"Was you ever bit by a dead bee?"

To Have and Have Not (1944) is a movie that needs to be watched multiple times. On the first watch it seems like an imitation of Casablanca (1942). Humphrey Bogart is an American in a foreign land. There is a pro-Vichy element in the government that is trying to stop a freedom fighter from starting a revolution. Bogie has to wrestle with the decision of whether he should join the fight of the rebels or remain on the sidelines. Like Rick, Bogie’s Harry ‘Steve’ Morgan makes the jump into the game on the side of the rebels.

Now this story is nice and everything, but what really makes this movie memorable is the chemistry between Bogie and the 19-year-old, Lauren Bacall, who is making her film debut here. The chemistry between them is tremendous. In later years Bogie would remark that the most fun of his life came during the making of this movie because he spent all the time he had off the set trying to impress Bacall, while trying to keep his relationship with her secret from his wife, Mayo Methot.

As much as Methot might object, there is no doubt that the two had a chemistry together. They became the Brad and Angelina of the 1940s. The power of the couple isn’t just something created by Hollywood hype, they were actually very talented actors. It is most prevalent here. In her first scene with Bogie in Bogie’s apartment, Bacall goes toe-to-toe with the veteran actor who had been nominated for an Academy Award two years earlier. Not many rookie actors could have handled it like she did.

The story of how the movie got made and how Bacall was involved and what other big names were involved make this one of the richest movies for film historians. Ernest Hemingway, who created Bogie like characters in his stories, wrote the novel To Have and Have Not in 1937. It is not one of his best, and he admitted that. In fact, when it was announced that the movie was going to be made and Bogie was going to star in it, he was disappointed. He felt there could have been better stories of his turned into movies and that Bogie could have been a better character than his Henry Morgan. Not much was used from Hemingway’s novel though for the film. Howard Hawks made sure only the best elements of the rambling novel were included in the movie. He constructed the rest with a little help from another well known author, William Faulkner.

I have gotten a bit ahead of myself. Warner Brothers was not the first studio to own the rights to To Have and Have Not. Those were bought by Howard Hughes, the eccentric American businessman. He couldn’t get the movie made so he agreed to sell the rights to Howard Hawks. Hawks had a protégée named Betty Bacall, who he wanted to start in movies. He had a property he could build on and just needed a studio. He took the idea to Warner Brothers and they accepted. Bogie was cast as the Hemingway hero Harry Morgan. Hawks changed Bacall's name to Lauren, as she hated the name Betty, and then went to work on the story with various writers including opposites Hemingway and Faulkner.

The end result is a great movie and one of the best first appearances in movies by a new actress in Bacall. The two characters of Bogie and Bacall call each other Steve and Slim. Steve was the nickname Howard Hawks’ wife called him. Hawks called her Slim.

The assortment of talent and big names who were involved in this movie make it a classic. It is a foreshadowing of the three other movies Bogie and Bacall appeared in together. They have a Spencer Tracy-Katherine Hepburn type chemistry here, except it has a deep vein of cynicism under the love. Walter Brennan is tremendous as Bogie's hard-drinking sidekick.