To Have and Have Not (1944)

Director:

Howard Hawks

Writers:

Jules Furthman (screenplay) and
William Faulkner (screenplay)

Release Date:

20 January 1945 (USA)

Genre:

Adventure | Music | Romance | Thriller | War

Tagline:

At Last! Bogart makes love his kind of woman !

Plot:

Harry Morgan and his alcoholic sidekick, Eddie, are based on the island of Martinique and crew a boat available for hire...

Plot Keywords:

Martinique | Fugitive | Alcoholic | Singer | Island

Cast

Humphrey Bogart	...	Harry 'Steve' Morgan
Walter Brennan	...	Eddie
Lauren Bacall	...	Marie 'Slim' Browning
Dolores Moran	...	Mme. Hellene de Bursac
Hoagy Carmichael	...	Cricket
Sheldon Leonard	...	Lt. Coyo
Walter Szurovy	...	Paul de Bursac (as Walter Molnar)
Marcel Dalio	...	Gerard (Frenchy)
Walter Sande	...	Johnson, fishing customer
Dan Seymour	...	Capt. M. Renard
Aldo Nadi	...	Renard's bodyguard

Also Known As:

Ernest Hemingway's To Have and Have Not (UK) (USA) (complete title)

Runtime:

100 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English | French

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Sound System)

Certification:

Australia:G (TV rating) | Australia:PG (original rating) | Argentina:Atp | Canada:PG (Ontario) | USA:Approved (certificate #10052) | Canada:PG (video rating) | South Korea:12 (2003) | Finland:K-16 (original rating) | Finland:S (re-rating) | Germany:12 | Sweden:15 | UK:A (original rating) (cut) | UK:PG (video rating) (1988) (uncut)

Filming Locations:

Warner Brothers Burbank Studios - 4000 Warner Boulevard, Burbank, California, USA

Company:

Warner Bros. Pictures

Trivia:

Many of aspects of Lauren Bacall's screen persona in her film debut To Have and Have Not (1944) were based on director Howard Hawks' wife at that time, Slim, including her name, glamorous dresses, long blonde hair, smoky voice and demure, mysterious demeanor.

Goofs:

Factual errors: The scene showing the patrol boat firing at Morgan's boat, the machine gun is not recoiling, the bolt is not moving nor is there any gun smoke. This type of MG the bolt would recoil after every fired cartridge and would cause the whole gun to have some recoil effect. The gunner was just standing there, he would have to move his fingers or thumbs to fire the gun.

Quotes:

Title Card: [first lines]
Title Card: Martinique, in the summer of 1940, shortly after the fall of France.
Title Card: Forte de France
Steve: Morning.
Officer at port: Good Morning, Captain Morgan. What can I do for you today?
Steve: Same thing as yesterday.
Officer at port: You and your client wish to make a temporary exit from the port?
Steve: *That* is right.
Officer at port: Name?
Steve: Ha - Harry Morgan.
[...]

Movie Connections:

Featured in AFI's 100 Years... 100 Passions: America's Greatest Love Stories (2002) (TV)

Soundtrack:

How Little We Know

Whistling On Martinique

The screen adaption of Ernest Hemingway's To Have and Have Not enjoys its place in cinematic history because it is the first screen teaming of Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. Turns out to have been a personal milestone for the both of them as well.

I was watching my VHS copy of To Have and Have Not today and included was the movie trailer and in it Warner Brothers announced it was introducing two exciting new screen personalities, Lauren Bacall and Dolores Moran. Ms. Moran was pretty enough and gave a nice performance as the wife of the resistance leader, but some careers take off and some don't. Didn't hurt Lauren that she married her leading man either.

The location of our story is Martinique right after the fall of France in 1940. As a French colonial possession Martinique fell into the hands of the Vichy collaborationist government. They didn't get free of them until 1943, months after the Germans occupied all of France in November of 1942.

Humphrey Bogart is an expatriate American along the lines of his Richard Blaine character in Casablanca. He doesn't own a swank nightclub, he's just got a charter fishing boat that lives on and runs with an alcoholic pal, Walter Brennan. But like in Casablanca, a shooting in a nightclub of his client Walter Sande gets him involved with the local Vichy police and the politics of the island.

It also gets him involved with Lauren Bacall who's just looking for a way to get back to the USA. She's not above a little light fingered action to help herself, but all that does is get her introduced to Bogey. And their sizzling scenes made cinematic history.

To Have and Have Not is fortunate to have the presence of Hoagy Carmichael one of the greatest musical talents America ever produced. He plays Cricket, the club piano player and he sings and plays Hong Kong Blues one of his greatest songs. Hoagy also wrote for this film, How Little We Know, which Bacall sings for her supper.

Dan Seymour and Sheldon Leonard play a couple of especially smarmy Vichy police officials. They have the upper hand until the very end when tables get turned rather suddenly. The only two film I've ever seen something turn that quickly is John Ford's Wagonmaster and the Richard Widmark police drama, Madigan. You can only push Bogey just so far.

Even in revivals today when Lauren Bacall tells Bogey all he need do is whistle and she'll come running, the whistles of affection will go up in theater. As well they should.