TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT

US, 1944, 100 minutes, Black and white.
Humphrey Bogart, Walter Brennan, Lauren Bacall, Hoagy Carmichael, Sheldon Leonard, Marcel Dalio, Dan Seymour.
Directed by Howard Hawks.

To Have And Have Not is based on a novel by Ernest Hemingway (which was filmed again six years later as Breaking Point with John Garfield and Patricia Neal).

The story was originally set in Cuba but this was considered an unsuitable location during World War Two and it was shifted to the Caribbean island of Martinique. Humphrey Bogart and Walter Brennan play a pair who have a boat, business going slack during World War Two, who are persuaded to take an anti-Nazi sympathiser from one island to another.

The film also shows the lazy life on the island, with Humphrey Bogart spending his life in a club (only the year before he had had his own club, Rick’s, in the award-winning Casablanca). Lauren Bacall, in her debut film, is a singer in the club. She has the famous line about drawing Bogart’s attention, just the need to whistle. They were married soon after in real life.

There are a number of character actors in the supporting cast especially three-time Oscar winner and veteran Walter Brennan as well as singer-composer Hoagy Carmichael.

The film captures the flavour of the Caribbean, of the tough Hemingway world. The film was directed by Howard Hawks who was to direct Bogart as Philip Marlowe the next year in The Big Sleep, also with Bacall. Hawks had skills in a variety of genres, with comedy in Bringing Up Baby as well as Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, westerns like Red River and Rio Bravo as well as thrillers. The screenplay was written by Jules Furthman who was to collaborate with Hawks in many films, Only Angels Have Wings, The Big Sleep, Come And Get It, Rio Bravo. Other interesting films that he wrote include the Oscar-winning Mutiny on the Bounty as well as the notorious The Outlaw.

1. The meaning and tone of the title? Its solemnity? Its coming from a Hemingway novel?

2. How important is this film in giving a picture of the forties style? Forties themes and interests? Humphrey Bogart and his style? The tough hero? in the war atmosphere? Does all this have the same impact now? What impact does it have? Why?

3. How important for the film is the war atmosphere? Its relationship to America and its attitudes? To heroism? To the Hemingway type of rugged individual?

4. How enjoyable was the film? Why? Its most enjoyable features? the actors, the situations, the adventure, the themes of the tough hero etc.?

5. What kind of man was Harry Morgan? Was he sympathetic? Our seeing him with Johnston and the fishing? As living in Martinique and his attitudes towards the French? Was he the ordinary everyman? or was he meant to be a larger than life hero? Harry's relation to others? To their standards? To the law? His confidence in himself? His own life as being the standard for which he worked? How well could an audience identify with him? His attitudes towards good and bad, his treatment of good and bad? His reactions towards Johnston, Eddie, Slim, the Chief of Police? It was considered that Harry was an anti-hero for the forties. In a time of war, his attitude was not patriotism, but himself. How true is this? In the forties? What is the modern attitude towards this kind of hero?

6. How did the film convey the atmosphere of Martinique? The wharves, the Vichy government, the Free French, the fishing, poverty and money, danger, the nightclub etc.? How important is this atmosphere for this kind of thriller?

7. The importance and impact of Johnston for the film's opening? for the story to get under way, for insight into Harry, for questions of money and justice? For the police and the Vichy government? How did the film then build on this? The death of Johnston and the raid, the persecution by the Police Chief?

8. The impact of Slim In the film? Lauren Bacall's personality, her first appearance in her first film? Did she act as a personality and character or as a glamorous type? The talent involved in this performance? The presentation of hardness and softness? Of pride? Of love and resourcefulness? How attractive a character was Slim? In her encounter with Harry? With Crikett? Her singing? Her wisecracks etc.? How important as a heroine to match Harry and his style?

9. What did Eddie add to the film? as regards humour, pathos? Contrasting with Harry and yet the object of Harry's affection and hardness?

10. The importance of the Free French in the film? This aspect of the story in itself? for patriotism and danger? The risk of life? Their impact on Harry? his initial refusals, his change after the shooting, his reactions to fascist government? Harry's self-reliance as parallelled with the Free French? Was Harry a patriot or was he doing it for money? His sense of justice?

11. Did Harry have sufficient choices? His choice in healing the wounded Free French, his helping them, his reaction against the Vichy representatives, his shooting?

12. After this discussion, what heroism emerges in Harry?

13. How well were the incidentals of the film portrayed: the shipping, the picking up of the Free French, the cafe and its atmosphere, the Free French in the cafe, the singing and the music, Crikett as a character and as a focus in the cafe, the war itself?

14. How did the film explore values of good and evil, individuality and society, greed and justice?

15. The film is considered a classic of its time. Why?