"The Glass Key" is one of the best pictures of the year and Alan Ladd is the whole show. Brian Donlevy and Veronica Lake turn in adequate performances, the plot is interesting if improbable, but Hollywood's best find in years makes the picture. Ladd isn't as tough as he was in "This Gun For Hire." He kicks and bruises where he once shot and killed. Occasional smiles and leers light up his former ominous dead-pan. But these little human touches only accent a character more sinister than Bogart at his best.

Ladd rates all the encores for acting, but in the screen story he plays second fiddle to Brian Donlevy. Donlevy, who is appropriately cast as an unscrupulous politician, is engaged in a vicious struggle for political control of an already corrupt city. Ladd, his number one trouble-shooter, sees plenty of trouble when Veronica Lake gets Donlevy to give her father political support in return for her smiles and wiles, but it takes him the whole picture to straighten things out. And in the end, with a little help from Veronica, he acts perfectly normal. The guy, who in "This Gun For Hire" didn't even crack a smile, smoulders when she turns on the heat.

"Pierre of the Plains", the second feature, makes you laugh in spite of yourself. With a corny plot, punk acting, and little excuse for being, it ought to be terrible. But for some well-disguised reason it's not. Maybe its because John Carroll, the leading actor, has such a great time. If you can't laugh with him, you can laugh at him.