The Key (Carol Reed, 1958)

Not all of Carol Reed’s films are as good as Outcast of the Islands, The Third Man, and Odd Man Out, which is to say, films which were seen as masterpieces when they were first made and which, many years later, and after a long period of oblivion and underestimation, are still regarded as such. But among those films which have never been sufficiently appreciated there are some which, when seen today, are not only agreeably interesting, but are quite simply excellent. For me, the most surprising of these belated discoveries is probably The Key, in spite of the fact that, in principle, it did not seem very promising, or perhaps it is for that very reason, because it far exceeds one’s not very high expectations.

At first viewing it is not a film which draws the attention or is particularly impressive, although it seems serious and honest and is very well acted and directed, with a storyline which manages to be original, believable, interesting and even exciting; it is, perhaps, too noncommittal and reticent for its merits to be appreciated immediately.

But there is something haunting about it, and days later, and in spite of its depressive tone, one is impelled to see it again, and on repeated viewings The Key gradually reveals its underplayed mysteries.

Based on a novel by Jan de Hartog –one of so many who, without being great novelists, are often good plot designers and highly competent narrators, and whose work is thus very adaptable to the screen--, The Key is presented as something untimely or anachronistic, a study of war comparable to that undertaken at about that time by Roberto Rossellini (Il generale Della Rovere, 1959; Era notte a Roma, 1960), responsible, as was Reed in his country (The Way Ahead, 1944; The True Glory, 1945), for films about the war, made in haste and the heat of the moment either during the war or immediately afterwards (Roma città aperta, 1945; Paisà, 1946). It seemed as though both directors, having reached a certain maturity, and with the perspective that time provides, wanted to highlight or comment upon some aspects of the conflict which had been omitted or overlooked in the overriding concern to return to normality. Hence they are works that in no way idealise the war, or even the actions of their own side or resistance groups, and they do not sidestep such facts as cowardice, fear, demoralization, weakness, error, deficiencies, and treachery; they do not recount great battles or describe decisive events, but are centred, more modestly, on the rear-guard, on small auxiliary units, on the impact of war on the civilian population, and tend to deal more with survival and day-to-day fatigue than with battles, strategy and victory.

The Key recounts –as do almost all of Reed’s films– what a surprised and bewildered outsider slowly learns, a foreigner, the American David Ross (William Holden), who, almost despite himself, finds himself embroiled in an uncomfortable situation –as usual– with some uneasiness. He feels out of place, like a voyeur and an intruder. In this respect, the plot is not unlike that of The Third Man. It is a very clear example of a position which is made explicit even in the titles of some of Reed’s films: The Man Between, Odd Man Out, The Third Man, and Outcast of the Islands, to name a few.

In a short prologue after the opening titles we are told that when England stood alone against the Nazi advance and needed the supplies which reached her by sea, the supply ships, as was to be expected, were attacked by enemy planes and submarines and their only protection was from some practically unarmed tugboats. Thus every run was almost a suicide mission, with the resulting desperation and anxiety on the part of the crew. The film has no need to stress this too much; the first rescue mission that Captain Ross takes part in, aboard a tug captained by his old friend Chris Ford (Trevor Howard), where he is learning the ropes before taking command of his own ship (after ten years on shore), is more than sufficient to illustrate the precariousness and danger of his job.

With a structure closely resembling that of Hawks’ films, which alternate action scenes with no less important moments of calm, Reed shows us the insecurity and the accumulated fatigue of the rescuers, and the strange inherited relationship that some of them have with a woman called Stella (Sophia Loren, in one of the best performances of her career), born in the Italian-speaking part of Switzerland. This character, an excellent woman but neurotic and fatalistic, who has an intimate if secret link with certain other rather silent female characters in Reed’s films --Kathleen Ryan in Odd Man Out, Alida Valli in The Third Man, Kerima in Outcast of the Islands– has forged her own private and very unconventional moral code, which she believes is justified by exceptional circumstances of the war. It takes Ross some time to understand her, as they gradually establish an unspoken “mutual support society” --not unlike that in Party Girl, made that same year by Nicholas Ray, between the vulnerable, disillusioned and badly wounded Robert Taylor and Cyd Charisse. Curiously, and entirely coincidentally, there are aspects of The Key that remind us of another war movie by Ray, Bitter Victory/Amère victoire (1957).

With admirable sobriety and realism, shunning full-fledged melodrama, Reed shows with tact and great precision how this relationship evolves, and we become aware of their suspicions and their fears, until we reach a perfect understanding –from outside– of what they feel at each moment. The Key is a small marvel of intimisme, without a hint of grandiloquence or the spectacular, even though it treats of naval battles.

The choice of black and white and a Cinemascope format strengthens the secret, grey character of the film, although not even the wide screen can dissuade Reed from indulging his odd fixation with tilted camera shots, presumably to underline the uneasiness in scenes where the actors’ movements and expressions make this mood abundantly clear; such inelegant redundancy may betray a lack of confidence in himself and his cast, which seems strange and even rather touching in a director who otherwise takes discretion almost to a fault, and who was renowned for his ability to come to perfect meetings of the mind with his actors, even those with whom he was working for the first time, such as Holden and Loren.

En “Carol Reed”, edición a cargo de Valeria Ciompi y Miguel Marías. San Sebastián-Madrid : Festival Internacional de Cine-Filmoteca Española, septiembre del 2000.