The Key (1958)
Directed by Carol Reed

Film Review

In spite of its stellar cast, compelling story and first rate production values, The Key remains one of Carol Reed's most overlooked films, and it is hard to see why this should be as it fits perfectly into the director's body of work and makes a more than satisfactory companion piece to his far better known noir masterpieces Odd Man Out (1947) and The Third Man (1949).   Based on a novel by Jan de Hartog, The Key almost feels like a dark parody of  a 1940s British war film, with all the propaganda trimmings and bogus sentimentality brutally stripped away.  Far from being a conventional war film, it is more a sombre meditation on the illusion of fatalism, one that makes its point succinctly in one crucial line: if everyone who is caught up in a war is doomed from the outset, there is no point in fighting at all.  In the grim lottery of war, not everyone is doomed to die.

The real conflict underpinning the film is not between the Allies and the Nazis; it is a more subtle one, between man's belief in predestination and free will.  For a while, it seems that the hero Ross (William Holden) is destined to follow the same path as his predecessors.  No matter what he does, it looks as if there is nothing he can do to alter the course of events.  Even when he acts with juvenile spontaneity, giving the alluring femme fatale (Sophia Loren) a potted plant, he merely repeats what has been done before.  The pattern appears to be unbreakable.  He will move in with Stella, he will fall in love, he will pass on the key, then we will die.  There is nothing he can do to change any of this - he might as well be in one of those crassly predictable war films of the 1940s.  It is the growing conflict between this conveyor-belt  fatalism and the hero's refusal to accept the inevitable which gives the film its intensity and almost unbearable tension.

The nature of the story lends itself naturally to the distinctive film noir stylisation that Reed employed on some of his earlier films.  Slanted camera angles and high contrast photography are skilfully employed to build the tension and give an unsettlingly subjective feel to the more dramatic scenes in the film.  Reed and his talented cinematographer Oswald Morris compel us to experience something of the hero's paranoia as he gradually succumbs to the illusion that he has been caught in a trap, forced to play out a tragedy that has already befallen several men in his position.  Throughout the film, there is a growing sense of fatalism, as palpable as that of any film noir, and it isn't towards the end of the film that the spell is broken and we realise that there may, possibly, be the chance of a happier outcome.  Another strength of the film are the sea battles, which are extremely well-choreographed and filmed with an almost balletic elegance and gripping sense of drama.

The casting is as impeccable as in any other Carol Reed film.  Trevor Howard, who had made a memorable appearance in Reed's The Third Man, is the perfect choice for the role of the English tugboat captain who faces up to his mortality with what can only be described as affable indifference.  William Holden's portrayal of Howard's successor is quite different, far more heroic as the character sees war in a more realistic light and is visibly tormented by the fear of a brutal death.  As the mysterious Stella, Sophia Loren has an unsettling ghostlike presence for much of the film - her character only comes to life once Holden has infected her with his belief that there is a glimmer of hope.  A remarkable ensemble of British character actors (Bernard Lee, Beatrix Lehmann, Bryan Forbes, Irene Handl, not to mention a young Michael Caine in a walk-on part) adds considerably to the film's stark authenticity and dramatic impact.  No admirer of Carol Reed can fail to be impressed by this film, which deserves to be placed alongside his other achievements as a work of exceptional quality.  It is worth noting that an alternative happy ending was shot but this was vetoed by the American censors, thankfully so as the more downbeat ending is a much more natural conclusion to the film.

Film Synopsis

In 1941, David Ross, an American sergeant serving in the Canadian army, is reassigned to command a Royal Navy tugboat, whose purpose is to drag stricken cargo vessels to shore.  The tugboats are poorly equipped with weaponry and are an easy target for German U-boats and aircraft, so the mortality rate of those who undertake this dangerous work is high.  David meets up with an old friend, Chris Ford, who captains another tugboat.  After David's trial run, Chris takes him back to his apartment to meet his lover, Stella.  Chris tells his friend that he was given the key to the apartment by its former tenant, another tugboat captain named Van Barger, who in turn took the key from his predecessor, Stella's fiancé Philip.  Each of the men in turn became Stella's lover, and David reluctantly accepts the key when Chris offers it to him.  Shortly after Chris and Stella decide to get married the inevitable happens.  Chris is killed in the line of duty and David replaces him as the tenant of the apartment.  The pattern repeats itself.  David falls in love with Stella and they agree to marry. But the next day David is tasked with salvaging a crippled American freighter that has been sending out an S.O.S. distress call on an open channel.  Aware that the U-boats will be waiting for him, David sets out to sea, knowing that he will not return...