To Have and Have Not

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Actors claim that the term "overnight star" is a publicist's fantasy, that most who are given that title have labored long and hard in obscurity for the "sudden" recognition.

Then there's Lauren Bacall.

Oh, she wanted to be an actress all right. But in 1943, at age18, Betty Bacall had barely set foot on a stage, and never on a soundstage. She was working as a fashion model in New York when the chic wife of director Howard Hawks saw her on the cover of Harper's Bazaar, and pointed her out to Hawks. Hawks sent for Bacall, cringed at her nasal voice, told her to lower it, and changed her first name. Then, for her first film, To Have and Have Not (1944), he teamed her with Humphrey Bogart, the tough-guy newly-turned romantic hero on the heels of Casablanca's success. Fireworks flew, on-screen and off. Gushy reviews, like this one from the usually cool and judicious James Agee: "Lauren Bacall has cinema personality to burn...a javelinlike vitality, a born dancer's eloquence in movement, a fierce female shrewdness and a special sweet-sourness..."

But then, Hawks was a gambler. Bacall wasn't the only one making her film debut in To Have and Have Not. Hawks met songwriter Hoagy Carmichael at a party, and had a hunch he'd make a good actor. As Cricket, the saloon pianist, Carmichael did. The film was the result of Hawks' bet with his good friend, novelist Ernest Hemingway, whom Hawks was unsuccessfully trying to convince to write for the screen. Hawks bet that he could make a movie out of Hemingway's worst book -- To Have and Have Not. The film version, as several critics pointed out, owed more to Casablanca than to Hemingway, but Hawks won his bet.

So like all Hollywood fantasies, this one had a happy ending. To Have and Have Not was a hit, Bacall became an instant star, and found the love of her life. She and Bogart married in 1945, and stayed married until his death in 1957. She remains a star to this day.

Director: Howard Hawks
Producer: Howard Hawks, Jack L. Warner (executive)
Screenplay: Jules Furthman, William Faulkner, based on the novel by Ernest Hemingway
Cinematography: Sid Hickox
Editor: Christian Nyby
Art Direction: Charles Novi
Music: Franz Waxman (uncredited), Hoagy Carmichael (song)
Cast: Humphrey Bogart (Harry Morgan), Walter Brennan (Eddie), Lauren Bacall (Slim), Dolores Moran (Mme. Hellen de Bursac), Hoagy Carmichael (Cricket).
BW-101m. Close captioning. Descriptive video.

By Margarita Landazuri VIEW TCMDb ENTRY