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As I wrote in February, I have made it a project of mine to watch every classic film noir that was clipped and used in the montage comedy Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid, the Steve Martin/Carl Reiner feature from 1982. This past weekend I finally got back on the train and watched the 1942 film The Keeper of the Flame starring Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn.

MGM

The film started with a terrible thunderstorm and a car hurtling off a bridge, killing its sole occupant Robert Forrest, an idolized and beloved patriot of the United States, driving the entire nation into grief and mourning. The small New England community is quickly overrun with reporters eager to cover the man’s untimely death, eulogize him to the nation, and perhaps impossibly get access to the secretive Forrest estate and elusive and reclusive widow. Among the throng reporters is Stephen O’Malley (Tracy) freshly back from Germany as the Nazis begin their march towards war, already deep in their persecutions of the Jewish population along with everyone else they deem ‘undesirable’ to their deluded notions of national and racial purity. O’Malley, a devoted follower of Forrest and his ideal, intends not to simply cover the tragic accident but to produce a definitive biography of his idol but when he succeeds in infiltrating the estate his reporter’s instincts kick in and his suspicions grow that something is off, that a truth about the crash and about the man is being hidden and O’Malley digs for that secret while becoming enamored with Forrest’s widow, Catherine (Hepburn.)

Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid used only the car crash at this film’s start for their feature, leaving the rest of this deeply political drama untouched for me to discover in this viewing. The secret that is hidden by the estate and the family I found to be one that was readily apparent but perhaps would not have been so obvious to an audience in 1942 freshly thrown into the global conflict that would see millions dead before it finally ended. Hepburn and Tracy maintain their unique chemistry even as they play, at least initially, characters who harbor a deep distrust of one another. The film was well shot and well written though my suspicion, later confirmed, about the ‘twist’ kept me from fully enjoying this feature. If you wish to see this film unspoiled, and its currently streaming on HBOMax, then stop here. Those unconcerned about spoilers, care read on.

The secret is of course that this beloved ultra-patriot who so perfectly embodied the ideals of the perfect American was in fact a fascist with intent to use his influence, connections, and wealth to seize control of the nation with himself as dictator like the foreign despots he so admired. His widow, seeing that the bridge had failed and knowing he would be taking that route, withheld any warning for her husband leaving him to die a hero in an accident and saving the nation from his plots.

It is charmingly naive that in 1942 the writers and creatives could only conceive of a fascist coming to power in the United States by hiding his true nature and not by blatantly bragging about his desires to be a dictator and openly flaunting his hatred and racism. Hopefully the next film, Johnny Eager, will be far less relevant.