Fiction Writer, Poet, Playwright, Educator, Memoir Writer and Literary Critic

Key to the City (1950) is a black-and-white film that stars Clark Gable (Steve Fisk) and Loretta Young (Clarissa Standish) as small-town mayors who meet and fall in love while attending a convention of mayors in San Francisco.  The director is George Sidney.  Although longshoreman Steve Fisk originally planned to party with “atom dancer” Sheila (Marilyn Maxwell), he quickly succumbs to beautiful Clarissa Standish, the mayor of Wenonah, Maine, who is a no-nonsense lawyer with a degree from Harvard University.  Her influence makes caddish Fisk take his job as mayor more seriously, and Fisk’s influence helps Standish to relax, party, and have more fun. The subplot concerns attempts by a crooked Puget City council member and political boss named Henshaw and his gang to undermine newly elected Mayor Fisk while he is out-of-town.  Raymond Burr plays Les Taggart, Henshaw’s thuggish minion.  Although Burr is better known for his role as Perry Mason on television, the actor does a good job portraying the obnoxious Taggart.  Fisk has to return to Puget City to subdue the political…