Key Largo (1948)
Director: John Huston
Honors:
The movie star couple of Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall are
paired on screen the forth and final time as they co-star alongside the
legendary actor of Warner Bros. classic gangster pictures Edward G. Robinson in
the John Huston directed noir Key Largo.
For a picture adapted from a play set primarily within a confined location, the
film’s cast shines through the production delivering performances beyond that
provided from the film’s script. For director John Huston, this gem picture
would prove to be another triumph, yet a process that proved so upsetting for
him to eventually sever his association with Warner Bros. Studios.
Key Largo is a
noir crime drama about a disillusioned war veteran who finds himself at odds
with a vile gangster and his cronies while held up in a remote hotel during a
severe tropical storm. Jaded WWII veteran Frank McCloud (Humphrey Bogart) pays
a visit to the wife, Nora (Lauren Bacall), and father, James (Lionel
Barrymore), of a fallen war companion at their family ran hotel in the Florida
Keys only to find the establishment being strong armed by a series of toughs.
The men are led by the notorious and exiled gangster Johnny Rocco (Edward G.
Robinson), utilizing the seasonally closed hotel for a temporary hideaway for
himself, his men, and his alcoholic girlfriend Gaye Dawn (Claire Trevor) while waiting
for associates to help him skip the country.
Trouble arrives as a hurricane descends upon the region
delaying and complicating the situation for the fugitive, Rocco who threatens
McCloud, Nora, and James through the dangerous storm while battened down in the
hotel. After the storm passes the disillusioned McCloud feeling responsible to
protect, whom he has come finds himself falling in love with, James, and their
hotel. Recruited to pilot Rocco’s boat to Cuba, McCloud leads the boat to sea
and to confront and slay Rocco and his men onboard with a gun slipped to him by
Gaye. Following the physical and emotional relief of the confrontation McCloud sets
course back to Key Largo and to Nora.
This film outplays itself in production quality. With a
script, co-penned by director John Huston, that appears to lag at times, Huston
was able to assemble a film that plays well with the building tension between
the characters. His visual style enhances his actors, whose performances
dominate the simplicity that this script delivers. The film comes of almost as
a tribute to the gangster roles of Robinson’s past, once again allowing the
actor to shine. It also accentuates Bogarts mastery of potraying flawed and jaded
characters. Lauren Bacall’s performance adds a certain flare to a rather bland
female character, resulting in a role that goes beyond that found in the script.
Overall the result is a confined picture that builds well beyond what is
superficially observed with an underlying tone that is absolutely palpable.
For John Huston, Key
Largo was a different filmmaking experience than he would have liked.
Adapted from the 1939 Maxwell Anderson play, Huston was limited by the studio production-wise
after displeasing Warner Bros during his most recent picture. Huston shot Treasure of the Sierra Madre on location
in Mexico, leaving the studio out to the loop during production, going over
schedule and over budget during a time when the studio was cutting costs.
Despite Treasure of the Sierra Madre becoming
a massive hit, the producers kept a tight leash on Key Largo, keeping Huston’s production on the studio lot the entire
time to keep and watchful eye on him and the picture. Huston would alter the
original story, the names of the characters, turning what were Mexican bandits
into American gangsters to make the picture more relevant in his mind. After
production Huston’s found his picture edited down by the studio, upsetting the
director for his loss of creative control on his product, a move that would
help encourage the filmmaker to depart from Warner Bros. soon after.
In all fairness this feature is more a Bogart-Robinson
picture than a Bogart-Bacall film. For the fifth time Humphrey Bogart and
Edward G. Robinson are featured together in the same movie, but this marks the
first time Bogart is not a supporting player, but rather the star. Despite
Bogart and Bacall technically receiving co-top billing as the husband/wife
couple as most recently been, Robinson, the third lead, saw his name place in
the middle and in larger print on promotional material out of respect for his history
with Warner Bros. gangster pictures, as well as Bogart’s massive respect for
his co-star.
Robinson’s performance is powerful and menacing, homage to
all his prior gangster work, but ratcheted up with the direction of John
Huston. Bogart brings the troubled angst from his performances in The Maltese Falcon and Casablanca to to his role as McCloud, a
character that does what he feels is right when he could have easily fled the
troubling situation that he had nothing to do with. Bacall’s performance is a
bit underwhelming, but in hindsight she had very little to work with. For a
script that gave her a character with little appeal, Bacall makes it her own.
While not being suggestive she is alluring as a widow who comes to have some
interest in McCloud as a friend and a hero figure.
Even the supporting cast shines in this drama. Lionel
Barrymore, long affected by his arthritis, is confined to his wheelchair that many
may associate with his Mr. Potter role in It’s
a Wonderful Life. Here he uses his ailment to dramatic affect as his
character is left in a pitiful situation in moments of anger, delivering and
determined, but sad performance. Despite Barrymore being hindered by his
physical condition, his most dramatic scene has him take a pitiful swing at one
of the criminals in a moment of anger that leaves him looking helpless.
Fellow supporting player Claire Trevor also displays a
pitiful creature, she being the emotionally broken girlfriend of Rocco, Gaye, a
former singer now driven to drink as her only means to escape. At first her
role appears out of place in this crime drama as the washed up singer and
eventual moll, but as her character pines over what she once was. Through the
build of the movie Trevor’s performance becomes much more powerful. She
delivered the most heartbreaking moment of the picture as Rocco demands her to
sing for her drink, which she relents into doing in her humiliation, singing
pitifully in a cappella with glimmers of the talent of what she once was, but
hearing her fall out of tune multiple times, keeping herself from breaking down
into tears. Stories have that John Huston got this performance out of Trevor by
surprising her the day of shooting with the plan to film this scene, leaving
her ill prepared and highly nervous, exactly what Huston wanted out of her. In
the end Claire Trevor would win great praise from peers and critics alike,
ultimately earning her the Academy Award for her performance.
Key Largo was yet
another success for John Huston and Warner Bros, earning over $3 million in
profit and being one of the studios greatest money makers of the year. 1948 was
a huge year for the director as after the success of Treasure of the the Sierra Madre, Key Largo proved he could produce films even under tighter
constrictions, despite the animosity it created between filmmaker and studio. Regardless
of this not being Bogart and Bacall’s most romantic film pairing, it sadly
would be their last on the silver screen as Bogart would pass away before the
two saw the chance to work together in a fifth motion picture. For Edward G.
Robinson, this may have been the last great starring role of his career as
political issues would eventually cause him trouble as he fell into the
supporting roles in the years to come. Today Key Largo remains a strong crime drama years beyond the heyday of
the genre, a grand tribute to the career of fine roles for Mr. Robinson in a
chilling character found in the tight confines within this story.
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Nice film!!!
ReplyDeleteInteresting.