i dont even know where to begin.  i ADORE this movie!  i knew from the start i would-my favorite part of the entire film (besides his amazing line about having to kill quite a few more men before he dies) was the music, and with the intro of the mountains and our hero with that odd but amazing music, i knew i was in for a treat.  i really like the parallel about gambling and the glass key that we began to discuss in class. i feel that in their own ways, both main characters are very alike in manner, personality and lifestyle.

i had noticed a lot of the sexuality upon my first viewing, but i imagined it was mostly just me at first…especially the scene with jeff-i couldn’t believe it at first, bc i had noticed the lyrics, then how ed is filmed as he walks in, and how jeff gazes at him.  after that i assume everyone noticed the language, but i hadn’tnoticed that painting, which was just one more touch to complete an extremely sexually charged and blatant scene.

Unfortunately I didn’t like what they did to Hammett’s ending, but it did seem to fit this production of the story’s tone better.  I have a feeling the regular movie-goer at the time it came out would have been very upset if Madvig and Ned ended their friendship, with Madvid just walking out to leave Ned staring at an open door.  As we neared the end, I was very curious as to what would happen.  I just couldn’t picture this film ending as the book did.  And I felt they would change it to make it happy, even more so when Ed went to arrest Janet, and the father simply confessed.  I didn’t like that change, but knew it the second Ed said Janet was guilty.

I love Jeff. William Bendix was absolutely perfect for the role. I had only seen him in Hitchcock’s “Lifeboat” previously (and liked him then), but Jeff’s character seemed to be written for him in this film. I love how funny everything is, and think it’s odd how audiences have changed. I’m sure when this came out people took the tough and dramatic acting very seriously. I thought it was hysterical how they made Ned even more of a lady killer, especially the part with the nurse. I also really appreciated the subtle and even more so, the not-so subtle sexuality. It was extremely amusing.

At first, trying to picture Alan Ladd as “Ed” was really difficult for me.  I was kind of distracted in the beginning for that reason, but slowly they began to blend for me.  Ladd did seem perfect for the part, and soon I stopped imagining him riding off into the distance with a little boy calling “Shane!”  I liked the representations of the other characters as well, even though they changed a lot (Madvig got a lot younger and suddenly had a sister).   I like the filming so far, and the music as well.  I’m looking forward to continuing it.

I was just looking through The Glass Key again and remembered I was intrigued about Ned’s whistling Little Lost Lady twice that I can find again. All I could find with a search engine was that an episode of The First Nighter, which was a radio broadcast from 1930-1953 was entitled Little Lost Lady. These episodes were based on Day Keene’s novels, which were hard-boiled detective stories as well. One of the beginning lines of one of his works was, “In the beginning God created heaven and earth. In the beginning there were no Sputniks or Explorers. In the beginning Kurt Renner had no intention of killing Kelcey Anders. The thought never entered his mind. He merely intended to use him.”  The only other time i could find Little Lost Lady was that it was the name of a novel written by Alaska in 1940. Nell Shipman took parts from this story and added them into his film The Naked North (another novel written by Alaska).

Anyway, my point is that I’m curious if anyone else knows anything about the tune Ned whistles once after dealing with Opal, and once right before seeing Janet. If not, does anyone think that he made this title up to make a point about the story, that it meant nothing at all, or something completely different altogether?

“The important thing is the rhythm. Always have rhythm in your shaking. Now a Manhattan you shake to fox-trot time, a Bronx to two-step time, a dry martini you always shake to waltz time.” ~The Thin Man
One of my favorite movie series is The Thin Man, with William Powell-needless to say based on another of Hammett’s novels. I haven’t read the book, so I don’t know how representative it is of the text, but if Nick is in represented as anything, it’s a sarcastic, witty, faithful alcoholic. Ned’s does the drinking, as well as gambling and he;s a master of witty discourse, but he’s a lot more difficult to get along with than Nick. Reading The Glass Key has made me curious to finally read The Thin Mas, as well as The Maltese Falcon to compare the films with the novels. I look forward to watching The Glass Key, even though I know I’m going to have a very difficult time imagining Alan Ladd as anybody other than Shane. I’ll add more on all of this after we begin the movie.