gangster Shad O'Rory, who runs a gambling house called the Four-Leaf Clover, that he is going to close down his club and clean up the town. Paul receives a "glass key" to the senator's house, which is a cautious invitation, but neither Janet nor her brother Taylor agree with their father's association with Paul. The senator then overhears Taylor, who is a compulsive gambler, tell Janet that he needs money. Later, O'Rory demands that Taylor repay his gambling debt, and Ed Beaumont, Paul's bodyguard, sees Taylor with Paul's daughter Opal. That night, Paul visits the senator to break up Taylor and Opal's relationship. While out walking at three o'clock in the morning, Ed finds Taylor's dead body a few blocks from the Henry home, as well as a cane cap he thinks is Paul's. When Ed tells Paul he found the body, Paul acts innocent, but Ed knows Paul was seen quarrelling with Taylor at the scene of the crime. O'Rory then calls the editor of The Observer , who is a friend of his, to implicate Paul, and headlines read: "Witness Involves Madvig in Murder." O'Rory then visits the senator, asking him to disassociate himself from Paul in exchange for backing from O'Rory and The Observer . Meanwhile, Janet is convinced that Paul killed Taylor, and Paul's grand jury trial is scheduled. Ed appeals to Paul to let the Four-Leaf Clover re-open to save himself, but he refuses. Determined to find the real murderer, Ed stages a fight in public with Paul in order to infiltrate O'Rory's gang. Convinced of Ed's disloyalty to Paul, O'Rory agrees to let Ed run the gambling house in exchange for information on Paul. When O'Rory shows Ed the affidavit from Henry Sloss, who witnessed the murder, Ed burns it and discards O'Rory's bribe money, for which he is beaten by a henchman named Jeff and taken prisoner. By lighting a mattress on fire, Ed escapes his room, then jumps out a window, and is placed in a hospital. When Paul visits, Ed tells him about Sloss, and Paul advises Sloss to skip town and is accused in the papers of kidnapping the witness. Janet, meanwhile, has turned Opal against her father, and O'Rory has asked Opal to give reporter Hinkle an indictment of her father. Ed poses as Hinkle, however, and at the Henry home, notices that the senator's cane has a new cap on it and takes it as evidence. When Opal threatens to tell everything to the press, Ed knocks her out and abducts her as Hinkle arrives. After the papers report that Sloss has been brutally murdered, Paul finally cracks, admitting to Ed that he killed Taylor by accident when, during their argument, Taylor fell in the gutter and hit his head. Paul claims he had been keeping quiet in order to win Janet. Ed then gets Jeff to admit he killed Sloss. When O'Rory overhears and intervenes, Jeff chokes him. District Attorney Farr then holds an inquisition regarding Sloss's murder, and the senator still supports Paul. During the hearing, Ed uses the cane butt he found at the scene of Taylor's murder as an ashtray to intimidate Paul into confessing. Janet, meanwhile, still maintains that Opal knows that her father killed Taylor. Ed testifies that Paul knows who the killer is, but is protecting him. It is then revealed that the senator killed his own son by accident after they struggled. Henry is out of the senate race, and Ed and Opal, whom Ed affectionately calls "Snip," go on a date.