To Have and Have Not

Buy This Item To Have and Have Not by Warner Home Video (M  Available from Amazon  $19.99  on 11-16-2008     Yes, it's true: you can virtually see Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall falling for each other in this Howard Hawks variation on <I>Casablanca</I> but adapted from--as legend has it--Ernest Hemingway's self-declared "worst novel." (The story goes that Hawks told Hemingway he could make a movie of the author's least work, and Hemingway gave him the rights to this story.) The script by William Faulkner and Jules Furthman actually makes this one of Hawks's and Bogart's most interesting and often exciting films. Bogart plays a boat captain who reluctantly agrees to help the French Resistance while wooing chanteuse Bacall. Hoagy Carmichael, wry at the piano, adds a delicious accent to an already wonderful mood. <I>--Tom Keogh</I> Reader Reviews Howard Hawks' 1944 "To Have and Have Not" would have been a first rate movie by most measures, but owes much of its continuing notoriety to the smouldering filmwork of Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, paired in the movie and soon to be paired in real life. "To Have and Have Not" is set in Martinique in 1940. France has fallen to the Germans, and the locals in this French colony are picking sides. Harry Morgan (Humphrey Bogart), a stubbornly independent boatman who does fishing charters and a little gunrunning on the side, is too world-weary to get involved in politics. He and his alcoholic sidekick Eddie (in a superb supporting role by Walter Brennan) resolutely stay on the sidelines, until Harry gets involved with the young, sultry, and mysterious Marie (a 19 year-old Becall in her first movie role). The on-screen chemistry between Bogart and Becall is worth the movie all by itself, especially the famous scene in which Marie instructs Harry on how to whistle if he needs her. Thanks to Marie, Harry will finally pick sides and take a stand with the Resistance, leading to an exciting conclusion. This movie is very highly recommended as an atmospheric thriller and one of Humphrey Bogart's better movies, made all the more enjoyable by the racy banter with Lauren Bacall.

To Have and Have Not Available from Amazon Price: $19.99 Updated on 11-16-2008.

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