The second film I watched in my movie marathon was Key Largo, a Bogey/Bacall picture. My mom got one of those collections of old movie stars/couples for Christmas, namely Bogey/Bacall. I asked to watch one of these films, and she handed me this one. She calls it a "hoot."
I don't know if I would call it a hoot. This picture is classic 40s noir, a drama with dark undercurrents. I don't know if I altogether liked it. The plot is simple. Bogey plays a veteran named Frank McCloud who fought in the war with George, the husband of Nora (Bacall) and the son of Mr. Temple, played by Lionel Barrymore, who own a hotel in Key Largo. Key Largo is one of the Florida keys. He passes through looking for his purpose in life and giving these two details of George's heroic death, a heroism that he seems to want to aspire to but can't quite believe is possible for himself. In the meantime, he discovers that a group of mobsters have taken over the hotel in anticipation of a shipment of counterfeit money. The mobsters, including the exiled Johnny Rocco (Edward G. Robinson), are a mere nuisance at first until Key Largo is besieged by a hurricane. All are marooned together, and tempers flare.
I think first off, I missed any witty repartee between Bogey and Bacall. This was strictly a drama without romance. There were shared looks that sizzled but none of those crackling one-liner exchanges that characterized some of the other flicks.
Claire Trevor won an Oscar for her supporting turn as Gaye, Rocco's booze-hound of a girlfriend. She was easily my favorite part because her obsession with alcohol and drunken remarks provided the comic relief.
Ultimately, this was a story about purpose and self-forgiveness, which oddly paralleled the previous movie I'd seen. The trouble is, this story unfolded very slowly, and some of the scenes were highly verbose. Rocco had lots of big speeches to make, and he seemed to have more lines than any other character.
This film was also about heroism and making a difference, even when you think you're in whatever it is for purely selfish reasons. To that end, Frank has his day, so I felt satisfied at the end. It took a long time to get there, though, and used quite a few speeches about the state of then-society to drive Frank's character to become involved.
The film was pretty good, in the end, but it was not my favorite of the two stars nor was it my favorite noir nor was it a movie I could find myself watching again and again. On the ratings scale, I give it an 8 for its minor flaws, but it does not pass the test. I don't think I could watch it again, at least not unless it was part of a collection that I later purchased for myself, or that was given to me as a gift. I would guess that the biggest allure of this movie, at the time anyway, was its tropical location. I still rate The Big Sleep as my favorite of Bogey and Bacall.