Suzanne Lummis
For the chemistry between Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart, as “Slim,” the drifter who’s been living by her wits and an occasional lifted wallet, and Harry “Steve” Morgan, expatriate American with a fishing boat for hire, and for their subtly charged exchanges, that’d be To Have and Have Not. And, of course, it includes perhaps the most sexually electric lines of dialog on film—certainly from that era—beautifully delivered by Bacall in her low, sly, silky voice: “You know you don’t have to act with me, Steve. You don’t have to say anything, you don’t have to do anything. Or, maybe just whistle. You know how to whistle, don’t you Steve…”
Director Howard Hawks, together with the writers, primarily Jules Furthman, William Faulkner, and some contributions from Papa himself, pulled apart and re-imagined Ernest Hemingway’s story, setting it in the French territory of Martinique during the Nazi occupation of France. So, in this 1944 movie the balmy island paradise becomes a microcosmic setting for the global battle between good and bottomless evil, while the evolution of the script involved a dance between the Production Code people and the writers. The censors curtailed what the movie-makers could show, and the writers kept striving to outwit them with smoky, sultry dialog. Amidst this battle, and this dance, Bacall, the young actress in her first role, and Bogart, by now a star, were falling in love. Does it come across on camera? Does it ever.
Small wonder that shortly after this movie wrapped, Bogart ended his fraught, unhappy marriage, and Bogart/Bacall became one of the most celebrated couples in Hollywood history.
If some know To Have and Have Not only from the "…you know how to whistle" line, c'mon now. Take the time to see the whole movie. Like Casablanca, it charts the evolution of a laissez-faire type of guy coming into his own sense of moral conscience. However, it includes some flavors Casablanca does not.
David Lehman
Many would say Out of the Past should get the award for sexual heat. Three reasons are Robert Mitchum, Jane Greer, and Kirk Douglas. Greer is as fatal as cyanide without the after odor of almonds, and the dialogue is hot. For example,
Kathie (Jane Greer): Did you miss me?
Jeff (Robert Mitchum): No more than I would miss my eyes.
While I would divide my own vote between Out of the Past and Double Indemnity, I would also register my admiration for the sexuality of Gun Crazy (1950). Joseph H. Lewis directed, and the script was written by MacKinlay Kantor and the blacklisted Dalton Trumbo. The leading characters, Bart (John Dall) and Laurie (Peggy Cummins), seem young and ordinary; they’re not stars on the magnitude of Mitchum or Barbara Stanwyck, and you can see in them younger versions of yourself. There’s all that phallic imagery, all the guns, and how comfortable she is handling one. It’s significant that Dahl is a pacifist before sharpshooter Cummins casts her spell over him. She is the “bad” one, and it is the power of the fatal female not only to corrupt her partner but to bring out the manly beast in him. The partnership between hero and heroine is a bond which they can’t dissolve, try as they might. They are in it till death do them part. They go on a robbery spree, though they know it will lead to a fatal end after, of course, one last job. They can’t help themselves. Their very desperation adds to the sexual energy between them.
This is the eleventh in a series on film noir. Click here to see the others.