TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT (1944) *** Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart are brilliant as Ernest Hemingway's twin lobes. Of course some of their best lines weren't written by Hemingway; but by William Faulkner and Howard Hawks, but they're all just exposing their internal Hemingway anyway. I'm not just talking about hard alcohol and fishing, or loners and redemptive situations. Hell, there's more slapping than punching going on, onscreen, but it's all Hemingway all the time, no matter what. The tables are Hemingway, the lightning is Hemingway. Hawks deserves a lot of the credit, for getting Bogey and Bacall in front of the camera together and then not getting in their way. Walter Brennan is an appealing if not particularly believable (which would have gotten in the way) alcoholic, and Dolores Moran does an effective turn as a formidable French aristocrat, for a girl from Stockton, Calif. (accent occasionally bleeds through, but such trifles don't take anything much away if you're doing the rest of it right), but it's all about Hemingway. Except that all this Hemingway stuff is probably more about Bogey and Bacall. This part of Hemingway, you see, was in no small part a presage of something special that would happen somewhere to someone else, for a while. That's why Hawks asked her to imitate his beloved wife, here.
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