To Have and Have Not 1944

     This film is based on a novel by Ernest Hemmingway.  Harry Morgan and his alcoholic sidekick, Eddie, are based on the island of Martinique.  They are a crew and a boat available for hire but World War II is happening around them.  Their business has suffered because of the war.  They take a customer out and he owes them a large sum of money.  The customer had planned to sneak away and take a plane before it was time to pay Harry.  Eddie and Harry are forced to violate their preferred neutrality and take a job for the resistance.  They will transport a fugitive on the run from the Nazis to Martinique.  Unexpectedly, they learn that the man’s wife is also going with them.  There is some gunfire and the man is wounded in the shoulder.  Another plot twist is that Harry has met Marie “Slim” Browning.  She is a resistance sympathizer and a singer in the club where Morgan spends a lot of his time.
     Harry was almost able to get his money but the customer was shot in the club and Capt. M. Renard and his bodyguard took Harry’s money for themselves.  To put pressure on Harry about the fugitive, they pick up Eddie and they are holding him to get information.  They tried letting him drink but that didn’t work.  The next step is to withhold alcohol and Eddie won’t be able to take that kind of abuse.  Eddie deserved better treatment from the Martinique authorities!!  I expected a more powerful plot from Hemmingway?  3 1/2* (I liked this movie)   
 
100 min, Adventure directed by Howard Hawks and written by Ernest Hemingway and Jules Furthman with Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Walter Brennan, Lauren Bacall, Delores Moran, Hoagy Carmichael, Sheldon Leonard, Walter Szurovy, Marcel Dalio, Walter Sande, Dan Seymour, Aldo Nadi.

Note:  Imdb 7.9 out of 10, Rotten Tomatoes 97% critic 90% audience, Three Movie Buffs average 3 1/2* out of 4*, Letterboxd 3.9* out of 5*, Amazon 4.8* out of 5* with 548 reviews.

Special Note:  Filmed on Stage 28 and Stage 28A, Warner Brothers Burbank Studios, Burbank, California, Laguna Beach and Balboa, Newport Beach, California.  Lauren Bacall wrote in here autobiography that it was in the third week of filming that the friendly banter with Humphrey Bogart become something else.  Bogart was 44 years old an in an unhappy marriage.  Their onscreen chemistry was obvious but Director Howard Hawks was furious.  He warned Bacall away and threatened that the relationship could damage her career.  In reality, Hawks was jealous and had designs on Bacall himself.  Hawks warned that Bogart would drop Bacall after filming was completed.  Nothing like that happened!!  Bogart divorced his wife and married Bacall in 1945.  They made three more films together and they were married until Bogart’s death from cancer in January 1957.  Bacall was 20 at the time of filming and Bogart was 45, he was 25 years older.  The location in the novel changed from Cuba to Martinique under Vichy to make the film more timely.