Saturday, December 19, 2009

To Have and Have Not

DVD review from The Movie Snob

Ernest Hemingway's To Have and Have Not (B). The back of the DVD case bills this 1944 release as "The Movie That Brought Together Bogart and Bacall," and so it did. The 19-year-old Lauren Bacall (Dogville) co-starred opposite 44-year-old Humphrey Bogart (Casablanca), and apparently it was very nearly love at first sight for the two. The plot closely resembles that of Casablanca. Harry Morgan (Bogart) owns a small fishing boat he operates out of the Caribbean island of Martinique, where he tries to stay out of the struggle between the Vichy officials who control the island and the outlawed French Resistance. But when a beautiful but down-on-her-luck American (Bacall) crosses his path, he finds himself tempted to put neutrality aside in order to help her. A pretty good movie, but it's no Casablanca. And although Bacall is pretty enough, I wouldn't say she's as beautiful as some of the other stars of the day, like Ingrid Bergman (Casablanca) or Vivien Leigh (Gone With the Wind). There is a decent "making of" feature on the DVD that discusses the Bogart-Bacall love affair, and a horrific vintage Looney Tunes cartoon called Bacall to Arms.

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