Key Largo (1948)

Obviously someone below couldn't tell a well directed, highly regarded classic film the likes of Key Largo from a Turkey Sandwich - but thanks for the remedial effort nonetheless.

This movie doesn't get the attention of a Casablanca or a Maltese Falcon, but it's definitely one to see - and not just for the giants on the screen. The build up of tension between the main characters is set well against the backdrop of the impending storm seemingly threatening to cave their hotel in literally and figuratively. Frank's character arc from jaded passiveness to the restrained heroism he is inescapably drawn towards has been seen in other Bogie characters, but usually those guys were either willing participants on the trigger end of their guns, or they were fulfilling their own agendas as well. However Frank McCloud has no ulterior motives. Here, there is a refreshing change from the usual Bogie-isms; Frank doesnt engage in any verbal bravado with Rocco, there are no confident smirks on his face, or promises to 'get even' later.

As for Barrymore, he was just simply an acting genius. Look no further than the scene with him getting out of his wheelchair in a futile attempt to fight Rocco as proof. Fantastic. E.G. Robinson delivers his vitriol so well on-screen, you cant help but hate his guts and wait for his come-uppance. Both Barrymore and EGR were great at delivering speeches - extended lines of dialogue while 'flying solo' - you can almost here the room go quiet as they worked the script. Lauren Bacall's chemistry with her Husband was so natural and unforced, even the scenes with no dialogue show how much they were in love - albeit true she doesnt exactly carry the workload in this one.

Some of the scenes with the Indians seem a little odd, but it still works in the context of the entire movie. Don't overlook this great film!

Fmovies: Humphrey Bogart and John Huston must be considered the artistic equivalent of De Niro-Scorsese. Huston and Bogie made several films together, this being one of their best. But there is another combo that comes to an end in cinema's history: Bogie and Bacall appear on screen for the final time together. It is their finest collaboration. Edward G. Robinson, "Little Caesar" himself, returns to gangster form after years of playing the good guy (Wilder's DOUBLE INDEMNITY, Welles' THE STRANGER) and has one of the more memorable entrances in film villain history. We see him in a tub, smoking, a fan in front of him. He seems to be decaying in a way, but "Johnny Rocco" is still to be reckoned with. This is the Robinson we all love, demented and wise, sinister yet humorous. The Largo Hotel is the setting and a hurricane of drama, heroism, and rain is coming.

Huston stages the film much like the play it is based on, yet we never feel confined. There is enough colorful dialogue to go around. Surprisingly, much of it is not by Bogart, who plays probably his most quiet role, promoting his character through facial gestures more than words. He plays off Robinson and his posse of mobsters perfectly in this way, allowing Edward G. to dominate the majority of the film, which is the point. Lionel Barrymore plays the chair-ridden owner of the Largo and his daughter Bacall is falling in love with Bogart, naturally. They are at the mercy of Rocco and his boys, all of whom have some itchy trigger fingers. Bogart is just buying his time to make his move. The finale is extremely well done and foresees suspense endings to come.

Lauren Bacall is one of the most beautiful actresses to grace the screen, especially in black and white. Her perfect features look sculpted in this light and her sensual stare is enough to make you melt. Her smoky voice and attitude is an excellent match for Bogie's simple, heroic character. Film Noir becomes Florida Noir here, as the lightening outside the windows of the hotel play games with the shadows and atmosphere of events inside. Robinson murders an innocent man with the look of a terrifying ghost, lightening flashing on him and all. The thunder substitutes for the sound of cars and street-life normally heard in classic noir pictures. KEY LARGO is a very good film, dark and suspenseful, in the most pleasant of locales.

RATING: 8 of 10

It is difficult to resist the temptation to compare William Wyler's "The Desperate Hours" with John Huston's "Key Largo."

Here again the drama arose when a gangster and his thugs sought a temporary hideout by moving in on an innocent family, and were unable to get away until a raging hurricane had blown itself outÂ…

The family were Lionel Barrymore, complete with wheelchair, and Lauren Bacall, apparently without make-up—stunningly attractive… Their home was a small hotel in Florida, and "just passing through" was a tough and somewhat mixed-up good guy Humphrey Bogart… The gangster was Edward G. Robinson…

For Bogart "Key Largo" was another "The Petrified Forest," but this time he was the disenchanted idealist and Edward G. Robinson the vicious, antiquated symbol of raw brute forceÂ…

Paul Muni had appeared in the original Maxwell Anderson play in 1939, and director John Huston and Richard Brooks updated the piece to make it more contemporaryÂ… As a film, it was treated in a slightly heavy-handed, overly talky manner, displacing action in favor of strong character studies of a group of disparate individuals trapped by a kingpin gangsterÂ…

Claire Trevor won an Academy Award as Gaye Dawn, Rocco's boozy mistress who was willing to lower herself to any depths for the mere expedient of getting a drinkÂ… She is finally pushed too far by Rocco, has accepted too many insults and been rejected once too often, so she decides to help the besieged prisonersÂ…

Lauren Bacall was Nora Temple, an antiseptic dreamer who persisted in believing that evil should always be opposed by a valiant Sir Galahad and temporarily has her illusions shattered when Bogart apparently doesn't agree to fit into her moldÂ…

As Bacall's grandfather, Lionel Barrymore was another heroic figure who, could afford to be a verbal hero, knowing that a retreat to the safety of his confining wheelchair could protect himÂ…

Edward G. Robinson as Rocco was a mass of contradictionsÂ… Brutal with a gun safely in his hand, dreaming of the glories he once knew in the good old days when he was a big shot, all he has left are the memoriesÂ… He was a man whose criminal wisdom permits no ethics and few feelingsÂ… He offers Bogart an empty gun to shoot it out with him... He is also a man afraid, who sweats when the hurricane approaches and poses a threat to his safety... He detests Bogart because of his wartime heroism, mocking and taunting him because his courage is something differing in Rocco's own unheroic lifeÂ…

As war hero Frank McCloud, Bogart was the most complex character of allÂ… Disillusioned, tired of his war-induced killings, unwilling to risk himself in any new test of courage ("One Rocco more or less isn't worth dying for"), he is now a complacent shadow of his former noble selfÂ… He, like Barrymore, seeks an idyllic world where "there's no place for Johnny Rocco." However, his pattern has been too well establishedÂ… He, like Claire Trevor, can be pushed only so far and then reason and restraint seem no longer acceptable as an alternative to actionÂ…

With such a cast "Key Largo" could not fall to hold the attentionÂ… Yet, for all its workmanlike craft, it did not reach the level of Wyler's "The Desperate Hours." Bogart, as a disillusioned war veteran who could not rouse himself to action until the last few minutes, left one frustrated: looking for the vicious

Key Largo fmovies. When I think of the colorized version that, regrettably, is the only copy of this excellent film noir in my video store, I can't help but think of a comment Orson Welles made to a friend a few days before his death in regards to Turner's plans to colorize "Citizen Kane"(thankfully defeated, because of the fact that it came under Welles' original contract with RKO, which specified that only Welles would make changes): "Keep Turner and his g**d*** Crayolas away from my movie." Watching this version of "Key Largo" more than proves Welles' point; the lighting becomes terrible in several key scenes, particularly the closing ones on the boat, to whereas before, you could see what was going on, now you can just barely tell a thing. That said, it can't destroy the fine work that this film truly is.

I was led to this film by my mother, who called it one of her favorites from Bogie (another being "The African Queen") and now I can see why. Leave it to John Huston, the man who was bold enough to make a true adaptation of Dashiell Hammet's "The Maltese Falcon", to give us a tightly woven drama that never feels forced. Bogie's Frank McCloud is probably the most silent of all the strong-silent types he ever played, barely saying more than is necessary for the scene he's in. Such reticience leaves some large blanks for the audience to fill; though he says that he doesn't care one way or another, I really don't believe him. The feeling I get the entire time he's in the clutches of Johnny Rocco's gang is that he's just waiting for his moment. After all, you don't survive WWII's Italian campaign and not know when it's best to stay still and when it's best to make your play. That's why he threw away the gun offered to him by Rocco; no way was Rocco's gang just going to let their boss be gunned down even if the deck was stacked in Rocco's favor. The murders of the deputy and the Indians on the lam just adds to the need to take care of business.

I was a little disappointed to see Bacall in such a minor role (it still had to be better than what she was given, sans Bogie, after this film, from reports I've heard), but her spitting in Rocco's face is an undeniably powerful moment. As for Edward G. Robinson, one of Hollywood's original tough guys imported from Bucharest, Romania, he literally runs away with the part of Johnny Rocco, the former big-shot with delusions of grandeur. He's a casually vicious, ruthless fount of hate, bitter over his fallen status and hungering for a comeback. But he still fails to draw an important lesson from his soused ex-galpal: times change and not necessarily for the better. He may have defied a ton of police in his day or gun down a deputy in this one, but it still doesn't change the fact that the outside world (nicely symbolized by the hurricane) can and will eat him alive without the slightest trace of indigestion. All Rocco is is a dinosaur: proud, strong, but too stupid to realize that his kind have become extinct.

In fact, that may very well be why McCloud was such a natural match for Rocco as an opponent. McCloud had changed his spots many times in his life to fit the job situation he was in, while Rocco has never been anything else but what he is now. Small wonder that one can see the confrontation between them coming to full steam. This core element, and all the others mentioned and not mentioned here, help make "Key Largo" one of the

Basically this film is almost like a play. The whole story is more or less (apart from the ending) shot in a rustic Florida hotel. A great location and setting, a real credit to John Huston.

In short, Frank McCloud (Bogart) an ex war hero and living at no-fixed-address, visits (by request) his dead war buddy's father (barrymore) & widow (Bacall). As he arrives, it doesn't take long for Frank to work out the Hotel is temporarily hostage to a big mob gangster - Rocco (robinson) and his cronies.

The film instantly grabs you, it looks beautiful, there is a lot of substance and well thought out scripts, nothing glamorous or smart, just very good story telling. A good side line to the story, are the Native American clan, who due to an approaching hurricane need to find shelter, their plight is placed nicely into the story. There is a scene in which Bacall introduces Bogart to the oldest member of the clan, a 100 and something year old Native woman which is just so genuine, I still don't believe this woman was an actress, Huston must have improvised this into the script.

Not only is Bogart superb in this, but also the whole cast. It goes without saying Edward G Robinson's performance was second to none as to was - his right hand man (Harry Lewis I think), Bacall & Rocco's girlfriend - Ziggy..pretty much the entire cast.

The whole thing ties up well, without Spoilers it does have a great ending. This is a must not just for Bogie fans but for anyone who can appreciate an intelligent film.

-Paul Browne.

John Huston's 'Key Largo' is set in a Post World War II America and the film is unapologetic about showcasing the pessimism that had enveloped America and Americans after the war. It's about the loss of a self-respecting identity. This is epitomised by the character of Frank McCloud played by Humphrey Bogart. This is not a very characteristic role for Bogart. McCloud is a war veteran who has now become a homeless drifter due to his lack of interest in a settled life. He is a sane version of Travis Bickle, he might have been a vibrant, hopeful man in his pre-service days, but after coming back from the war and watching an America that has further collapsed into corruption, mob activity and evil, he has slipped into a state of depression and deliberate indifference. Bogart gives a subdued performance with moments of tenderness reminiscent of the tenderness of Rick Blaine in 'Casablanca'. But McCloud also shows signs of selfishness and cowardly reluctance which are a consequence of his pessimism towards life after war. There is an ambiguity to his character that makes him interesting.

Lauren Bacall doesn't give us the quintessential 'Lauren Bacall' performance either. Instead of being the 'Femme fatale' with the seductive allure and the sharp tongue, her character Nora is a sweet, kind-hearted widow taking care of her father-in-law. There are genuinely sweet and charming moments between Bogart and Bacall. Nora's presence and her innocent sweetness has an undeniable effect on McCloud which makes him reconsider his moral stance and contemplate the idea doing something instead of continuing his reluctance about standing up to the gangsters.

Edward G. Robinson is a dynamite in every scene he is in. Johnny Rocco oozes charisma and a sense of control. It takes a lot to be in the same scene with Bogart and go toe to toe with him in terms of exuding authoritativeness, but Robinson does it effortlessly.

Although Huston doesn't use too many attention seeking shots or too much fancy camera work, one can easily see the noir-ish elements in the lighting and prominent shadows in the film. There are some carefully used tracking shots and extreme close-ups for artistic purposes that work perfectly and the film on Blu-Ray looks very pleasing to the eye. Huston's biggest achievement is maintaining a tone of suspense throughout the running time. The staging of 90 percent of the film in the confines of the interiors of Hotel Largo adds to the claustrophobia which the viewer feels along with McCloud, Nora and Temple. The only flaw is that the shootout scenes are very clumsily directed and almost look comical now after all these years.

'Key Largo' is thematically a film which wrestles the idea of whether someone should or shouldn't give a damn even if he/she feels an assertive action doesn't mean much in the bigger picture. A thematically potent core along with good direction and acting make 'Key Largo' an easy recommendation.