Key Largo

While chiefly remembered as a Bogart/Bacall vehicle, this story of expatriate gangsters commandeering a sleepy tropical hotel is, in actuality, a tightly directed ensemble piece with acting chops to burn.

There's Edward G. Robinson as Johnny Rocco--the brash, boisterous, sleazy gangster whose frailties (cowardice and a yearning for better times) gradually unfold before us. There's Lionel Barrymore as James Temple, the delightfully feisty and crusty hotel owner overcome with revulsion at Rocco's presence. There's Thomas Gomez, Harry Lewis, Dan Seymour and William Haade as Curly, Toots, Angel and Ralphie--Rocco's colorful but hard-edged thugs who are presences unto themselves. There's Claire Trevor as Gaye, Rocco's declining, alcoholic moll who symbolizes more than anything how far Rocco has fallen.

That's an awful lot. Too much scenery-chewing from Bogart or Bacall would push it over the top--and director/screenwriter/demigod John Huston knows it. He coaxes remarkably restrained and subtle performances out of his star couple. The romantic tension between them is suggested but never shoved in the audience's face. Bogart's wandering war vet Frank McCloud keeps his lips tight and plays his cards close to the chest--a streetwise outsider through and through. Bacall's Nora Temple lets her anger and distaste pour out through her smoldering eyes more often than her mouth.

Ultimately, the subtlety is so well-hidden between the gigantic performances of Robinson and Barrymore that you might miss just how sophisticated Frank's story is. Disillusioned and drifting since the war, he stops in to visit the wife (Nora) and father (James) of a fallen comrade whose bravery he admired. Implicit in his visit is an unspoken apology that it is he, and not their loved one, who is returning home. The fallen soldier is a constant unseen presence in the film--his bravery and honor mocking what Frank sees as his own cowardice and inability to stand up to Rocco (Bogart's fast-talking explanation of why he didn't shoot Rocco when he had the chance is classic and rare--a protagonist lying to his friends and his audience--"One Rocco more or less isn't worth dying for!"). Frank's eventual decision to take on Rocco and his hoods is a victory against the fear that plagues and shames him.

In a larger sense, this is a true period movie about a generation of men returning home from the greatest conflict the world has ever known. Most of our national memories of World War II are proud and triumphant, but, as with any war, it left countless people scarred physically and mentally. Though Frank is a decorated soldier, he feels somehow that what he did wasn't enough (because he lived and his friend did not?), and he returns back to a country in which he has no place with no real pride or satisfaction. The confrontation with Rocco affords him a chance (perhaps only possible in Hollywood or on the stage, where the story of "Key Largo" was first performed) to make things right with his world.

While it has not aged as well as the better-known films of Bogart's and Huston's careers, "Key Largo" is a film that, for a little investment of attention and thought, will pay big dividends to anyone that really and truly loves movies.

Frank McCloud (Humphrey Bogart) comes to a hotel in Florida where a gangster called Johnny Rocco (Edward G. Robinson) is giving some hard times.The hotel is run by a crippled James Temple (Lionel Barrymore) and his daughter-in-law Nora (Lauren Bacall).Key Largo (1948) is a movie from John Huston.It offers you sharp dialog and great emotions.And a cast to remember.Robinson makes a great bad guy.Bogart and Bacall, who were married at that time until Humphrey's death in 1957, are both marvelous in this movie.Lauren Bacall just turned 80 yesterday and that's when I saw this movie.And I'm glad I did.This is a true crime classic.You can feel the tense atmosphere while you're watching the movie.In the movie there is a great storm going on outside, a storm that even makes the crook scared.It shows us no matter how big you are the storm is always bigger.This movie is a thrilling ride from the beginning till the end.

Humphrey Bogart and John Huston must be considered the artistic equivalent of De Niro-Scorsese. Huston and Bogie made several films together, this being one of their best. But there is another combo that comes to an end in cinema's history: Bogie and Bacall appear on screen for the final time together. It is their finest collaboration. Edward G. Robinson, "Little Caesar" himself, returns to gangster form after years of playing the good guy (Wilder's DOUBLE INDEMNITY, Welles' THE STRANGER) and has one of the more memorable entrances in film villain history. We see him in a tub, smoking, a fan in front of him. He seems to be decaying in a way, but "Johnny Rocco" is still to be reckoned with. This is the Robinson we all love, demented and wise, sinister yet humorous. The Largo Hotel is the setting and a hurricane of drama, heroism, and rain is coming.

Huston stages the film much like the play it is based on, yet we never feel confined. There is enough colorful dialogue to go around. Surprisingly, much of it is not by Bogart, who plays probably his most quiet role, promoting his character through facial gestures more than words. He plays off Robinson and his posse of mobsters perfectly in this way, allowing Edward G. to dominate the majority of the film, which is the point. Lionel Barrymore plays the chair-ridden owner of the Largo and his daughter Bacall is falling in love with Bogart, naturally. They are at the mercy of Rocco and his boys, all of whom have some itchy trigger fingers. Bogart is just buying his time to make his move. The finale is extremely well done and foresees suspense endings to come.

Lauren Bacall is one of the most beautiful actresses to grace the screen, especially in black and white. Her perfect features look sculpted in this light and her sensual stare is enough to make you melt. Her smoky voice and attitude is an excellent match for Bogie's simple, heroic character. Film Noir becomes Florida Noir here, as the lightening outside the windows of the hotel play games with the shadows and atmosphere of events inside. Robinson murders an innocent man with the look of a terrifying ghost, lightening flashing on him and all. The thunder substitutes for the sound of cars and street-life normally heard in classic noir pictures. KEY LARGO is a very good film, dark and suspenseful, in the most pleasant of locales.

RATING: 8 of 10

After arriving in Key Largo, Major Frank McCloud (Humphrey Bogart), an ex-war hero, goes to an isolated hotel run by wheel-chair bound John Temple (Lionel Barrymore) and Nora (Lauren Bacall), his daughter-in-law, whose late husband was McCloud's wartime buddy. McCloud learns that the hotel has been taken over by Johnny Rocco (Edward G. Robinson), a deported gangster, and his gang....Key Largo is Robinson's movie. Stealing every scene he's in, he has a grand time playing the crazed gangster. The first time we see him he's soaking in a tub, cooled by a fan, gnawing on a cigar. It's a comical scene--and the last time his character will provide any laughs for the viewer....Not only does Rocco delight in terrorizing Temple and Nora, but he taunts McCloud, and viciously humiliates his ex-mistress, a former nightclub singer turned alcoholic, Gaye Dawn(Claire Trevor)....Robinson's finest moment comes during the storm scene, when he expresses what's happening inside his character with broad, physical acting. As the storm rages, Rocco begins coming apart: his fear-filled eyes dart in different directions, and he paces the floor, sweating profusely. He has used his gun to kill many people, but now he knows it's useless against the storm....Theater-trained, the underrated Robinson was a versatile actor. Consider the range of his characterizations in such films as Double Indemnity, The Stranger, Scarlet Street, All My Sons, and of course Key Largo.

Key Largo is just one of John Huston's many memorable films that somehow always seem to transcend the intention--the Hollywood intention being to make a few bucks--and to this day still plays very well and indeed appears as something close to a work of art. It features what I think is one of Edward G. Robinson's finest performances as Johnny Rocco, a sociopathic gangster holding the off-season personnel of a seaside hotel hostage as he concludes a counterfeit money deal.

The story begins as Major Frank McCloud (Humphrey Bogart) pays a visit to the family of one of his G.I. buddies who was killed in Italy during WWII. He finds the welcome from the hotel's only "guests" chilly except for Gaye Dawn (a funny and perhaps prescient Hollywood stage name) played by Claire Trevor who is drunk and befriends him. After a bit McCloud discovers that the hotel's owner Nora Temple (Lauren Bacall) and her invalid father-in-law James Temple (Lionel Barrymore) have been tricked into allowing Rocco's gang to stay and now, as a tropical storm begins to blow, are being held at gunpoint. McCloud's delicate task is to keep the megalomaniac and murderous personality of Rocco under some control so that he doesn't murder everyone.

Note that this is a splendid cast, and they all do a good job. Note too that Huston adapted this from a play by the versatile American playwright Maxwell Anderson. So the ingredients for a good film are clearly in place; and aside from some self-conscious mishmash with the Seminoles of Florida, this is a success. Anderson's desire to explore the psychopathic personality (some years later he adapted William March's novel The Bad Seed into a stage play) finds realization in Huston's direction and especially in Robinson's indelible performance. The utter disregard for the lives of others and the obsessive love of self that characterize the sociopath reek from the snares and callous laughter of the very sick Johnny Rocco. I especially liked the crazed and thrilled grin on his face when he emerges from the hold of the boat in the climactic scene, gun in hand, imagining that he has once again fooled his adversaries and is about to delightfully shoot Humphrey Bogart to death. What I loved about this scene was that Huston did not think it necessary to contrive a fight in which the good guy (Bogart) beats the bad guy by fighting fair. What happens is exactly what should happen, and without regard for the fine points of Marquis of Queensberry-type rules. Also good is Rocco beginning to sweat in fear of his life as the storm moves in while Bogey gives us his famous laugh and grin as he assesses the essential cowardice of the petty gangster.

Lauren Bacall, in one of her more modest roles, does a lot without saying much, and Lionel Barrymore is very good as the cantankerous old guy in a wheelchair. Claire Trevor actually won an Academy Award as Best Supporting Actress for her work, and she was good as the alcoholic moll with a heart of gold. Robinson won nothing, but he really dominated the picture and demonstrated why he was one of Hollywood's greatest stars.

Bottom line: watch this to see the gangster yarn meld into film noir with overtones of the psychoanalytical drama that characterized many of the black and white Hollywood films of the forties and early fifties.

(Note: Over 500 of my movie reviews are now available in my book "Cut to the Chaise Lounge or I Can't Believe I Swallowed the Remote!" Get it at Amazon!)