Reel Classics: Key Largo

Recently read­ing and see­ing sto­ries about the hur­ri­canes that hit Florida made me think of a clas­sic Bogart-Bacall film that also promi­nent­ly fea­tured a hur­ri­cane pum­mel­ing the Keys in Florida—Key Largo.  Key Largo was the fourth and final film star­ring the cou­ple — the oth­ers being To Have and Have Not (1944), The Big Sleep (1946) and Dark Passage (1947).

Key Largo, released in 1948, had an all-star cast that, along with Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, starred Edward G. Robinson, Lionel Barrymore, and Claire Trevor.  The sto­ry is set in a hotel locat­ed in the Florida Keys and oper­at­ed by Nora Temple (Bacall) and her dis­abled father-in-law James Temple (Barrymore).  Nora is a wid­ow who had lost her hus­band in the war.  The sto­ry opens with a bus trav­el­ing along the road in the Florida Keys to Key Largo.  On the bus is Frank McCloud, a for­mer sol­dier and friend of Nora’s hus­band.  They had been sta­tioned togeth­er in Europe and McCloud was on his way to vis­it the fam­i­ly of his friend and to hon­or his memory. 

Upon his arrival he is warm­ly greet­ed by both the wid­ow and father of his friend.  He shares with them  some details of his expe­ri­ences with his friend Temple, and tells them of his brav­ery and hero­ism.  They also share with him the men­tion of McCloud in the let­ters they received from their loved one.  However, his recep­tion is not so warm from the sev­er­al guests who have booked the hotel exclu­sive­ly for the next few days—allegedly for a fish­ing trip.  The leader of this par­ty of guests is the infa­mous Johnny Rocco (Robinson)—a not­ed gang­ster who had been deport­ed from the coun­try. He was in Key Largo  await­ing con­tact with anoth­er local gang­ster to pull off a deal that would then take him to Cuba to set up his oper­a­tions there.  He is accom­pa­nied by sev­er­al of his mob­sters and also by his alco­holic girl­friend Gaye Dawn (Trevor).

Frank McCloud, along with Nora Temple and James Temple, soon find them­selves pris­on­ers of this gang and are held at gun­point.  In the mean­time, a cou­ple of local Native Americans have escaped from jail and are thought by local law enforce­ment offi­cers to be head­ed to Key Largo to join up with their fam­i­ly and tribe.   James Temple has always befriend­ed the local tribe mem­bers and often offers them shel­ter in the hotel dur­ing major storms.  As it turns out, a major hur­ri­cane has been report­ed head­ing to the Keys and the Native Americans begin to boat in to the dock where the hotel is located. 

One of the local deputies search­ing for the escapees gets a bit too inquis­i­tive and is killed by the mob­sters.  His body is dumped in the ocean.  In the mean­time, the storm begins to hit and Rocco refus­es to let the trib­al folk in to shel­ter from the storm.  He spends a great deal of time bul­ly­ing those around him—especially his girl­friend Gaye.  She had at one time been a very pop­u­lar night club singer, but the rav­ages of the alco­holism had erod­ed her skills.  Rocco would taunt her and deny her a drink and abuse her both emo­tion­al­ly and physically. 

James Temple open­ly con­fronts Rocco but there is lit­tle he can do being con­fined to a wheel­chair.  Meanwhile, Frank McCloud gen­er­al­ly remains aloof and does­n’t get involved.  His expe­ri­ences in the war have impact­ed his view of the world and he has become dis­tanced from oth­ers as a result.  An inci­dent between Johnny Rocco and Gaye Dawn begins to bring him out of that shell.  Rocco refus­es to give Gaye a drink unless she sings a cap­pel­la for the group.  She is des­per­ate for a drink and sings the song “Moanin’ Low.”  Interestingly, the lyrics include the fol­low­ing lines: “Don’t know any rea­son why he treats me so poor­ly.  What have I gone and done.  Makes me trou­bles dou­ble with his wor­ries when sure­ly I ain’t deserv­ing of none.”  She is off key and does not do well.  Rocco humil­i­ates her and refus­es to give her the drink.  McCloud steps up and pours her one—taking sev­er­al slaps from Rocco for his impu­dence.  McCloud begins to over­come his reluc­tance to get involved.

As the sto­ry pro­gress­es, we see the deal between Rocco and the oth­er mob­ster com­plet­ed and plans for Rocco and his mob to sail to Cuba.  We also see the Sheriff dis­cov­er­ing the body of his deputy that had been washed ashore by the storm and he comes to the wrong con­clu­sion as to who the killer may be.  Tension mounts through­out the sto­ry, but we also see the ris­ing courage of the char­ac­ters in the story.

Key Largo was based on a play writ­ten by Maxwell Anderson that opened in 1939.  In the play the sto­ry involved the Spanish Civil War and Mexican ban­di­dos.  The screen­play was writ­ten by Richard Brooks and John Huston (who also was the direc­tor) and updat­ed the sto­ry to post-World War II.  The sto­ry is pri­mar­i­ly set in the hotel and has a “stage-like” feel to it, though there are scenes that take place outdoors. 

Edward G. Robinson’s char­ac­ter was report­ed­ly mod­eled after famous gang­sters Al Capone and “Lucky” Luciano.  Playing a gang­ster was not new for Robinson.  He starred in the film Little Caesar (1930) which helped form the cin­e­mat­ic vision of the gang­ster.  As men­tioned above, this was the fourth pair­ing of Bogart and Bacall.  However, it was the fifth film that Bogart and Robinson appeared in togeth­er.  At this stage of his career Robinson was no longer the top-billed actor but was report­ed­ly treat­ed like the star on the set by those around him.  In his auto­bi­og­ra­phy (All My Yesterdays) he wrote: “The jour­ney down.  No sus­pense to this.  I did­n’t even argue.  Why not sec­ond billing?  At fifty-three I was lucky to get any billing at all.”

Lionel Barrymore too had been a star of the sil­ver screen.  At this point in his life he was suf­fer­ing from severe arthri­tis and the need for the wheel­chair was real.  His film career start­ed in the silent films, and he appeared in over 200 films as an actor.  He also direct­ed fif­teen films. 

In her auto­bi­og­ra­phy (By Myself) Lauren Bacall described Key Largo as “one of the hap­pi­est movie expe­ri­ences.  I thought how mar­velous a medi­um the movies were, to enable one to meet, befriend, and work with such people.” 

Claire Trevor won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her por­tray­al of alco­holic and abused Gaye Dawn.  She was not a trained singer and thought that the song she was to sing would be dubbed.  However, that was not direc­tor John Huston’s plan.  He did not inform her of the planned shoot­ing of the scene until the day it was done, and she had not yet rehearsed the song.  She felt very ner­vous and uncom­fort­able singing before the cast and crew and her ren­di­tion came off that way—exactly what the direc­tor wanted. 

The mount­ing ten­sion and dra­ma build­ing with­in the film was a high­light for many of the film reviews.  The crit­ic for Variety wrote: “A tense film thriller has been devel­oped from Maxwell Anderson’s play, Key Largo . . . Atmosphere of the dead­ly, still heat of the Keys, the threat of a hur­ri­cane and the men­ace of the mer­ci­less gang­sters make the sus­pense seem real, and Huston’s direc­tion stress­es the mood of anticipation.” 

The New York Times critic wrote: “With remark­able film­ing and cut­ting, Mr. Huston had notably achieved a great deal of inter­est and ten­sion . . . Though large­ly con­fined to a few rooms, he kept peo­ple on the move and has used an intru­sive hur­ri­cane for some slam-bang melo­dra­mat­ic effects.”

In his book “The Great Movies” film crit­ic Roger Ebert list­ed Key Largo, prais­ing the direc­tion of John Huston and not­ing the film’s “explo­ration of post-war cyn­i­cism and dis­il­lu­sion­ment.” 

The American Film Institute nom­i­nat­ed Key Largo for inclu­sion in its list of “Top Ten Gangster Films.”

An inter­est­ing note here.  Viewers may rec­og­nize one of the Native Americans who has escaped from jail.  Though he did not receive cred­it in the film, many will rec­og­nize Jay Silverheels, who played “Tonto” in The Lone Ranger (1949−1957).

Another inter­est­ing note—John Huston want­ed Charles Boyer to play the role of Johnny Rocco but stu­dio head Jack Warner pre­ferred Edward G. Robinson.  Robinson and Claire Trevor reprised their roles for the Lux Radio Theater pre­sen­ta­tion in November 1949. 

The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) rates Key Largo at 7.7 of 10.  Rotten Tomatoes gives it a Critics Score of 97% and an Audience Score of 88%. 

In check­ing my Roku device, I was unable to locate any free stream­ing sites for the film.  Unfortunately, there is not a copy of the DVD at the Clark County Public Library (though I feel cer­tain they will obtain one if you ask). 

[Key Largo is avail­able to rent on Amazon Prime for $3.99. –Ed]

Information for this Reel Classic review was gath­ered from Internet Movie Data Base (IMDb), Rotten Tomatoes, Turner Classic Movies (TCM) and Wikipedia.

I’ll be back soon with the next Reel Classic, but before I leave you with the trail­er below let me remind you that if you enjoy these clas­sic movies please join me on the sec­ond Tuesday of each month at 6:00 PM at the Clark County Public Library for “Ron Kibbey’s Comedy Classics.”  I present a clas­sic com­e­dy film usu­al­ly accom­pa­nied by a vin­tage car­toon.  Popcorn and drinks are pro­vid­ed.  More infor­ma­tion about the next film is avail­able on the library’s web­site and Facebook page, as well as WinCity Voices Facebook page.