{January Movie of the Month} Key to the City (1950)

Key to the City is only notable really for the re-teaming of Clark Gable with Loretta Young, his co-star in Call of the Wild fifteen years earlier…oh, and the mother of his daughter, Judy. Loretta was suggested as his leading lady because the studio was trying to bring back some of Clark’s romantic luster as the grim Any Number Can Play and female-less Command Decision has darkened it.

Gable is Steve Fisk, the boorish mayor of Puget City, who meets Clarissa Standish (Young), the stuffy mayor of Winona, Maine at the annual mayors conference in San Francisco. They fall in love despite their differences but trouble arises as they try to make their relationship work outside the convention.

Clark is getting too old for this—running around in a child’s costume showing his sock garters, playing the brute to Loretta’s prim and proper virginial Mayor Standish. The roles are tailor-made, I suppose, as Loretta had a reputation for being a bit stand-offish and a prude. And Clark’s character never had a formal education and is proud of his roughneck background. Sound familiar?

It’s rather hard to understand why Clarrissa falls for Steve, as he never really makes any sweeping gestures. He lures her against her wishes to a “make out spot” on a foggy hill, then seduces her in a way that’s rather creepy, really. She jumps on his statement of “You don’t want to marry a guy like me” and takes it as a proposal. Then all of a sudden they are engaged and he’s okay with it. Never mind the fact that just hours earlier he was perfectly happy schmoozing with nightclub dancers.

It’s a bit hard to stomach the sexism, too. Mayor Standish is very proud of her Harvard education and her reputation as a good and honest mayor. She’s well aware that it’s a man’s world and she holds her head high and wants to be treated just like any of the male mayors at the convention. Mayor Fisk is rude to her, disrespects her, and talks down to her like she’s a child. But of course he is irresistible to her and naturally, she will give up her position and move to his town of Puget City to be the mayor’s wife. Naturally. I get it, he is Clark Gable after all, but still…

All in all the film is a bit hokey. Clark and Loretta still have chemistry but the plot really seems to fit more in the 1930’s than the 1950’s. Near the end, Clark is in a fist fight that echoes back to his brawl with Spencer Tracy in Boom Town . Despite this one being ten years later, there seems to be something missing in the way of special effects here, as the staging of the fight in Boom Town was much more realistic. This fight has almost laughable staging and the sound mixers should have been fired (there are actually several moments in the film that the over-dubbing is evident). Loretta taking whacks at Marilyn Maxwell is especially ridiculous.

Clark was single and playing the field during filming (in fact he dated co-star Marilyn Maxwell briefly) but Loretta was married to her second husband Tom Lewis and no romantic overtures took place between the two former lovers. Loretta, who had two sons with Lewis, was actually pregnant when filming began. During the filming of the “Telegraph Hill” scene, where they are on a park bench with simulated fog, Loretta fainted and Clark had to carry her back to her dressing room. She was rushed to the hospital and suffered a miscarriage.

Loretta and her husband threw a party at their Beverly Hills home when filming was completed. The cast and crew were there when they heard the news that their beloved co-star, Frank Morgan, had just died of a heart attack. Frank, best remembered for his numerous roles in The Wizard of Oz, was a close friend of Clark’s and the two had played golf together that very morning.

Key to the City is not yet available on DVD. You can read more about the film here and see over 100 pictures from the film in the gallery.