To Have and Have Not

Director: Howard Hawks
Year Released: 1944
Rating: 2.5

The dialogue astounds in this Bogart-Bacall picture (the screenplay was co-written by a Nobel Prize winner, based on the novel by another Nobel Prize winner) - their interaction is sultry and their words laced with double meaning - but the plot is a massive let-down (if I can even call it a "plot") and the picture isn't as satisfying as, say, The Big Sleep. Walter Brennan, a typically fine actor, is used as a sacrificial lamb here, and his presence is unwanted (his character is designed to be irritating); the many songs, with Hoagy Carmichael on piano and Bacall singing, interrupt whatever momentum the movie may have had.