Keeper of the Flame

In Keeper of the Flame, a war correspondent stumbles on a little known fact: An honored American war patriot had in fact worked for the Fascists. His wife urges the writer to expose the facts for history. But others are willing to kill to prevent that.

Keeper of the Flame (1942) starring Spencer Tracy, Katherine Hepburn

Christine Forrest: But what was really shocking to me, was the complete cynicism of the plan. Each of the groups was simply to be used until its usefulness was exhausted. Hates were to be played against hates. If one group threatened to get too powerful, it would be killed off by another group. And in the end, those poor little people who never knew to what purpose they were lending themselves would be in the same chains, cowed and enslaved. 

Product Description

American icon Robert Forrest is dead. As the nation mourns, reporters converge on his hometown. Among them is a journalist who discovers that Forrest’s widow could have saved her husband. Did she prevent a fate beyond the country’s worst imaginings? After Woman of the Year, Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn next teamed in this suspenseful tale of wartime topicality about Fascist wolves in sheep’s clothing that in many ways — including music, camerawork and Xanadu-like settings — is startlingly similar to Citizen Kane. George Cukor (later to helm the duo’s comedies Adam’s Rib and Pat and Mike) directs. Screenwriter Donald Ogden Stewart (The Philadelphia Story) called this “the picture I’m proudest of having been connected with — in terms of saying the most about Fascism that it is possible to say in Hollywood.”

Cast of characters

• Spencer Tracy (Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World) … Steven O’Malley
• Katharine Hepburn (Bringing Up Baby, Stage Door) … Christine Forrest
• Richard Whorf (Champagne for Caesar) … Clive Kerndon
• Margaret Wycherly (Sergeant York, The Thirteenth Chair) … Mrs. Forrest
• Forrest Tucker (The Abominable Snowman of the Himalayas, The Strange World of Planet X) … Geoffrey Midford
• Frank Craven (Miracles for Sale) … Dr. Fielding
• Stephen McNally … Freddie Ridges
• Percy Kilbride (State Fair) … Orion Peabody
• Audrey Christie … Jane Harding
• Darryl Hickman (Leave Her to Heaven) … Jeb Rickards
• Donald Meek (Two Girls and a Sailor, Two Girls and a Sailor) … Mr. Arbuthnot
• Howard Da Silva (The Lost Weekend, Sergeant York) … Jason Rickards
• William Newell (Our Miss Brooks [movie]) … Piggot