To Have and Have Not (1944)

To Have and Have Not is a 1944 American romantic war adventure film directed by Howard Hawks, loosely based on Ernest Hemingway's 1937 novel of the same name. It stars Humphrey Bogart, Walter Brennan and Lauren Bacall; it also features Dolores Moran, Hoagy Carmichael, Sheldon Leonard, Dan Seymour, and Marcel Dalio. The plot, centered on the romance between a freelancing fisherman in Martinique and a beautiful American drifter, is complicated by the growing French resistance in Vichy France.

Hemingway and Hawks were close friends and, on a fishing trip, Hawks told Hemingway, who was reluctant to go into screenwriting, that he could make a great movie from his worst book, which Hemingway admitted was To Have and Have Not. Jules Furthman wrote the first screenplay, which, like the novel, was set in Cuba. However, later versions changed this to Martinique to avoid violating President Roosevelt's Good Neighbor policy. Hawks's friend William Faulkner was the main contributor to the screenplay, including and following the revisions. Because of the contributions from both Hemingway and Faulkner, it is the only film story on which two winners of the Nobel Prize for Literature worked. Filming began on February 29, 1944, while Faulkner continued to work on the script, and ended on May 10.

The film premiered in New York City on October 11, 1944. Audience reception was generally good. Critic reviews were mixed, with many claiming the film was a remake of Casablanca (1942). Critics specifically mentioned Lauren Bacall's performance or the chemistry between Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall on screen. Bogart and Bacall began an off-screen relationship during production and married in 1945, after the film's release. To Have and Have Not was one of the top 10 grossing films of 1944 and received an award from the National Board of Review.