This is one of a handful of films I kept giving chances to like and finally did on the third viewing. Maybe I expected too much on the first viewing, when I first began to appreciate film noir and had become a fan of Veronica Lake. In The Glass Key, though, Lake didn’t have her usual snappy dialog, and that was one of the disappointments, along with too-confusing a storyline.

By the third viewing, I guess I finally understood what was going on in this Dashielle Hammet story. Hammet’s stories weren’t always the easiest to understand.

Even with knowing what to expect, William Bendix in this film still is so brutal in here he almost makes me uncomfortable. Well, he DOES make me uncomfortable. He plays one of the meanest, sadistic thugs I have ever seen on film and one of his punches literally knocked out Alan Ladd when they were filming this.

Brian Donlevy is perhaps the best character in here as the slightly-corrupt politician. It’s an okay Ladd-Lake film but nothing special. If you’re a collector of film noir, then you should have it, but don’t expect the zip in here that the other Ladd-Lake noirs possessed.