THE KEY OF E

Humphrey is pitch perfect as always but it's Edward who makes this movie sing.


Above, one of many promo posters for the classic drama Key Largo. This movie, as you doubtless know, is great. It hinges on Edward G. Robinson’s bravura performance as a washed up gangster trying to make a comeback, but he gets ample onscreen help from co-stars Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Lionel Barrymore, Thomas Gomez, Claire Trevor, Dan Seymour, and others. And John Huston in the director’s chair is no slouch bringing the foreground drama and hurricane background to life. Key Largo is often called a film noir. Is it though? Hmm… Bogart certainly fits the bill in terms of characterization, but since the movie lacks most other noir elements we’re inclined to call it a straight crime drama. But that’s just our opinion. It was first seen by the public at a Hollywood preview in mid-July 1948, and went into full national release today.

They say you can't have everything but To Have and Have Not comes close.

This one has been a long time coming to Pulp Intl. To Have and Have Not. We love this flick. We never bothered to highlight it because it’s so familiar to so many, but with the Pulp Intl. girlfriends out of town (did we mention that yet?) we decided to revisit a few movies we’ve seen often. First off, we get it, Hemingway fans. The film mutilated his 1937 novel. But what a shock—Warner Brothers was not going to make a Marxist themed movie in 1944. Hemingway may have, we like to imagine, wanted to keep the book out of Hollywood’s hands for that very reason. But when Warners came across with a fat offer he was like, “Well, sure, okay, I suppose that amount of money will take the sting out of you whitewashing my Marxist opus.” You, see everyone has a price.

Howard Hawks directed, and Jules Furthman and William Faulkner wrote a screenplay that changed the location of the novel, its time period, its subtext, and its characters. Basically, Warners wanted a follow-up to Casablanca, and that’s exactly what they got, though To Have and Have Not differs from Casablanca by being light-hearted in general, and wickedly comical in parts.

But there are also thrills aplenty. The basic idea is Humphrey Bogart plays a diffident charter boat captain in French Martinique who finds himself drawn into World War II thanks to an idealistic anti-Vichy cabal that plans to rescue a French patriot imprisoned on Devil’s Island.

Everything and everybody in the film is great. Lauren Bacall, in her debut, brings just the right tone to her character Marie Browning, Walter Brennan puts on a physical acting clinic as Bogart’s alcoholic sidekick, and as the Vichy administrator of Martinique, Dan Seymour channels Major Strasser from Casablanca, adding a touch of torpor meant to disguise his snake-deadly nature. The film also adds great music performances in the down and dirty Bar du Zombie and the café of Hotel Marquis, with Hoagie Carmichael taking on the Sam role from CasablancaTo Have and Have Not is so iconic it has been studied in university courses and written of in modern treatises about race. The latter is a lot to pile onto this lightweight adventure. Set in the Caribbean, it tries to at least portray a high level of racial inclusiveness, though not perfectly.

There’s one more reason to watch the movie. We’ve seen it so much we’ve developed a drinking game from it. We’ve developed lots of drinking games from movies, but don’t generally play them when the Pulp Intl. girlfriends are around (did we mention they’re out of town?). Take a shot every time someone throws something in the water. That’s it. Bottles, matches, whatever. If you’re really brave, take a shot every time someone litters, whether at sea, on land, or indoors. It’s interesting to observe littering behavior from an era when the environment was thought to be boundless and impossible to ruin. As members of a generation trained to get our garbage in a receptacle at all costs, the polluting here is really funny to see. 10 out of 10 for this movie. Watch it. Love it. Watch it again. It premiered in the U.S. today in 1944.

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

1935—Parker Brothers Buys Monopoly

The board game company Parker Brothers acquires the forerunner patents for Monopoly from Elizabeth Magie, who had designed the game (originally called The Landlord’s Game) to demonstrate the economic ill effects of land monopolism and the use of land value tax as a remedy for them. Parker Brothers quickly turns Monopoly into the biggest selling board game in America.

1991—Gene Tierney Passes Away

American actress Gene Tierney, one of the great beauties in Hollywood history and star of the seminal film noir Laura, dies in Houston, Texas of emphysema. Tierney had begun smoking while young as a way to help lower her high voice, and was hooked on cigarettes the rest of her life.

1937—Hitler Reveals His Plans for Lebensraum

Adolf Hitler holds a secret meeting with Nazi officials and states his intention to acquire “lebensraum,” or living space for Germany. An old German concept that dated from 1901, Hitler had written of it in Mein Kampf, and now possessed the power to implement it. Basically the idea, as Hitler saw it, was for the Nazis to kill, deport, or enslave the Polish, Russian and other Slavic populations to the east, whom they considered inferior, and to repopulate those lands with a Germanic upper class.

1991—Fred MacMurray Dies

American actor Fred MacMurray dies of pneumonia related to leukemia. While most remember him as a television actor, earlier in his career he starred in 1944’s Double Indemnity, one of the greatest films noir ever made.

1955—Cy Young Dies

American baseball player Cy Young, who had amassed 511 wins pitching for five different teams from 1890 to 1911, dies at the age of 88. Today Major League Baseball’s yearly award given to the best pitcher of each season is named after Young.

1970—Feral Child Found in Los Angeles

A thirteen year-old child who had been kept locked in a room for her entire life is found in the Los Angeles house of her parents. The child, named Genie, could only speak twenty words and was not able even to walk normally because she had spent her life strapped to a potty chair during the day and bound in a sleeping bag at night. Genie ended up in a series of foster homes and was given language training but after years of effort by various benefactors never reached a point where she could interact normally in society.

Uncredited cover art for Lesbian Gym by Peggy Swenson, who was in reality Richard Geis.
T’as triché marquise by George Maxwell, published in 1953 with art by Jacques Thibésart, also known as Nik.

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