"The key" (1958) directed by Carol Reed was a kind of room service for a lady, waiting for an impossible repetition of an unexpected love affair with a marine officer in mission during 1941. There is here of course in backwardness a kind of smooth feeling influenced by the circumstances of a closed spirit for a locked place, bringing together the necessity of putting two characters as inevitable partners of disgrace facing events. This movie is still with glamor, slightly out of date, and however like in the middle of life age, by the vacation of a loved one whom is plenty of souvenirs. When, suddenly, imaginative mind turns it in happy reality for the waiting woman, like Penelope, with other solutions for her flesh ambition. Carol Reed was here in a certain period where given this kind of story, it was considered as a mere episode of other movies from the time, because of that and also as less intimate and delicate for the same era and history than from others of the kind from then.Notwithstanding, on contrary, it is still a melancholic and extremely interesting symbol of fidelity, honor and willingness in black and white. This is a true love story of an officer and gentleman at the time where television was an adjourned adventure for the post war era and it seems that this kind of story came out in production when television language was still there for the concurrence with cinema and theater play. It's enough for understanding why the most part of daily activity as they were there in the flat, it was boring for nothing than humanizing their own feelings during a time whose main activity between the scale of missions it was talking about themselves and erosion of middle ages respectively. Carol Reed made a plausible movie about good acquaintance among fellows of the navy, concerning an enjoyable concealed place for sentimental encounters of intimate meaning with an available woman during a short pause of wartime and shows us the common behavior of this kind of warriors, as though they went with their sister's friend. Sharing their feelings as all friends of the same pretty and distinguished young woman with enough maturity for understanding the current problem of isolated souls, coming alive from the last battle and waiting for the next in their adventurous lives. A woman who waits for something more of special than more an adventure of heart among them, so that in such as searching the twin soul without any reason for being hopeful, meanwhile arrives the man of her life at that moment of break, in which she condenses her own hope now in a transitory period, where it is improbable to say if the next day is still possible to repeat the same happiness of the happening with the noise of the key opening the room of both.

A deceptive war drama which is really a fantastical love story in the vein of Billy Wilder's LOve in the Afternoon. William Holden plays the lead, and what character does he play but a reluctant dogged, selfish seeming individual who resists authority and wears cynicism on his face, mien and posture like a pair of brown well-trodden in sandals. No one did better and he does it excellently yet again. America is yet to enter WWII but Holden is sent to join the Britisn Navy and commandeer tug boats who make rescue missions for other vessels but carry no ammunitions to defend themselves. Thus when called up, the men know they are goners, thus they are known as suicide missions. Sophia who might just be the best foreign actress completely nails her part as the unkempt woman who has lost her will to live when the war took the lives of her family leaving her alone in the world. Therefore, she becomes a kept woman in an apartment, where the key of the title is passed by men who see themselves as goners on a suicide mission to the next fellow who takes up residence till he gets his own suicide call. The scenes are gritty and the ocean scenes realistic in the style of the French new wave. Trevor Howard is fantastic as the man who breaks Holden in and their camaraderie anchors the movie. The score is strange and the way director Reed paces and uses shadows, you think it might turn into a horror movie anytime soon but he is really planting the seeds of love in our heads. Based on a novel by Jan de hartog a Tony winning playwright, the adaptation is fantastic, true and not preachy. As Holden does everything to stay alive and Loren does everything not to, the question of why do we live that everyone asks is tested. The last fifteen minutes and breaks, copies and redounds the rules of this to and ending that is well deserved and earned. Mr. carol Reed , thank you for the effort. Thsi movie which underperformed in the US was a smash hit overseas, a tradition that would become part of Sophia's career. Sophia who at this point had not shown any real proclivity for drama walks like a shining gem and shows why she is one of the few foreign actresses to be nominated more than once for the Oscar in a foreign language performance. Well done!

This is a curious film. A gritty, tough realistic movie during the action sequences at sea, but when the story shifts to land and Sophia Loren and the men her life, it's dull and lifeless.Trevor Howard and Bill Holden are men numbers three and four in refugee Sophia Loren's life. The key is the key to her apartment which the guys make duplicates of and pass on to friends. Right after that's done, the giver is killed at sea. Howard and Holden are tugboat captains assigned to tugs who go out to the open sea and pick up crippled freighters bringing needed war supplies to Great Britain during World War II and tow them in. The tugs are poorly armed and barely sea worthy and are easy marks for theGermans. It's hard tough work and director Carol Reed does a superb job showing that. This is one of the least glamorized war movies I've ever seen. The men are fatalistic to say the least, but especially around Sophia as if the Nazis weren't enough to worry about.Sophia Loren is a lovely thing of beauty and certainly a pleasure to watch, but her scenes with her two male co-stars have absolutely no spark at all.If you watch this I recommend you fast forward the romance and get to the action.

It's both surprising and disappointing that this 1958 film has been virtually forgotten. If for no other reason than the amount of talent involved in its making, it deserves continuing recognition. The script, for example, came from Carl Foreman, (adapted from a Jan de Hartog novel), Sir Carol Reed directed, Malcolm Arnold provided the score and Oswald Morris photographed in black-and-white CinemaScope. Heading the cast are William Holden, just fading from his #1 status, and Sophia Loren, just nearing her #1 status. Trevor Howard provides fine support.Despite all these assets, however, the movie doesn't quite take off. It's consistently interesting but never really engrossing. Scenes alternate between wartime action in the Atlantic and domestic drama inside a small apartment but neither aspect of the movie seems to provide it with a solid core. It all somehow seems a bit tentative and slightly oblique.Michael Caine is said to play a small part here. William Holden has a brief shirtless scene which indicates, at the time of filming, he was still in his shaved-chest mode.