movie review of To Have and Have Not (1944) starring Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Walter Brennan
Help the Free French? Not world-weary gunrunner Harry Morgan (Humphrey Bogart). But he changes his mind when a sultry siren-in-distress named Marie asks, “Anybody got a match?” That red-hot match is Bogart and 19-year-old first-time film actress Lauren Bacall. Full of intrigue and racy banter (including Bacall’s legendary whistling instructions), this thriller excites further interest for what it has and has not.
Cannily directed by Howard Hawks and smartly written by William Faulkner and Jules Furthman, it doesn’t have much similarity to the Ernest Hemingway novel that inspired it. And it strongly resembles Casablanca: French resistance fighters, a piano-playing bluesman (Hoagy Carmichael) and a Martinique bar much like Rick’s Cafe Americaine. But first and foremost, it showcases Bogart and Bacall, carrying on with a passion that smolders from the tips of their cigarettes clear through to their souls.
Editorial review of To Have and Have Not movie, starring Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Walter Brennan, courtesy of Amazon.com
Yes, it’s true: you can virtually see Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall falling for each other in this Howard Hawks variation on Casablanca but adapted from–as legend has it–Ernest Hemingway’s self-declared “worst novel.” (The story goes that Hawks told Hemingway he could make a movie of the author’s least work, and Hemingway gave him the rights to this story.) The script by William Faulkner and Jules Furthman actually makes this one of Hawks’s and Bogart’s most interesting and often exciting films. Bogart plays a boat captain who reluctantly agrees to help the French Resistance while wooing chanteuse Bacall. Hoagy Carmichael, wry at the piano, adds a delicious accent to an already wonderful mood. —Tom Keogh
Movie quotes from To Have and Have Not
[first lines]
Title Card: Martinique, in the summer of 1940, shortly after the fall of France.
Forte de France
Romance
Marie ‘Slim’ Browning (Lauren Bacall): Who was the girl, Steve?
Harry ‘Steve’ Morgan (Humphrey Bogart): Who was what girl?
Marie ‘Slim’ Browning (Lauren Bacall): The one who left you with such a high opinion of women.
Marie ‘Slim’ Browning (Lauren Bacall): You know Steve, you’re not very hard to figure, only at times. Sometimes I know exactly what you’re going to say. Most of the time. The other times… the other times, you’re just a stinker.
[Slim kisses Steve]
Harry ‘Steve’ Morgan (Humphrey Bogart): What did you do that for?
Marie ‘Slim’ Browning (Lauren Bacall): I’ve been wondering if I’d like it.
Harry ‘Steve’ Morgan (Humphrey Bogart): What’s the decision?
Marie ‘Slim’ Browning (Lauren Bacall): I don’t know yet.
[They kiss again]
Marie ‘Slim’ Browning (Lauren Bacall): It’s even better when you help.
Marie ‘Slim’ Browning (Lauren Bacall): I’m hard to get, Steve. All you have to do is ask me.
Harry ‘Steve’ Morgan (Humphrey Bogart): You know what you’re getting into. It’s gonna be rough.
Marie ‘Slim’ Browning (Lauren Bacall): 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.
Marie ‘Slim’ Browning (Lauren Bacall): Give her my love.
Harry ‘Steve’ Morgan (Humphrey Bogart): I’d give her my own if she had that on!
Eddie
Eddie (Walter Brennan): Drinking don’t bother my memory. If it did I wouldn’t drink. I couldn’t. You see, I’d forget how good it was, then where’d I be? Start drinkin’ water, again.
Eddie (Walter Brennan): I’ve been figuring, them guys don’t think that I’m wise, but they was trying to get me drunk.
[laughs]
Eddie (Walter Brennan): They don’t know me, do they, Harry?
[Hiccups]
Eddie (Walter Brennan): Was you ever bit by a dead bee?
At the bar
Harry ‘Steve’ Morgan (Humphrey Bogart): Anybody got a match?
Marie ‘Slim’ Browning (Lauren Bacall): Change your mind?
Harry ‘Steve’ Morgan (Humphrey Bogart): No money, those guys cleaned me out.
Marie ‘Slim’ Browning (Lauren Bacall): I forgot too – maybe I can do something, its been a long day and I’m thirsty.
[surveys club patrons]
Harry ‘Steve’ Morgan (Humphrey Bogart): Picked him out yet?
Marie ‘Slim’ Browning (Lauren Bacall): You don’t mind do you?
Harry ‘Steve’ Morgan (Humphrey Bogart): You’re thirsty, go ahead. If I get tired of waiting, I’ll be back at that hotel.
Marie ‘Slim’ Browning (Lauren Bacall): All right
[starts moving through tables]
Marie ‘Slim’ Browning (Lauren Bacall): What are you trying to do, guess her weight?
Harry ‘Steve’ Morgan (Humphrey Bogart): She’s heftier that you think.
[lays down fainted woman he has been carrying]
Harry ‘Steve’ Morgan (Humphrey Bogart): Better loosen her clothes.
Marie ‘Slim’ Browning (Lauren Bacall): You’ve been doing all right.
[stops him from loosening clothes]
Marie ‘Slim’ Browning (Lauren Bacall): Maybe you’d better look after her husband.
Harry ‘Steve’ Morgan (Humphrey Bogart): He’s not going to run out on me.
Marie ‘Slim’ Browning (Lauren Bacall): Neither is she.
Conflict
Harry ‘Steve’ Morgan (Humphrey Bogart): [to a Vichy cop who has just slapped Slim] Go ahead, slap me…
Harry ‘Steve’ Morgan (Humphrey Bogart): Morning.
Officer at port: Good Morning, Captain Morgan. What can I do for you today?
Harry ‘Steve’ Morgan (Humphrey Bogart): Same thing as yesterday.
Officer at port: You and your client wish to make a temporary exit from the port?
Harry ‘Steve’ Morgan (Humphrey Bogart): That is right.
Officer at port: Name?
Harry ‘Steve’ Morgan (Humphrey Bogart): Ha – Harry Morgan.
Officer at port: Nationality?
Harry ‘Steve’ Morgan (Humphrey Bogart): Eskimo.
Officer at port: What?
Harry ‘Steve’ Morgan (Humphrey Bogart): American.
[last lines]
Marie ‘Slim’ Browning (Lauren Bacall): Cricket. I came to say good-bye.
Cricket: What?
Marie ‘Slim’ Browning (Lauren Bacall): We’re leaving now. Thanks for everything.
Cricket: Hey Slim, are you still happy?
Marie ‘Slim’ Browning (Lauren Bacall): What do you think?
Cast
- Humphrey Bogart (Casablanca) … Harry ‘Steve’ Morgan
- Walter Brennan (The Princess and the Pirate) … Eddie
- Lauren Bacall (The Big Sleep) … Marie ‘Slim’ Browning
- Dolores Moran (The Horn Blows at Midnight) … Mme. Hellene de Bursac
- Hoagy Carmichael (The Best Years of Our Lives) … Cricket
- Sheldon Leonard (It’s a Wonderful Life) … Lt. Coyo
- Walter Szurovy … Paul de Bursac
- Marcel Dalio (Sabrina) … Gerard aka Frenchy
- Walter Sande (Bad Day at Black Rock) … Johnson
- Dan Seymour (Key Largo) … Capt. M. Renard
- Aldo Nadi … Renard’s Bodyguard
Trivia for To Have and Have Not
- Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall fell in love during production.
- The film debut of Lauren Bacall.
- The most famous scene in To Have and Have Not (1944) is undoubtedly the “you know how to whistle” dialog sequence. It was written by Howard Hawks. Hawks wrote the scene as a screen test for Bacall, with no real intention that it would necessarily end up in the film.
- The movie’s line “You know how to whistle, don’t you, Steve? You just put your lips together and blow.” was voted as the #34 movie quote by the American Film Institute (out of 100).
- Dolores Moran was originally scripted to be the lead actress and Humphrey Bogart’s romantic interest, but her role was shrunk to make room for Lauren Bacall.
- Howard Hawks gave John Huston the climax (a shootout on a boat) that he was unable to fit into the end of this film. Huston used this in Key Largo (1948) as he had been having difficulties coming up with a satisfactory ending.
- At the funeral for her husband, Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall put a whistle in his coffin.
- The first of four films made by real life couple and later husband and wife Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall.
- 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.