TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT (FILM)

'''To Have and Have Not''' is a 1944 thriller romance war adventure film directed by Howard Hawks and starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall that is nominally based on the novel ''To Have and Have Not'' by Ernest Hemingway.

Contents

Plot

Background

Music

Quotes

Notes

References

External links

Plot

The film is set in Martinique under the Vichy regime. In this exotic location, the world-weary fishing boat captain Harry 'Steve' Morgan (Humphrey Bogart) is urged to help the French Resistance smuggle some people onto the island. He is hesitant, until the person who had been hiring out his fishing boat gets accidentally shot. In desperation because he will not be able to recover the $825 he is owed, he ends up working with the Resistance and smuggles a husband and wife onto Martinique. Meanwhile, a romance unfolds between Harry and Marie 'Slim' Browning (Lauren Bacall), an American pickpocket who has come to the island. Throughout the movie, he has to prop up his buddy, Eddie (Walter Brennan), a rummy that is constantly requesting drinks and is the ultimate loose end as he stumbles from scene to scene with Bogie and Bacall.

Background

This was Lauren Bacall's first film, at the age of 19. Bacall was discovered by Howard Hawks's wife, who noticed Bacall on the front cover of Harper's Bazaar. His wife subsequently showed the photo to her husband, who soon sought out Bacall and signed her for the role. After filming began, a romance developed between Humphrey Bogart and the new star, despite the disapproval of Hawks. This romance would eventually lead to Bacall's first marriage and end Bogart's marriage with Mayo Methot, his third. It also would create a memorable onscreen chemistry between Bogart and Bacall, which would be used to advantage in several other movies, such as ''The Big Sleep''.
Although Hawks had a high regard for Hemingway's works in general, he considered ''To Have and Have Not'' his worst book, a "bunch of junk", and told Hemingway so, suggesting that they could work on the film together.^[1] Hawks and Hemingway worked on the story together. The film preserves the book's title, and the names and characteristics of some of the characters, but nothing from beyond the first fifth of the volume. The setting was moved from Key West to Martinique. The screenplay was further developed by Jules Furthman, and, at the end, William Faulkner (an intense rival of Hemingway).^[2] In addition, Slim's part was greatly extended to take advantage of the Bogart-Bacall chemistry.

Music

In the movie, Bacall sings "How Little We Know" by Hoagy Carmichael and Johnny Mercer. Another Carmichael song, "Hong Kong Blues" (co-written with Stanley Adams), was also used. Incidentally, Carmichael plays Cricket, the piano player in the film.
Another song played in the film was "Am I Blue?", written by Harry Akst and Grant Clarke.

Quotes

★ Slim: ''"You know you don't have to act with me, Steve. You don't have to say anything, and you don't have to do anything. Not a thing. Oh, maybe just whistle. You know how to whistle, don't you, Steve? You just put your lips together and... blow."''
(Last two sentences were included at #34 on the American Film Institute's list of AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movie Quotes.)

★ Slim: ''"Give her my love."''

★ Steve: ''"I'd give her my own if she had that on!"''

★ Eddie: ''"Was you ever bit by a dead bee?"''

Notes

1. Hawks telling Hemingway he could film his worst book and that this one was "a bunch of junk": interview with Hawks by Joseph McBride for the Directors' Guild of America, October 21–23, 1977, private publication of the Directors' Guild, p.21; quoted at length in Mast, p.243.
2. Mast relates the contributions of each of the people who worked on the screenplay. He says "the film's many upstairs sequences are Faulkner's primary contribution to the the film's conception" (p.257).

References

★ Howard Hawks, Storyteller, Mast, Gerald, , , Oxford University Press, 1982, ISBN 0-19-503091-5

External links

★

★