Key Largo (1948) - film review

With time on his hands, World War II veteran Frank McCloud decides to pay a visit to James Temple, the wheelchair bound father of a friend of his who was killed in the war.  Temple runs a cheap hotel with his daughter-in-law, Nora, on Key Largo, one of the small islands which make up the Florida Keys.  When Frank arrives, he is surprised to find that the hotel already has several guests.  He is somewhat less surprised to find that they are all gangsters, in the employ of the notorious former gangland boss Johnny Rocco.  As a fierce hurricane suddenly breaks outside the hotel, the inside is about to get even stormier...

Whilst its exotic non-urban location may suggest otherwise, Key Largo is one of the best examples of classic American film noir, a stylish dramatic thriller in which director John Huston succeeds in recreating the oppressive mood and tension of his first film, The Maltese Falcon (1942).   Karl Freund’s distinctive noir cinematography, with its angled shots, deep focus photography and harsh lighting, maximises the visual impact of the film’s taut screenplay (based loosely on a play by Maxwell Anderson), making this an enjoyably tense, atmospheric work.

Key Largo benefits as much from its stunning performances as from its stylish film noir look and masterful narrative pacing.  Once again, Humphrey Bogart plays the cynical loner who ends up as the good guy who gets the girl - admittedly, he is starting to look typecast but his performance is still impeccable.  Lauren Bacall is as eye-catching as ever in this, her fourth pairing with Bogart (her real-life husband).   Claire Trevor won the film’s one and only Oscar, in the Best Supporting Actress category, for her tortured portrayal of the gangster moll Gaye Dawn. 

The real star of the film is none of the above but Edward G. Robinson who, as the principal baddy Johnny Rocco, is a joy to watch.  In an amazing performance that has echoes of Rico Bandello from Little Caesar (1931), the part that catapulted the actor to stardom in the 1930s, Robinson dominates this film.  One minute he is the swaggering, sadistic bully, a man capable of carrying on an uninterrupted conversation whilst having someone shave him with a cutthroat razor.  The next, he is the casual bystander, exuding the blameless innocence of an affable pastor.  And then, when the tables look as if they might be turning, he becomes a man struggling valiantly to contain his mounting terror.  By this stage in his career, Robinson was very reluctant to play the part of a gangster yet again, but here he absolutely relishes the part, and turns in one of his very best performances.

As was quite prevalent in films made in the aftermath of the Second World War, Key Largo has a very noticeable political subtext.  It expresses a concern (held by Huston and others) that, having defeated fascism in Europe, America might sink into the same kind of moral complacency that allowed gangsterism to thrive in the aftermath of WWI.  The crux of the film’s plot is that Bogart’s character has ultimately to make the decision whether he should just look after his own self-interest or act to crush the evil represented by the gangsters.  This crisis of conscience is a thinly veiled allegory for the choice that America faced at the time the film was made and, some would argue, continues to face at the present time.

© James Travers 2008

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