NEW Key Largo (1948) (DVD)

Many of us have trust in our authorities and officials as good and to others as evil..and it may not all be like that..we think and invest in some that they are good..well some people say others have our interest in mind..organizations large scale entities that pursue our goals. The passing of Fdr and here we have john HUston's take on what the passing of FDR meant and the film is all but prophetic seen today and a story of great power with intense secenes good dialogue and minor characters greatly drawn. A work of art besides the main characters grows in stature when the small characters are absorbing and add intensity to the piece..and have we ever seen anything better..prohibition is the backdrop to this film noir. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre disliked by studio boss jack Warner for killing off his star at film's end..won world wide acclaimas one of the best films ever made..awards and prestige and world wide stature is what these studio bosses craved for a variety of reasons..and it was a film in which the studio received much negative mail from average americans about their dislike of the film, and the kind of character its star Bogart played. Warners looked for awards and acclaim and properties were searched with this aim in mind..and JOhn HUston the writer-director of both films, and a key figure in american films and his film High Sierra did so much to reinvent and change films and cinema worldwide..here we have a film which is a bit of a pastiche. The literary artist plumbs his knowledge..the minor characters..post FDR times and really understanding good and evil..the original spanish tale which jerry wald had given john..based on a play which largely failed..and the writing of that play john felt uncinematic wont work..the barebones of that play instead is utilized by john in taking these two great screen presences and crafting a tale based on their screen IMAGES and PERSONALITIES. JOHN knows both these persons and worked with them when he first came to hollywood and wrote the Amazing DR CLitterhouse..so he likes them in ways..in this y to post 1948 film and also crafted in this piece is an intriguing story of ww 2 Italy where the Bogart character was involve din a battle, in the tale he's known as soldier..and he must deal with the Robinson character..who seem to have targeted him..the love hate relationship..and agirl..a man in a wheelchair..why is this man from an old battle targeted and why now in a changed post FDR government are these assorted characters out to nab him and what about the government of the time and who's good or whos evil..and what can we say of all these characters..so we must try to understand all these characters..and the intent of Huston he was soon to write ASphalt Jungle..and developed a great reputation in not only the UNited States but europe but if you get rid of all the Johnny Roccos what is going to fill the gap..johnny as a character knows what the country has done to the Bogart character..alone..frustrated..he's certainly too smart..on the run...abandoned by women and everyone..in other words in solitude..a person who sticks his neck out for no one..and here we have aclassic drama..the literary screenwriter is able to do with a film what others who dont have such interest can not do or go..and even the political animal like HUston..who has a good knowledge of his country..and he looks at good and evil..not officeholders..he was in the large spectacle the Bible..compare this with the later films House of strangers..knock on any door Enforcer Deadline USA and HELL on FRisco Bay..movies which deal with similar themes and ILLEGAl..the censor! The film ends with the Bogart character having gunned down the clan on the way to Cuba..and returning back to characters he's really lukewarm about..hes really in no way rewarded by society for whatever reason...he is wise..so why would he go to the trouble and gun people down and do it for people who are likely to make a mess of things..even as a soldier what purpose does it serve..so the ending seems to be imposed by WArners and some force there..censor..it in no way follows for the intense drama we've seen..and which takes away from its standing as a film classic..certainly great performances by Bogart and Robinson with James Cagtney than appearing in White Heat ans its sequel KIss Tomorrow Goodbye..the post FDR years..artists who looked at the 50's and this film was largely brought together by its stat Bogart..he had the veto..or the sanction..he previously toured with edward and his wife and friends in Washington..and this film was planned..its a piece of history of the Johhny Rocco of 1948 for a later view of criminals as the culture changed see his much later Prizzi's honour..a view of crime figures as they changed and how they often self destruct..destroy themselves..and how our countries also decline..like HUston's the BIBLE..understanding whats good and evil...

This is one that I have always wanted to add to my bogart collection. With ed robinson and lauren bacall, it is wall cast and acted. Enjoy seeing it over again.

Aaaahhh ... Bogey. AFI's No. 1 film star of the 20th century. Hollywood's original noir anti-hero, epitome of the handsome, cynical and oh-so lonesome wolf; looking unbeatably cool in his fedora, a cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth. Endowed with a legendary aura several times larger than his real life stature, and still admired by scores of women wishing they had been born 50+ years earlier, preferably somewhere in California and to parents connected with the movie business, so as to have at least a marginal chance of meeting him.

"Key Largo" (1948), directed by John Huston, is the last of four movies starring Bogart and real-life spouse Lauren Bacall (after their legendary collaborations in, first and foremost, "To Have and Have Not" and "The Big Sleep," as well as in "Dark Passage"), by this time firmly established as one of Hollywood's new leading ladies in her own right. At the same time, it also constitutes a reversal of roles between Bogart and Edward G. Robinson, opposite whom Bogart had appeared in 1930s movies like "Bullets or Ballots," "Kid Galahad," and "Brother Orchid:" Whereas in the earlier films, the complexer parts had been Robinson's (while Bogart's characters had had little or no redeeming qualities whatsoever), here it is Bogey's world-weary and reluctant WWII veteran Frank McCloud who finds himself -- half acting on his own accord, half propelled by Bacall's sharp-tongued hotel keeper Nora Temple -- ultimately facing up to Robinson's ruthless gangster Johnny Rocco in the sultry, Hemingwayesque setting of the Florida Keys, under the onslaught of a hurricane; with great supporting performances by Lionel Barrymore as Bacall's father-in-law and Claire Trevor as Rocco's disillusioned, alcoholic lover.

When looking at this movie's and, even more so, its leading actors' almost mythical fame, it is difficult to imagine that, produced at the height of the studio system era, "Key Largo" was originally just one of the roughly 50 movies released over the course of a single year. But mass production didn't equal low quality; on the contrary, the great care given to all production values, from script-writing to camera work, editing, score and the stars' presentation in the movie itself and in its trailer, was at least partly responsible for its lasting success.

All in all, "Key Largo" may not be quite on same the level as those movies which, by the time of its release, had already bestowed on Bogart, in particular, his everlasting legendary status (such as "Casablanca," which would, a few decades later, end up second only to "Citizen Kane" at the helm of the AFI's Top 100 20th century movies list, with Bogey's Rick Blane, at the same time, ranking as one of the 20th century's Top 5 film heroes; "The Maltese Falcon," at No. 23 not far behind on the AFI's Top 100 20th century movies list; and "The Big Sleep," which solidified not only the chemistry between Bogart and Bacall -- who had married even before its 1946 release -- but also Lauren Bacall's own Hollywood standing as well as her sassy, mysterious aura, while also making for yet another entry of Bogey's in the AFI's Top 50 20th century film heroes list as the incarnation of Raymond Chandler's cynical gumshoe Philip Marlowe). Yet, all of this ultimately says more about those other movies (and Bogart's and Bacall's careers as a whole) than it does about "Key Largo" itself. Taken on its own, this is without question still one of the finest hours Old Hollywood ever saw -- and one of the most stellar examples of classic noir film making.