Key Largo

To start my journey through cinema, I'll write about Key Largo (1948, directed by John Huston), the one film in my top ten that doesn't appear at all in the Sight and Sound poll. In fact it's rarely been given much critical commentary, and I only came across it by chance. A few years ago in my determination to see as many Howard Hawks films as possible, I bought a set of DVDs featuring the four films Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall made together: To Have and Have Not, The Big Sleep (both directed by Hawks), Dark Passage (a real clunker directed by Delmar Daves), and Key Largo. Key Largo took me quite by surprise, and it engaged me even more than the brilliant Hawks films. The film takes place on the eponymous island, where Lauren Bacall and her father, Lionel Barrymore, run a hotel. Humphrey Bogart plays the former commanding officer of Bacall's brother, who was killed in the Second World War, and he comes to visit his friend's family. While he is there, a group of gangsters, led by Edward G. Robinson, decides to hide out in the hotel, which is closed for the off-season. A hurricane blows through and everyone is pushed to their limits.

The chemistry between Bogart and Bacall in this, their fourth and last film together, may not sizzle quite as much as it does in To Have and Have Not, but as actors both have gained immensely in their comfort with each other, Bacall especially by also having four more years of film experience behind her. Both are very much at home with their characters in the film and with their general 'star' personae. But good as their performances are, they are outshone by their supporting cast members. Lionel Barrymore gives the best performance of the late phase of his career, keeping in check the mannerisms often imitated by the likes of Mickey Rooney. Here we see the great actor instead of the cliche. Better yet is Claire Trevor, playing the mistress of Johnny Rocco (Robinson), the head gangster. She won an Oscar for this film, due mostly to her drunken performance of the song 'Moanin' Low', which Rico forces her to sing. She carries this off with an emotional honesty very rare among Hollywood actors of the time. But best of all is Edward G. Robinson as Rocco, standing in for the idea of resurgent post-war totalitarianism. Rocco is terrifying in his determination to make a comeback.

This leads us to the political stance offered by the film, made as the Cold War was starting to heat up. It is based on a play by the unjustly forgotten playwright Maxwell Anderson. The play was set in the 1930s and isn't Anderson's best work. Instead of the Second World War it takes the Spanish Civil War as its back story, and the gangsters even more explicitly represent fascism. The film, written by Richard Brooks and Huston, is an improvement on the play because the stakes seem higher, even though there wasn't a war on in 1948. 1948 was one of the first big 'red scare' years, and Bogart and Bacall were heavily involved in shielding the film industry from it, so their personae in this film make it an even clearer anti-fascist statement. The gangsters are clearly standing in for the right-wing extremists in the US at the time, and the film was somewhat ahead of its time in this way (All the King's Men, which was released the following year, had more of an impact on making people notice what was going on behind this kind of rhetoric. Unfortunately it wasn't enough to stop McCarthyism from destroying a lot of lives). The gangsters are very effective in showing the paranoia inherent in far-right thinking: Rocco talks big but deep down he is frightened of his own vulnerability, a fear that leads to his downfall. This film deserves to be talked about more these days, with far-right gangsterism making such a frightening comeback.

Claire Trever's performance of 'Moanin' Low' (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vh8veUgPt8) forms the emotional centre of the film, and also makes the strongest point against the gangsters, whose lifestyle has made this woman miserable. Huston's staging of the scene is extraordinary. Trevor only appears alone in shot as she sings; a more conventional way to film the scene would be to mix the close shots of Trevor with group shots of her and her listeners, but instead Huston separates her from the listeners, shooting the latter (especially Robinson) mostly in close-up. She sings to the lone accompaniment of blowing wind and rain, heightening the sense of isolation. Here is a woman who has been chewed up and spit out by her exploiters. This is one of the bleakest scenes in all of cinema.

Though it ends happily, Key Largo isn't a particularly uplifting film. There are many more Johnny Roccos out there, and not many Humphrey Bogarts to bring them to justice. As a piece of filmmaking it is taut and tight, it has some fine performances, and its message is also important (even though it is not a 'message movie'). Search this one out if you haven't seen it!

Trailer (makes the film look more conventional than it is): http://www.tcm.com/mediaroom/video/7829/Key-Largo-Original-Trailer-.html

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0040506/