Too much of everything

Let's be realistic.

Best movie ever!

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

The Steel Key, a fifties B movie, as many have commented, one which felt like the origins of The Saint.The pacing is pretty good, I've watched several films from this era of late, and one common criticism has to be the slow pace at which everything develops and unfolds, The Steel Key doesn't canter along exactly, but it held my interest to the end.One of the first things you notice is just how fiendishly handsome and charismatic Terence Morgan was, I find it hard to believe he didn't crack Hollywood in his career. You can see why he was good casting as a villain.The brief appearance of Esma Cannon cannot help but bring a smile to the face, always cast in funny roles, you can't help but wait for her to do something amusing.It's quite a fun watch, an interesting plot, good characters, worth a look. 6/10

I can see the point being made by the other reviewers.This is a Saint film in all but name.Terence Morgan is constantly evading the police whilst looking for the professor and his formula.The cast is quite interesting.Edmond Knight who was blinded in the sea battle with the Bismark,playing the professor.Michael Balfour is a sailor.Sam Judd with a moustache plays a henchman.Same Cannon is a rather dotty patient in the doctors waiting room.The film was made on the south coast and I am wondering if it used Brighton studios which was one of the oldest studios,closing in the sixties.The script isn't marvellous,but it provides some action.

A decade before they found tremendous success producing cult TV classics like The Saint, Monty Berman and Robert S Baker specialised in making low budget second features like this through their company Tempean Productions. Here we have Terence Morgan - reduced to appearing in b- pics like this after having the distinction of playing Laertes in Olivier's Hamlet - as an adventurer called Johnny O' Flynn who is out to stop enemy agents from stealing a top secret formula for processed hardened steel - The Steel Key of the title - from a kidnapped scientist, Professor Newman (Esmond Knight). The screenplay by John Gilling - a writer-director who would later find fame at Hammer with The Plague Of The Zombies and The Reptile - frustrates somewhat as it becomes difficult to keep up with who's doing what and when. Nevertheless, it is still well above the standard one normally associates with second features and, in many ways, it is a fun prototype of The Saint as Morgan's Johnny O' Flynn is remarkably similar to Simon Templar as an adventurer who sails close to the wind, is always playing hide and seek with the cops who want to put him behind bars but can't pin anything on him and is always on to something for personal profit - O' Flynn wants the formula to sale to the highest bidder - but always finds himself doing the law a favour by catching master criminals. It is efficiently directed by Robert S Baker - who directed some episodes of The Saint himself - who keeps the action moving at a cracking pace and the cast including Morgan, Joan Rice, Esmond Knight and Colin Tapley all offer excellent performances. It is beautifully shot in black and white by Gerald Gibbs and that, combined with some attractive set work, give the picture an appearance of a bigger budget product. One of the joys I get in watching pictures like this is that locations like Newhaven, Seaford and other towns alongside the Sussex coast are often used. In Britain, that part of the world is known as 'God's Waiting Room' and who would believe that sleepy seaside resorts like those were at the centre of intrigue and espionage?

"The Steel Key" looks like an early try-out for "The Saint" TV series.Terence Morgan plays an attractive rogue that police forces around the world would love to catch red-handed; and yet he is happily focused on bringing real criminals to justice.The "steel key" is a military secret - a "Macguffin" that matters not one jot. The baddies want it - Terence Morgan's character (who uses three different names during the film) gets involved by pretending to have it.Forsythe, the policeman, is Chief Inspector Teal by another name. And Joan Rice is absolutely charming in the love interest role.Good fun - with nice views of Fifties Newhaven.