To Have and Have Not
Starring Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Walter Brennan.
Directed by Howard Hawks. (1944, 100 mins.)
This is the movie that brought Bogart and Bacall together – both on screen and off. Bogart is the owner of a charter boat in Vichy-controlled Martinique. Approached by Free French activists, Bogart doesn’t want to stick his neck out for them – until he finds that doing so will help Bacall. While the screenplay by William Faulkner and Jules Furthman owes as much to Casablanca as to the Hemingway novel they were adapting, it nevertheless is a terrific blend of romance and action leavened with comedy, and Howard Hawks’ direction is, as usual, masterful. But what makes the film truly electric is the unmistakable chemistry that was boiling over for real between Bogart and Bacall as the cameras rolled.
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