To Have And Have Not (DVD)

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Other participants in the drama include Walter Molnar as the resistance fighter, Paul de Bursac; Hoagy Carmichael as the Hotel Marquis's piano player, Cricket; Marcel Dalio as Frenchy, the owner of the hotel (you'll also remember him as the croupier at Rick's in "Casablanca"); Walter Sande as Johnson, a charter fishing client; Dan Seymour as Renard, a Gestapo agent and as nasty a piece of business as you'd want to meet; and Sheldon Leonard as Coyo, one of Renard's flunkies.

"Anybody got a match?" asks Marie as things get started.

"What are your sympathies?" Renard asks Harry, to which Harry replies in stock Rick Blaine fashion, "Minding my own business."

Then Marie gets off the film's most famous lines, to Harry: "You know you don't have to act with me, Steve. You don't have to say anything and you don't have to do anything. Not a thing. Oh, maybe just whistle. You know how to whistle, don't you, Steve? You just put your lips together and...blow."

One last line, just for kicks, again Marie to Harry: "I'm hard to get, Steve. All you have to do is ask me."

"To Have and Have Not" is a not a great action-drama, but it is engaging. Bogart, Bacall, and Hawks would go on to do a much better film, "The Big Sleep," immediately after this one, but for fans of the trio, "To Have and Have Not" is probably a must. Still, the film is much too derivative of "Casablanca" to enjoy completely, and I could never buy Bogart in that corny captain's cap. Nor could I understand why he would go out fishing all day in a perfectly tailored, well-ironed shirt and then come back looking the same way. It never pays to eye anything too closely.

Video:
This film is a good example of a studio's taking care of its property. It does not appear that Warner Bros. restored the film frame by frame, but they obviously found an excellent print and probably touched it up. There are no visible age spots, scratches, blemishes, or glitches whatsoever. There are some minor moiré effects as a result of the transfer, but even they are few. Black-and-white contrasts in this standard, Academy-ratio screen image are good, as is definition most of the time. Darker areas of the screen are apt to be a bit soft and murky at times, but it's nothing to distract one from the picture.

Audio:
The sound is a common monaural of the day, but as reproduced through Dolby Digital technology it comes off sounding clear and exceptionally clean. There is virtually no background noise to mask dialogue or music, so while the frequency response and dynamic range may be limited, there is no trouble appreciating the actors' words. Hemingway and Faulkner would have liked that.

Extras:
Considering that this release is not billed as a special-edition, the extras WB provide come as a welcome treat. The primary bonus item is an all-new featurette, "A Love Story: The Story of To Have and Have Not," that tells us something about the love affair and marriage of Bogart and Bacall. After that, a vintage, 1946 Merrie Melodies cartoon, "Bacall to Arms," parodies the Bogart-Bacall movies. And a Lux Radio Theater production, also from 1946, presents "To Have and Have Not" with Bogart and Bacall again headlining. The disc concludes with twenty-seven scene selections and a theatrical trailer. English is the only spoken-language choice, but there are subtitles in English, French, and Spanish.

Parting Thoughts:
If you can divorce yourself from memories of "Casablanca" while watching "To Have and Have Not," admittedly not an easy task, you'll find an intriguing, romantic, sometimes exciting, predictable, but entertaining motion picture inside. It's also one that holds up surprisingly well over time, as most of Bogart's films do. It won no major awards, but it has won the hearts of plenty of filmgoers over the years.

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