To Have and Have Not (1944)
Directed by Howard Hawks

Film Review

The enormous success which Warner Brothers had achieved with Casablanca in 1942 made it irresistible for the company to try to repeat its winning formula a short time after.  To Have and Have Not has a similar exotic setting, a similar atmosphere and the same lead actor as Casablanca, but it is clear that the one film is a pale imitation of the other. Whilst it may not live up to the sheer excellence of the earlier film, To Have and Have Not is still highly entertaining, with strong central performances and a similar stylish film noir look, but it is let down somewhat by its ramshackle plot.

The idea for the film originated during a meeting between writer Ernest Hemingway and director Howard Hawks.  Having failed to persuade Hemingway to work in Hollywood as a screenwriter, Hawks boasted that he was good enough to adapt the writer's worst novel - which, in his view, was To Have and Have Not.  As it turned out, Hawks fulfilled his boast, but, with the complicity of his writers Jules Furthman and William Faulkner, he effectively threw out virtually all of the elements in Hemingway's novel, although he kept the title.  One change which was forced on Hawks was the location, which had been Cuba in Hemingway's novel.  This was changed to Martinique in the film because the Office of Inter-American Affairs threatened to block the film's export if it showed smuggling and insurrection in Cuba.

Humphrey Bogart, the star of Casablanca, was an obvious choice to play the lead male character - a world-weary loner who sets out to avoid politics and women but ends up being ensnared by both.   The part of Marie Browning was more of a challenge and led Hawks to take one of the biggest gambles of his career.  He hired an unknown 18-year old model named Betty Perske whom his wife had seen on the cover of Vogue magazine.  Struck by Perske's sultry beauty and strong personality, Hawks saw her potential immediately and intended to make her an instant star, under the name Lauren Bacall.  He succeeded better that he could ever have imagined.

The most striking thing about To Have and Have Not is the sizzling on-screen rapport between Bogart and Bacall.  An audience would have to be deaf and blind not to notice that the two actors were head-over-heels in love when they made this film - every gesture, ever look, every exchange of dialogue suggests admiration, intimacy and tenderness.  This was the beginning of one of the most legendary of Hollywood romances.  At the time, Bogart was trapped in a troubled marriage and he was instantly smitten by Bacall.  Shortly after working together a second time, on Howard Hawks's next film, The Big Sleep (1946), Bogart and Bacall married, and stayed together until Bogart's premature death in 1957.  In total, they appeared together in four films.

Film Synopsis

At the time when France falls to Nazi Germany during WWII, American expatriate Harry Morgan is living on the island of Martinique.  He earns a crust by taking tourists out on fishing trips in his cabin cruiser.  The owner of the hotel where is staying works for the French Resistance and tries to persuade him to smuggle a top resistance agent to Martinique in return for cash.  Harry has no intention of getting involved in local politics and so refuses.  Then he meets Marie, a young woman who is stranded on the island.  To pay for Marie's return trip back to America, Harry accepts the job offered to him by the Resistance.  He soon wishes he hadn't...