On learning this, Hemingway reportedly refused to speak to Hawks for “three months”. The screenplay for To Have and Have Not bears little resemblance to Hemingway’s novel.
The only similarities include the title, the name, and a few personality traits of Harry Morgan, the name of Marie, the name of Eddie, and the name and character traits of Johnson. Johnson is the only character that remained the same in the novel, in every revised screenplay, and in the film. The film bears resemblance to only the novel’s first four chapters.
Writing
Howard Hawks recruited Jules Furthman to work on the screenplay. Completed on October 12, 1943, the initial screenplay was 207 pages. It resembled the novel more than the final screenplay did. By the end of December, Furthman had completed a revised screenplay with sixty fewer pages.
Hawks instructed Furthman to alter Marie’s character to be more sultry and masculine like Marlene Dietrich. In the previous version of the script, Bacall’s purse was stolen; after the revision, Bacall’s character stole the purse.
Much of Bacall’s character was based on Hawks’s wife Slim Keith. Some of her lines reportedly came directly from Keith. According to Keith, Furthman even suggested she ask for script credit. Hawks instructed Furthman to work on the final screenplay and stop writing the second version of the screenplay.
The second version had Bacall as a minor character in case she proved to be poor for the role. Furthman worked on the screenplay throughout January and February 1944 and recruited Cleve F. Adams and Whitman Chambers to help him with the work. He completed it before February 14, 1944.
Joseph Breen read the script and cited three dozen instances that violated the Production Code, citing that Morgan was portrayed as an unpunished murderer and the women as suggested prostitutes. He stated that the characters must be softened, the studio must remove all suggestions of inappropriate sexual relations between men and women, and that murder must be made clear to appear as self-defense.
As the movie was filmed during World War II, Hawks moved the setting from Cuba to Vichy-controlled Martinique as required by the Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs to placate the Roosevelt administration. They objected to the unfavorable portrayal of Cuba’s government as against the U.S. government’s “Good Neighbor” policy toward Latin American nations.
Writer William Faulkner was hired on by Hawks on February 22, 1944, to avoid recounting political conflict between Free France and the Vichy government in the story line and to satisfy the Production Code.
It was reportedly Faulkner’s idea to change the setting of the film to Martinique, because he had been working on an unproduced story line involving Charles de Gaulle, so he was familiar with the details. Furthman stopped writing after Faulkner was brought on the project.
Faulkner and Hemingway never met, but To Have and Have Not is considered by Charles M. Oliver the best adaptation for film of Hemingway’s novels.
In order to satisfy the Production Code, Faulkner wrote that every character would sleep in the same hotel, but put Morgan and Marie’s bedrooms across from each other to facilitate interactions between them as well as reducing Marie’s drinking in the film. He also removed scenes in which Morgan appeared to be a murderer.
Other additions included Marie becoming Morgan’s sole romantic interest and Helen and her husband becoming fighters for the resistance. Finally, Faulkner made the time frame for the film three days instead of the many months depicted in the novel. Hawks intended to have the screenplay be loosely modeled on Casablanca, which also starred Humphrey Bogart, hoping for the same success Casablanca had met at the box office.
Filming
Production began on February 29, 1944, with only 36 pages of the screenplay written, due to changes required by the Production Code office. Faulkner had very little time in between the rebuilding of sets to continue the screenplay, therefore, each scene was written three days before it was filmed.
The final cast reading was done on March 6, 1944, with final script changes finished by April 22. Line by line, Hawks and Bogart changed the script to create a more sexual and comedic film.
For example, the line “It’s even better when you help” was not originally in the script and was added during filming. After 62 days, filming was completed May 10, 1944. Bogart and Hawks served as their own technical advisers because of their experience with fishing and sailing.
After filming began, a romance developed between Bogart and Bacall, despite Hawks’s disapproval. Bogart was married and 45 years old, more than twice Bacall’s age. They kept their relationship a secret from Hawks. This romance eventually led to Bogart divorcing Mayo Methot, his third wife.
He and Bacall married a year after To Have and Have Not and remained married until Bogart’s death in 1957. Hawks expanded Bacall’s part to take advantage of the Bogart-Bacall chemistry. According to the documentary, “A Love Story: The Story of To Have and Have Not”, included on the 2003 DVD release, Hawks recognized the star-making potential of the film for Bacall.
He emphasized her role and downplayed Dolores Moran’s role, the film’s other female lead. (Hawks and Moran had their own affair during production). Two weeks before the end of production, Bacall was called to Hawks’s home. Hawks told her Bogart did not love her, and she was in danger of losing career opportunities.
After he threatened to send her to B-list Monogram Pictures, Bacall was very upset. She told Bogart, and he became upset with Hawks. This caused an argument between Hawks and Bogart, stunting production for two weeks. Bogart recognized his power and used negotiation to his advantage. After negotiating with Warner, Bogart received an extra $33,000 salary, as long as Bogart promised to no longer stall production.
Direction
In her autobiography, Lauren Bacall described what she called Hawks’s “brilliantly creative work method” on set. She described that every morning on set, Hawks would sit with Bacall, Bogart, and whoever else was in the scene in chairs in a circle as a script girl read the scene.
After reading through the scene, Hawks would add sexual dialogue and innuendo between Bacall and Bogart. After Hawks and Bogart felt the changes were adequate, Hawks would add one light on the set and they would go through the scene. Hawks would encourage them to move freely and do what felt comfortable for them. After going through the scenes a few times, cinematographer Sidney Hickox would discuss camera set ups with Hawks.
According to biographer Todd McCarthy, To Have and Have Not is a quintessential Hawks film. It contains classic Hawksian characters such as the strong male and his female counterpart. He also states that although elements of Hemingway, Faulkner, and Casablanca can be found in the film, it represents Hawks’s capacity for expression, claiming it is, “beyond doubt, exactly the work its director intended it to be, and would have been nothing like this in the hands of anyone else.”
Music
Cricket, the piano player in the hotel bar, was played by the singer-songwriter Hoagy Carmichael. In the course of the movie, Cricket and Slim perform “How Little We Know”, by Carmichael and Johnny Mercer, and “Am I Blue?”, by Harry Akst and Grant Clarke. Cricket and the band also perform “Hong Kong Blues”, by Carmichael and Stanley Adams. “The Rhumba Jumps”, by Mercer and Carmichael, is performed by the hotel band. Bacall shimmies out at the end of the movie to a faster “How Little We Know”.
The song “Baltimore Oriole” was intended to be Bacall’s theme for the movie, but was merely added as background music on the soundtrack due to Bacall’s vocal inexperience. Background music or nondiegetic music is minimal in the picture. However, the film score including the main title was composed by Franz Waxman. One music cue, 7b, is credited to William Lava on the original cue sheet. William Lava was a music staffer at Warner Bros who regularly contributed additional cues.
According to professor of film studies Ian Brookes, Howard Hawks uses jazz, particularly through interracial performance scenes, to underscore anti-fascism in the story line of the film. A persistent myth is that a teenage Andy Williams, the future singing star, dubbed the singing for Bacall.
According to authoritative sources, including Hawks and Bacall, this was not true. Williams and some female singers were tested to dub for Bacall because of fears she lacked the necessary vocal skills. But those fears were overshadowed by the desire to have Bacall do her own singing (perhaps championed by Bogart) despite her less than perfect vocal talent.
This myth is disputed in Leonard Maltin’s Movie Guide entry for this film, but the myth is propagated in a 1986 episode of MacGyver, entitled “Three for the Road”, when the character of a movie veteran asks his wife this particular question, whereupon she answers that Andy Williams, when 14, did dub the voice for Lauren Bacall. Several sources on the film set have stated this myth is false. In fact, Bacall’s low singing voice in the film helps her character establish a form of masculine dominance.
Cultural references
In one scene, Marie says to Morgan, “I’m hard to get, Steve. All you have to do is ask me.” This quote came from the earlier 1939 Hawks film Only Angels Have Wings in which Jean Arthur says to Cary Grant, “I’m hard to get, Geoff. All you have to do is ask me.”
Release
Warner Bros. released To Have and Have Not on October 11, 1944.
Reception
The critical reception of To Have and Have Not at the time
