Key Largo (film)

Key Largo

theatrical release poster
Directed by John Huston
Produced by Jerry Wald
Screenplay by Richard Brooks
John Huston
Based on Key Largo (play)
1939 play 
by Maxwell Anderson
Starring Humphrey Bogart
Edward G. Robinson
Lauren Bacall
Lionel Barrymore
Claire Trevor
Music by Max Steiner
Cinematography Karl Freund
Edited by Rudi Fehr
Distributed by Warner Bros.
Release dates
  • July 16, 1948 (1948-07-16) (U.S.)
Running time
 101 minutes
Country United States
Language English
Box office $3,250,000 (US rentals)[1]

Key Largo is a 1948 film noir directed by John Huston and starring Humphrey Bogart, Edward G. Robinson and Lauren Bacall. The supporting cast features Lionel Barrymore and Claire Trevor.[2][3] The movie was adapted by Richard Brooks and Huston from Maxwell Anderson's 1939 play of the same name, which played on Broadway for 105 performances in 1939 and 1940.[4]

Key Largo was the fourth and final film pairing of married actors Bogart and Bacall, after To Have and Have Not (1944), The Big Sleep (1946), and Dark Passage (1947). Claire Trevor won the 1948 Academy Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for her performance as a drunken ex-singer, the moll of Robinson's character.

Plot

Ex-Major Frank McCloud (Humphrey Bogart) arrives at the Hotel Largo in Key Largo, Florida, to visit the family of George Temple, a friend from the Army who had served under him and was killed in the Italian campaign. He meets with George's widow Nora Temple (Lauren Bacall) and his father James (Lionel Barrymore), who owns the hotel. Because the winter vacation season has ended and a major hurricane is approaching, the hotel has only six guests: the dapper Toots (Harry Lewis), the boorish Curly (Thomas Gomez), stone-faced Ralph (William Haade), servant Angel (Dan Seymour), an attractive woman, Gaye Dawn (Claire Trevor) who suffers from alcoholism, and a sixth man who remains secluded in his room. They claim to have come to the Florida Keys for a fishing trip and have a charter boat waiting.

Rebuffing Curly's attempts to engage him in conversation, Frank (as planned) meets with Nora and James Temple. He tells them where George is buried and recounts George's heroism under fire. Nora seems taken with Frank, stating that George frequently mentioned Frank in his letters. Frank reveals to them the intimacy that is the experience of men in combat. They learn that George had told Frank personal and confidential details about the Temples (father and daughter-in-law). And Frank had committed to memory the small and cherished details that George had spoken of, to relieve the boredom, stress, and stark terror that was the reality of their moment-to-moment existence in combat.

The three begin preparing the hotel for the coming hurricane, but are interrupted by Sheriff Ben Wade (Monte Blue) and his deputy Sawyer (John Rodney), who are looking for the Osceola brothers, a pair of Native Americans who escaped from Sheriff's custody after being arrested on minor charges. James Temple promises the lawmen that he will use his influence with the local Indians to get the boys to surrender. Soon after the police leave, the local Seminoles show up seeking shelter at the hotel, among them the Osceola brothers.

With the storm approaching, Curly, Ralph, Angel and Toots pull guns and take the Temples and Frank hostage. They explain that the sixth member of their party is notorious gangster Johnny Rocco (Edward G. Robinson), who was exiled to Cuba some years before for being an undesirable alien. The gang discovered Sawyer looking about and knocked him unconscious. As they are held at gunpoint, Temple lets go a stream of insults toward Rocco, who responds by taunting Temple, explaining how he will one day return to prominence. At one point Rocco gives Frank a pistol and offers to fight a duel with him, but Frank declines, stating that he believes in self-preservation over heroics and that "one Rocco more or less isn't worth dying for." Sawyer grabs the gun and tries to escape, but Rocco shoots him. In the gunplay it becomes apparent that the gun that Rocco gave to Frank was not loaded. Rocco's men take Sawyer's body by boat to deep water and throw it overboard.

Rocco intends to hold the Temples and Frank hostage until his American contacts from Miami arrive to conclude a deal. As the storm rages, the Seminoles, usually sheltered in the hotel in storms, huddle outside as Rocco and his company worry about storm damage and insist the Indians stay outside. Rocco forces Gaye, his former moll, to sing for them by promising to give her a drink after she sings for them. After Gaye sings "Moanin' Low" a capella, Rocco berates her for her poor performance and fading looks and will not give her a drink. Frank goes to the bar, serves himself a drink and gives the drink to Gaye. While Gaye says "Thanks, fella" to Frank, Rocco slaps Frank in the face multiple times for disobeying his orders not to give a drink to Gaye. The only thing that Frank does after receiving the slaps is reply to Gaye's thanks saying "You're welcome". Nora reveals to Frank that she knows that the story he told earlier about her husband's heroism was false and that Frank was the real hero. Mr. Temple invites Frank to come live with them at the hotel, a prospect that seems to intrigue Nora.

After the storm subsides, Sheriff Ben Wade shows up looking for Sawyer, who had telephoned from the hotel before the hurricane. Temple is forced by Rocco to lie and say that he has not seen the deputy, but as Wade is leaving he discovers Sawyer's corpse floating in the water nearby where it has been blown in by the hurricane. Rocco blames the killing on the Osceola brothers, whom Wade then confronts in the nearby boathouse and kills.

After Wade leaves with Sawyer's body, Rocco's contact Ziggy (Marc Lawrence) arrives to conclude the deal. Rocco sells Ziggy a large amount of counterfeit money and then forces Frank, who has skills as a seaman, to take him and his henchmen back to Cuba on a small boat belonging to the hotel. (The captain of the luxurious yacht on which they arrived has moved it to deeper water to escape storm damage). Rocco pays James Temple for the stay and has his henchmen gather everyone's bags, except for Gaye's. He tells her he will not be taking her to Cuba with him and gives her some money for expenses. Nora and Gaye try to convince Frank to make a break for safety once he is outside the hotel, but he agrees to take the men to Cuba. Gaye appears to make a last-ditch attempt to convince Rocco to take her with him and uses the embrace to steal Rocco's gun, which she then manages to pass on to Frank. Out on the Straits of Florida, Frank manages to knock Ralph overboard and then kills the other henchmen, sustaining a minor wound himself. Johnny Rocco tries to trick Frank into thinking that he is giving up and throws out one of the other henchman's guns onto the ship deck, but Frank is not fooled and shoots Rocco as he comes up with his gun ready to shoot. Frank radios for help and pilots the boat back to Key Largo, and asks if they can put him through to the hotel. Meanwhile, Nora, Temple and Gaye tell Sheriff Ben Wade the truth, and he also learns that Ziggy and his mob have been apprehended by state police. As Temple and Wade lament the loss of the Osceola brothers, Gaye reassures them that Rocco bears the blame. As Wade and Gaye leave to identify Ziggy and his men, Temple and Nora receive Frank's call and are delighted that he is coming back.

Cast

Lauren Bacall, the last surviving credited cast member, died on August 12, 2014.

Cast notes Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall were in four films together:

Bogart, Robinson and Trevor had also starred in the 1938 film The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse and Bogart and Trevor in the 1937 film Dead End.

Production

The script was adapted from a 1939 play by Maxwell Anderson. In the play, the gangsters are Mexican bandidos, the war in question is the Spanish Civil War, and Frank is a disgraced deserter who dies at the end.

Robinson had top billing over Bogart in their four previous films together: Bullets or Ballots (1936), Kid Galahad (1937), The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse (1938) and Brother Orchid (1940). For this movie, however, Robinson's name appears to the right of Bogart's, but placed a little higher on the posters, and also in the film's opening credits, to indicate Robinson's near-equal status. Robinson's image was also markedly larger and centered on the original poster, with Bogart relegated to the background. In the film's trailer, Bogart is repeatedly mentioned first but Robinson's name is listed above Bogart's in a cast list at the end.

Exterior shots of the hurricane were taken from stock footage used in Night Unto Night, a Ronald Reagan melodrama which Warner Bros. also produced in 1948.

The boat used by Rocco's gang to depart Key Largo, with Bogart's character at the helm, is named the Santana, which was also the name of Bogart's personal 55-foot (17 m) sailing yacht.[5]

Song

A high point of the film comes when Robinson's alcoholic former moll, ex-nightclub singer "Gaye Dawn", played by Claire Trevor, is forced by Rocco to sing a song a cappella before he will allow her to have a drink. Trevor was nervous about the scene, and assumed that she would be lip-syncing to someone else's voice. She kept after director Huston, wanting to rehearse the song, but he put her off, saying "There's plenty of time," until one afternoon he told her that they would shoot the scene right then, without any rehearsal. She was given her starting note from a piano, and, in front of the rest of the cast and the crew, sang the song. It was this raw take that was used in the film.[6] The song was Moanin' Low, composed by Ralph Rainger with lyrics by Howard Dietz, introduced on Broadway in the 1929 revue The Little Show by Libby Holman becoming a hit and Holman's signature song.

Author Philip Furia said about the song, 'Moanin' Low': "[it's] about a woman who's trapped in a relationship with a very cruel man. And ... you see [Trevor as Gaye] realizes that that's exactly her real-life situation. [Trevor's performance] slowly break[s] down, and her voice falters and she sings off key." Robinson is dismissive but "Bogart pours her a stiff drink, walks it over ... under gunpoint ... and gives it to her and says 'You deserve this'—it's just a great dramatic scene, [and] it's a wonderful use of a song in a non-musical picture. [Trevor] won [the Academy Award] based purely, I think, on that performance."[7]

Awards and honors

Academy Awards

American Film Institute

Home media

A Blu-ray DVD of Key Largo was released by Warner Bros. in 2015.[10]

In popular culture

See also

References

Notes

  1. ↑ "Top Grossers of 1948", Variety 5 January 1949 p 46
  2. ↑ Variety film review; July 7, 1948, p. 6.
  3. ↑ Harrison's Reports film review; July 10, 1948, p. 111.
  4. ↑ Key Largo at the Internet Broadway Database
  5. ↑ Meyers, Jeffrey. Bogart: A Life in Hollywood. London: Andre Deutsch Ltd., 1997. ISBN 0-233-99144-1. p. 236
  6. ↑ McLellan, Dennis. "A Hollywood Reputation: Claire Trevor Bren, known for playing strong if imperfect women, never achieved the stature of contemporaries Bette Davis or Joan Crawford, but she had other priorities. Family--including stepson and Irvine Co. Chairman Donald L. Bren--has always come first." Los Angeles Times (May 28, 1995)
  7. ↑ "When Hollywood Had A Song In Its Heart", transcript, Philip Furia interview with Terry Gross; Fresh Air from WHYY-FM, July 20, 2010; discussing Furia's book The Songs of Hollywood (2010), coauthored by Laurie Patterson. Audio of full interview also available (25 min 36 sec), including clip of Trevor's singing and film dialogue. Retrieved 2010-07-27.
  8. ↑ AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes and Villains Nominees
  9. ↑ AFI's 10 Top 10 Ballot
  10. ↑ Greenland, David (March 2016). "What's Out There". Classic Images (489): 21.

External links

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