Program Notes

To Have and Have Not (Warner Brothers, 1944), transfers Ernest Hemingway’s story from the Florida keys and Cuba to the capital of Martinique and adapts its action considerably to conditions on the island after the fall of France, when the Free French were struggling against their Vichy-controlled government. Humphrey Bogart is an American who operates a motor boat available to rich fisherman, and he maintains a strict neutrality until Marie (Lauren Bacall) arrives, broke and unable to get back to the US. Then Bogart undertakes a mission for the Free French in order to raise money to help the girl, despite her protests.

Eighteen year old Betty Bacall (nee Perske), a former New York model with some stage experience, was discovered by producer-director Howard Hawks’ wife through a picture in Harpers Bazaar. Renamed Lauren she made her screen debut under Hawks direction in To Have and Have Not as a hard boiled gal (“if you want anything, just whistle”) with warm-hearted instincts. Bogart immediately fell in love with her, and she became his fourth wife a year later.

This was the first of three Bogart films to be scored by Franz Waxman. Dark Passage (1947), also with Bacall, uses the same Main Title as in To Have and Have Not. The Two Mrs. Carrolls would follow later in the year.

– Rudy Behlmer