Trying to pick a movie in the evening, particularly after watching a longer one in the afternoon, is sometimes very easy. I mean, I find one that had Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, and Edward G Robinson, and directed by John Huston? Easy choice. Pretty much guaranteed I’m going to like that sucker.
Apparently, Key Largo was the fourth and final onscreen collaboration between Bogie and Bacall, so the movie has that going for it too.,
Frank McCloud (Bogart) is an Army veteran going to see the widow and father of a soldier friend of his who died in the war. The old man James Temple (Lionel Barrymore) runs a hotel in the Florida Keys. The widow Nora (Bacall) lives there. It’s the off-season, so there aren’t many people there. In point of fact, the local authorities are more interested in finding a couple of Native American fugitives than anything else. However, there are some guests in James’s hotel. They turn out to be gangsters, led by the ruthless Johnny Rocco (Robinson). There’s a hurricane blowing through, and Rocco and his men take the hotel hostage. McCloud plays it cool, James gets indignant, and Nora is stuck somewhere in the middle, with things made worse when a local deputy tries to do something and fails miserably. Rocco is waiting to conclude a deal with some criminal connections, and he isn’t one to take things lightly.
This one is an interesting showcase for Bogart. His Frank comes across initially as a self-involved coward, a man who openly states that he is only really interested in keeping himself alive. That doesn’t quite track with the kind of man he appeared to be before Rocco showed up on the scene in all of Robinson’s scene-chewing glory. But a man who’s only out for himself while being held hostage doesn’t seem all that likely from a narrative perspective. There’s no real drama there, and I think as a viewer I expect more from Bogart to be more than just the guy who more or less goes along with whatever the gangster holding a gun on him wants. He only gradually shows his real colors, particularly when he gives a drink to Rocco’s alcoholic girlfriend. It’s a move that doesn’t sound good, obviously, but within the context of the scene, it makes a lot more sense.
If anything, Bacall doesn’t seem to have as much to do this time around than the last time I saw the pair together in To Have and Have Not or in The Big Sleep. It’s a bit disappointing that she’s limited here, but it’s probably also a good thing she isn’t just a femme fatale in the movies. This may be the least impressive performance I’ve seen from Bacall in these movies, but that falls more on the script than it does on the character. Anyone hoping for the sharp repartee that she and Bogie demonstrate in other movies will probably be a bit disappointed.
However, this is still a hell of a tense film. Considering how much of it is Bogart, Barrymore, and Bacall being held hostage, there’s a feeling there that something has to happen, and all the while, Robinson’s Rocco makes himself increasingly despicable. That only means that when the man finally gets what he deserves, it’s all the more satisfying as a result, of course. While it is the weakest of the Bogart/Bacall team-ups that I’ve seen, and it’s still a rather good movie, I think that says a lot about the strengths of these old films, and they’re obviously worth checking out, especially for a fan of good gangster flicks.
Grade: A-
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