The Big Sleep
Editorial review of The Big Sleep, starring Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Martha Vickers directed by Howard Hawks courtesy of Amazon.com Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall… Read More »The Big Sleep
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William Faulkner
To Have and Have Not
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.