Keeper of the Flame

George Cukor's 1943 film is the second pairing of Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn and says something Hollywood rarely said during the war. The famous reporter Stephen O'Malley travels to a small town to investigate the death of a man regarded as a national hero, and the more he talks with the widow Christine, the more he sees something else behind the heroism. The claim the film advances is that fascism is not an external threat but a possibility that can grow from inside America. That position drew objections in some quarters on release. Cukor shoots it like a gothic mystery: the great house, the stormy night, the hidden papers. Hepburn's role stands apart from the women characters of the period in that she holds the knowledge and decides when to speak. Who it's for: viewers interested in classic Hollywood political thrillers and the early Tracy and Hepburn films. Who it's not for: those who will find the long explanatory speech at the end too didactic, or who want the mystery solved briskly.