Toronto Film Society presented Key Largo (1942) on Monday, August 12, 1985 in a double bill with The Glass Key as part of the Season 38 Summer Series, Programme 5.
Production Company: Warner Brothers. Director: John Huston. Producer: Jerry Wald. Screenplay: Richard Brooks, based on the play by Maxwell Anderson. Art Director: Leo K. Kuter. Set Decorator: Fred M. Maclean. Music: Max Steiner. Orchestrator: Murray Cutter. Song: Ralph Rainger and Howard Dietz. Assistant Director: Art Lueker. Sound: Dolph Thomas. Special Effects: William McGann, Robert Burks. Photographer: Karl Freund. Editor: Rudi Fehr.
Cast: Humphrey Bogart (Frank McCloud), Edward G. Robinson (Johnny Rocco), Lauren Bacall (Nora Temple), Lionel Barrymore (James Temple), Claire Trevor (Gaye Dawn), Thomas Gomez (Richard ‘Curley’ Hoff), Harry Lewis (Edward ‘Toots’ Bass), John Rodney (Deputy Clyde Sawyer), Marc Lawrence (Ziggy), Dan Seymour (Angel Garcia), Monte Blue (Sheriff Ben Wade), Jay Silverheels (John Osceola), Rodric Redwing (Tom Osceola), William Haade (Ralph Feeney), Joe P. Smith (Bus Driver), Alberto Morin (Skipper), Pat Flaherty, Jerry Jerome, John Phillips, Lute Crockett (Ziggy’s Henchman), Felipa Gomez (Old Indian Woman).
Of all Hollywood couples, one team that did work as well on the screen, as off it, was the team of Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. The two met, fell in love, and soon after married, (his fourth, her first), while working on the film To Have and Have Not (1944). Bacall was twenty and Bogart was forty-five when they were married. Many people were concerned about the twenty-five year age difference, even Bogart. But the marriage lasted, Bogart stopped his heavy drinking, and woman-chasing. Bacall understood her husband very well. While Bogart was already an established star, To Have and Have Not was to be Lauren Bacall’s Hollywood debut. Both the critics and the public took to her. She and Bogart were married in 1945 and made three more films together, The Big Sleep (1946), Dark Passage (1947), and Key Largo (1948). Their on-screen relationship was characterized by such memorable phrases as “If you want anything, all you have to do is whistle,…” (from To Have and Have Not). The two stars were both very successful in their careers, and they never developed conflicts as many Hollywood couples did. Their off-screen relationship was close and warm. When Bogart was dying of cancer, she nursed him devotedly until his death in 1957.
Key Largo is a reworking of Maxwell Anderson’s stage play that becomes a fitting vehicle to reteam the husband-and-wife team of Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, as well as providing an acting ground for Edward G. Robinson, Lionel Barrymore (on loan from M.G.M.) and assorted others, including poignant Claire Trevor, who won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Like The Glass Key, this film works within the gangster genre, although Alan Ladd’s character is more sophisticated and subtle than that of Edward G. Robinson. The film was updated to a post-war period, and sums up the post-war mood of despair. It’s the story of a returning war veteran who fights a tough gangster (Robinson) holding people captive in a Florida hotel during a rough storm.
Bogart and Bacall were cast in the roles of a disillusioned veteran and an embittered widow. Their acting is more low-keyed than that of Edward G. Robinson as the cigar-chomping Rocco. Key Largo was Robinson’s last major gangster portrayal. He plays his role with the mannerisms and verve of his famous role in Little Caesar. The hoods are not young anymore, and are clearly out of their time, relics of an old order that has passed.
Usually soundstage filming gave a restrictive quality to most productions set in the outdoors, but in the case of Key Largo, the constructed hotel sets and the dockside all benefited from the fabricated set design. These sets gave the picture the proper claustrophobic ambience, and created a unity among the diverse players.
Notes by Fred Cohen
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