6/10
typical '50s fluff
25 December 2012
Clark Gable and Loretta Young star in "Key to the City," a 1950 film featuring Frank Morgan, Marilyn Maxwell, and Raymond Burr.

Young plays Clarissa Standish, a somewhat uptight small-town mayor who attends a gubernatorial convention in San Francisco and runs into the somewhat wilder Mayor of Puget Sound, Steve Fisk (Gable). Before you know it, the two are innocently involved in one scandal after another, the first when a night club they are in is raided, and the second when they're both wearing Halloween costumes and a policeman thinks Fisk is trying to force himself on a young girl, Clarissa being in a little girl costume. Despite Clarissa's exasperation with Fisk, she falls for him.

This is a cute, predictable comedy starring two of the most attractive people from Hollywood's golden era, both of whom still look great, but who are now forced into inferior fare. Films were competing with television, so they were trying to be more like television, right down to the black and white film. This was the type of film producers gave older actresses: Claudette Colbert, Barbara Stanwyck, Joan Crawford, Bette Davis, and Young; all but Colbert and Crawford would go on to have tremendous success in television.

One bad section: the fight between Gable and Burr. The doubles for them were horrendous,looking nothing like them, making the scene ridiculous.

Mildly enjoyable, with the performances by Gable, Young, and Morgan elevating it.
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