Watch The Keyhole For Free

You won't be disappointed!

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

A brilliant film that helped define a genre

Married to a much older man, former dancer Kay Francis finds herself being blackmailed by her amorous former partner and heads off to Havana for a little R&R. She finds herself spending time with the handsome George Brent whom she is unaware is a private detective hired by her husband! The nights of champagne, caviar and dancing make her giddy, but it's obvious that the revelation won't fall well with Francis when she finds out!Amusing pre-code melodrama is more about the clothes, sets and dialog than the plot of which there is very little. Francis and Brent are a perfect pair, and providing comic relief are Allen Jenkins as a detective posing as Brent's valet and Glenda Farrell as an obvious gold digger. Henry Kolker's foolish older tycoon husband is up there with Edward Arnold and Otto Kruger as late middle aged men who got younger women to marry them, remaining pretty much sexless. This is fun for the glitz, but really has little else to offer other than the four leads and the fantasy that only pre-code Hollywood could give.

"The Key Hole" is one of those "If you've seen one, you've seen them all" type films, though it's certainly not bad. Francis plays Ann Brooks, married to a wealthy man (Henry Kolker). She was married before, to Maurice (Monroe Owsley) who never got the divorce he promised her and is now blackmailing her because of it. She works out a scheme with her sister-in-law Portia (Helen Ware) to lure him out of the country, and then Portia would use her influence to have his visa taken away.As part of the plan, Ann heads for Havana by ship, with Maurice following. Her suspicious husband has hired a detective, Neil Davis (George Brent) to try and seduce her, and along with Brent comes his spy, Hank Wales (Allen Jenkins). Wales meets Dot (Glenda Farrell), and these two provide the film's humor.Well, you can guess what happens.Kay Francis wears many fabulous gowns. I used to think the kind of lifestyle her character lived was just in the movies until I saw a 1930s Vogue magazine. What a formal time that was, with people dressing to the nines for lunch and to do any kind of traveling. Almost all the ads in Vogue were for trips on ocean liners. We've come a long way, and I'm not sure that's a good thing.Anyway, the film is predictable, but Francis is good, as are Jenkins and Farrell. Brent is very smooth and charming.Kay Francis made these films by the truckload, and I have to admit I watch them when they appear on TCM. She really epitomizes that early '30s era for me - an era that has not one vestige of it visible today.

I happened to see this and three other Kay Francis films recently when they were shown on TCM. And, surprisingly, all four films were about adultery and three of them had Kay playing a horrid skank! So, when I saw her appear on the screen, I just KNEW the film was about adultery and you knew the characters would be rich folks!!! Now there at least was a twist to the whole adultery aspect of the film that makes this film a little different. While she is suspected of being an adultress, she is in fact an innocent woman! This sort of type-casting with so many similar plots must have been what killed Ms. Francis' career--that and the more restrictive and less sleazy style of films that were mandated by the new Production Code in 1934.As mentioned above, Kay is THOUGHT to be having an affair, so her rich husband hires a suave private investigator (George Brent) to try to prove her unfaithfulness. Brent is a bit sleazy because he is apparently willing, if all else fails, to create an incriminating situation even if it is untrue--just so the husband will have something he can use against his wife in court. Brent, as always, is great in this film--very believable and suave. Unfortunately, he is inexplicably saddled with a pointless and distracting sidekick (Allan Jenkins). While I usually like Jenkins in films, he was just inappropriate here, as the film was a romance and his stupid act just detracted from the plot. In a lighter film (such as those of Cagney), he would have been fine.Aside from Jenkins, the rest of the film was excellent up until the end. It was just wonderful seeing Brent trying to win Francis' heart--the scenes were just magical. Unfortunately, the final resolution of this dilemma just came out of nowhere and made absolutely no sense. It's a shame, because with a better ending and no Jenkins, the film would have merited an 8.

THE KEYHOLE has a clear plot hook, strong characters (you love 'em or hate 'em), non-static cinematography and colorful details that keep you entertained from the first frame. A number of Kay Francis movies had a similar plot structure: wealthy, beautiful, fashionable, sophisticated woman with man problems, usually triangular, but in this case quadrangular. Michael Curtiz keeps this one moving at a fast clip. In this particular plot, Francis's nasty ex-husband (Monroe Owsley) is blackmailing her while her jealous, aging current husband (Walter Kolker) hires a dapper private eye (George Brent) to follow her to make sure she's not seeing another man and of course Brent and Francis fall in love. Allen Jenkins (as Brent's dopey sidekick) and Glenda Farrell (as a crooked golddigger) are on hand as comic counterpoint to the lead players. Francis is charming as usual, exhibiting her trademark "look" - the raven hair swept back to show off her natural widow's peak, the unique eyebrow penciling that curves around her melancholy eyes, and the statuesque grace; and of course her character goes through about 15 costume changes in the 69-minutes of running time (a different drop-dead outfit for every segment of the day). The public inevitably tired of her, which is why she is forgotten today; she was more interested in her salary than in the quality of her roles, as she freely admitted. But when she was in her prime, wow, what a prime. Moving with feline grace in backless satin gowns, she is phantasmal and ravishing, yet still earthy, accessible and even vulnerable. You can't look away. So what if she couldn't pronounce her r's?