The Glass Key (1942) by Stuart Heisler

[cranefly]

One of four movies that Veronica Lake and Alan Ladd made together.  Criterion currently offers three.

The Glass Key (1942) by Stuart Heisler
This Gun for Hire (1942) by Frank Tuttle
The Blue Dahlia (1946) by George Marshall 

I've watched all three, but slightly prefer The Glass Key, so I'll sandwich the others into this review.

Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake were quite the film couple back in the day.  They weren't romantically involved, as far as I know.  Each had separate trouble-plagued relationships offscreen.  But together, on-set, they got along great.  They "got" each other.  This shines through in their movies.

But this is a different Alan Ladd from what I'm accustomed to.  I'm used to a quiet, peaceful Alan Ladd that you have to shout to across a pasture to get the time of day.  Here he is tough as nails and more likely to knock your clock off.  He certainly doesn't suffer fools.  He gets in fights and, yeah, gets beat up when outnumbered.

All three movies portray him as a good "bad guy," shaded differently.

Veronica Lake is more binocular in these movies, experimenting with hair styles and hair colors.  She makes a great match for bantering with Ladd.

Anyway, it was a joy to watch the three of them getting along so well together: Veronica Lake, Alan Ladd, and the box (he stands on).

[Greg]

They worked well together because he was short and she was even shorter.

[Drunk Monk]

Veronica was 5' 1 3/4" according to IMdB. I guess that is kinda short.

[Greg]

Alan Ladd tops out at a very generous 5'6" according to Google.

[Drunk Monk]

That's not too short. I'm only 5'8"

I think I'm just the right height for Veronica...

[Greg]

I did say generous didn't I? I thought he was 5' 5".

We are all the same height lying down.

Veronica Lake's best film? Sullivan's Travels, of course.

[Drunk Monk]

We are all the same height lying down.

So not true...

[cranefly]

We are all the same height lying down.

So not true...

Oh dear.

I think I'll just mosey on out the way I came into this conversation....

By the way, I said "knock your clock off," knowing it didn't sound right.  Let me now correct it to "clean your clock."

BYW, In Thelma and Louise, what provokes Louise (Sarandon) to shoot the guy point-blank in the parking lot is him saying, "Why don't you s**k my c**k."  But when I caught it on TV, they had changed it to "Why don't you clean my clock."  It changes her into a  hair-trigger maniac, it seems.

[Dr. Ivor Yeti]

We are all the same height lying down.

So not true...

So not true.

[Greg]

Knock your socks off.