To Have and Have Not

Monday, November 26 2007

This here is a 1944 Humphrey Bogart film directed by Howard Hawks, with a few superficial similarities to Casablanca. I dig Bogart a lot, with The Maltese Falcon being a particular favorite of mine.

But I’ll be honest, outside of some pretty good dialogue here and there, I wasn’t too keen on this one. The story is kind of slow, and for what seems to be an intrigue-filled thriller, it meanders a lot and is even boring at times. Even when the more exciting stuff is happening, like when Bogart has to perform impromptu surgery on a gunshot victim, it’s a little too low key and doesn’t generate any excitement.

I did like Bogart’s drunken sidekick. And Lauren Bacall is pretty good and obviously she and Bogart have great chemistry. But the romance seems really like a subplot or an afterthought, and you just don’t get caught up in everything like you do with Casablanca. And Bacall may be a looker, but she’s no Ingrid Bergman.

Of course, Casablanca is one of the great crowd-pleasers, and it’s not really fair to compare this film to it, even if it does seem like it’s trying to copy the formula a little. But taken on it’s own terms, it just isn’t very interesting. If you want a good Bogart/Bacall/Hawks team-up, I say stick with The Big Sleep.

So I’m still slowly working on seeing more Howard Hawks films, but this was one of my least favorites. I liked it more than His Girl Friday or (if you can count it) The Thing From Another World, but not as much as Bringing Up Baby, The Big Sleep, Rio Bravo or El Dorado. Not a bad movie, just not good enough to recommend.