KEY LARGO
US, 1948, 100 minutes, Black and white.
Humphrey Bogart, Edward G. Robinson, Lauren Bacall, Lionel Barrymore, Claire Trevor, Thomas Gomez, Marc Lawrence, Dan Seymour, Monte Blue.
Directed by John Huston.
Key Largo is considered one of the great films of the 1940s, a gangster classic. It was based on a play by Maxwell Anderson (Mary of Scotland, Winterset, Eve of St Mark, Joan of Lorraine – the Ingrid Bergman Joan of Arc film). Some of Anderson’s plays in their film form were very stagebound with perhaps too much dialogue (too many words!). This is not the case with Key Largo which was adapted for the screen by Huston and co-writer, novelist Richard Brooks who was soon to move into directing, making a number of classic films during a successful career including adaptations of Tennessee Williams’ Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and Sweet Bird of Youth and Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood.
Humphrey Bogart is excellent as a former war officer who travels to Key Largo, one of the islands of the south coast of Florida, to visit the father of a man killed in action. The father is played by Lionel Barrymore, the manager of the Hotel Largo. With him is his daughter played by Lauren Bacall. Also in the hotel is an Italian Mafia chief, Johnny Rocco, played with sinister relish by Edward G. Robinson. He is accompanied by his alcoholic girlfriend, Claire Trevor, whom he treats sadistically. Claire Trevor won the Oscar for best supporting actress for the year.
The film shows the group trapped in the hotel by a hurricane (something similar to the drama, The Petrified Forest, also filmed with Humphrey Bogart in the 1930s). There is intense interaction between the characters in their confined space, some showing their dignity, the Mafia chief taunting people for their values and their stances.
The film is strong in characterisation, quality dialogue – one of the many films made by John Huston in his long career which he began as a writer at Warner Bros and moved into direction in 1942 with The Maltese Falcon. This same year he directed The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, directing his father, Walter Huston, who won the Oscar for best supporting actor. (His daughter Anjelica Huston won the best supporting actress in 1985 for his Prizzi’s Honour.)
1. The original play was a thriller but with symbolic overtones. Did the film predominate as thriller or as allegory? How? Were the two well blended? How successful a thriller was the film?
2. Key Largo and the Hotel formed a microcosm. How did the allegorical nature of Key Largo and the isolated Hotel work out? The storm surrounding the Hotel? Imprisonment in the Hotel and the need for escape?
3. The film as a combat between good and evil? The choices between good and evil in the individual characters?
4. Frank as a representation of an ordinary man, his military background, his kindness in visiting the Temples, and the struggle between good and evil in himself? Fear and courage? Repulsion at evil represented by Rico? Fear and inability to combat this evil? Why did Frank make his final choices to go with the criminals? The final fight as the culmination of the battle between good and evil?
5. Nora as every woman? Comment on the changing attitudes she had towards Frank, from friendliness, gratitude and appreciation to contempt to love?
6. The role of Gay Dawn? What was good in her? What evil? Gay Dawn as an alcoholic? How sympathetic was she? The treatment she received from Rico? Her attitude towards Frank? Her giving Frank the gun? Comment on the empathy that Claire Trevor's performance drew from the audience, especially when she was in need of a drink?
7. Rico and the type of evil that he represented? His pride in his past career, his vanity about his present situation and deals? His callousness in murdering people, especially the Indians and the Police? His taunts towards Frank and the others that? he imprisoned? His cruelty to Gay Dawn? His need for being praised by his henchmen? The effect of the storm on him and his fear? Why was this? What did it represent? His final fight with Frank? His death?
8. The nature of the criminals associated with Rico? Curly, Ziggy? The others their cruelty, their small-mindedness, participating in the evil of Rico?
9. Mr Temple what values and attitudes did he represent? His fearlessness? His comment on their behaviour in terms of American history and in the nature of oppression and cruelty
of human beings to one another?
10. The symbolism of the storm and its effect on the key, the Hotel, the main characters within the Hotel, the Mexicans (the importance of the Mexican sub-plot with the Police, the deaths of the two escapees, the fact that Rico put the Mexicans out in the storm)?
11. Did the dialogue successfully keep a balance between realism for the thriller and symbolism for the allegory?
12. The importance of the final shoot out as in the styles of the 1940s gangster films? Does this have its appropriate impact today?
13. The return of Frank? Does this mean an optimistic view of human life and behaviour? That good can conquer evil?
14. Why has this film such a reputation? Humphrey Bogart? The performance of Claire Trevor? Edward G. Robinson as the gangster? The philosophical reflections on good and evil?
