To Have and Have Not

"You know how to whistle, don't you Steve? You just put your lips together and... blow"

Howard Hawks has a good old stab at recreating the magic of Casablanca in this wartime adventure that stars Humphrey Bogart and features Lauren Bacall in her famous film debut. Hawks adapted To Have and Have Not in reply to a challenge from Ernest Hemmingway (who had written the novel) after he called it "junk". Hawks jettisoned most of the plot (leaving the film with a rather irrelevant title) and relocated the action from Cuba to Martinique to avoid controversy. Despite a certain lack of originality, the film largely succeeds due to the magical pairing of Bogey and Bacall in their first of several films together. Their chemistry contributes to a Hawksian mix of film noir, tense war drama and witty character interplay to create an exciting and classic Hollywood adventure.

Harry Morgan (Bogart) is an American with a shady past who runs big game fishing tours off the island of Martinique. He is in the midst of chasing up some money owed by a customer when WWII tensions lead to a gun battle in the bar he frequents, killing the client and leaving Morgan penniless. Forced by his lack of money (compounded by the corruption of the local government), Morgan takes on a job transporting French resistance members to the island, and also hooks up with a young but womanly pickpocket whom he nicknames 'Slim' (Bacall). And against his neutral intentions, Morgan finds himself increasingly becoming the French Resistance's only hope in Martinique.

If the idea of Humphrey Bogart playing an American expat in a exotic but remote locale during WWII sounds familiar, that's because a lot of this film follows a similar (but less tragic) formula to Casablanca. Bogart's only clear motivation throughout the film is that he's chasing up a mook who owes him money, and when this gets taken away from him he singlemindedly goes about trying to get what's owed to him in any (semi) honest way possible. He plays the sort of world-weary, bitter and seen-it-all anti-hero that became an intrinsic part of his image. We're never told what the character's background is, but his familiarity with treating gunshot wounds and his wariness of Slim points us in certain directions.

The last thing Morgan wants to do is to get involved with local politics, and his pairing with Slim doesn't really do his conscience any favours as the double-act they form is an odd one. They're both strong-willed and apparently ammoral self-dependents who go on to carry out acts of heroism despite the facades they put up, and the film leads towards an endpoint that will see them finally give in and pick a side. It's the kind of bread-and-butter characterisation that Bogart revelled in, and the film does well to exploit it.

Look out also for Walter Brennan as Morgan's drunken sidekick Eddie, and Hoagy Carmichael also appears to contribute some welcome and authentic, diagetic lounge music. The 19-year old Bacall gives the sultry, witty dialogue a healthy boost with her unusual beyond-her-years sex appeal, and is easy to see how this film launched her to superstardom. Sure, the film isn't all that unique, but it's a good mix of ingredients that 1940s audiences loved, and director Howard Hawks gives it his trademark snappy pacing so that it never feels trite or over-egged. A classic slice of golden Hollywood.

DIRECTOR: Howard Hawks
WRITERS/SOURCE: Screenplay by Jules Furthman and William Faulkner. Based (loosely) on a book by Ernest Hemmingway.
KEY ACTORS: Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Walter Brennan, Doloros Moran, Hoagy Carmichael, Dan Seymour

RELATED TEXTS:
- To Have and Have Not, the novel by Ernest Hemmingway.
- As mentioned in the review, Casablanca. Also see the later Bogart vehicle, Sirocco, which does a less than stellar job of revisiting the same tropes and storyline.
- Remade in 1950 as The Breaking Point, starring John Garfield, and in 1958 as Gun Runners, starring Audie Murphy.
- Hawks, Bogart and Bacall reteamed immediately after this film for The Big Sleep. Bogart and Bacall also reteamed for Dark Passage and Key Largo.