Key Largo (film)

• Release Date: 1948
• Director(s): John Huston
• Writer(s): Richard Brooks; John Huston
• Principal Actors and Roles: Lauren Bacall (Nora Temple); Humphrey Bogart (Frank McCloud); Edward G. Robinson (Johnny Rocco); Lionel Barrymore (James Temple); Claire Trevor (Gaye Dawn)
• Book / Story Film Based On: Key Largo by Maxwell Anderson

Key Largo is a classic film noir. Film noir is a genre of film, and a term that is generally used to describe the highly stylized Hollywood crime dramas popular in the 1940s and 1950s. Key Largo tells of a war veteran, Frank McCloud, who journeys to the Florida Keys during a hurricane to visit the family of a deceased army buddy, and becomes tangled up in a gangster’s plans. The story for the film was based on a Maxwell Anderson play, also titled Key Largo, that debuted on Broadway in 1939, and was adapted for the screen by Richard Brooks and John Huston. In contrast to many other film adaptations of Anderson’s work, Huston’s Key Largo does not closely follow the play’s storyline with almost all of the characters having different names in the film, as well as a change in setting. In Anderson’s play, the lead character fought in the Spanish Civil War, but in the film version, Frank McCloud is a veteran of World War II who fought bravely in San Pietro, Italy. Huston chose this setting because he was well acquainted with the battle at San Pietro, which he was present for during his service in the war and created the war documentary San Pietro (1945).

The film stars Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, who were married at the time and often appeared on screen together. Prior to Key Largo, the pair had starred in three films—To Have and Have Not (1944), The Big Sleep (1946), and Dark Passage (1947). Key Largo was the fourth and final film in which they appeared together when plans to appear in a fifth film never came to fruition after the death of Bogart in 1957.

Plot

Key Largo begins as World War II veteran Frank McCloud journeys to Key Largo, Florida with plans to visit the family of George Temple, who died while serving in Italy under Frank’s command. The Temples, Nora (George’s widow) and James (George’s father) greet Frank warmly, and invite him to stay in the Largo Hotel, owned by the family. An intense hurricane is due to hit Key Largo, so the hotel is only occupied by the Temples, Frank, and six guests—Gaye Dawn, Ralph, Angel, Toots, Curly, and a mysterious sixth person who stays in his room.

As the hotel prepares for the approaching storm, Sheriff Ben Wade and his deputy, Sawyer, arrive and inquire as to the whereabouts of the Osceola brothers, Native Americans who escaped custody. After the policemen leave, the local Seminole tribe (who usually take refuge in the hotel during storms) arrive with the Osceola brothers seeking shelter. As the hotel shuts itself in anticipation of the storm, the men staying at the hotel pull out guns, take the Temples and Frank hostage, and force the Seminoles to stay outside.

Finally, the mysterious guest emerges from his room and they learn his name is Johnny Rocco, a gangster who has been exiled to Cuba, and that the men have knocked out and taken deputy Sawyer. Frank and Rocco clash, prompting Rocco to hand Frank a gun and challenge him to a duel. Frank refuses, but Sawyer seizes the opportunity and grabs the gun for himself, running for the door. Rocco shoots and kills Sawyer, and his henchmen take the body out into the water and dump it overboard. To pass the time, Rocco berates Gaye, his alcoholic girlfriend, to serenade the men. Gaye protests, but Rocco bribes her with the promise of a drink, and she relents and sings. Rocco ridicules her and refuses to give her a drink, but Frank disobeys and gives her one anyway, and consequently is slapped by an angry Rocco.

With the worst of the hurricane over, Sheriff Ben Wade arrives again looking for Sawyer, and eventually discovers his body floating in the water nearby. Rocco pins the murder on the Osceola brothers and Wade kills them and departs. Rocco, who has been waiting for a local contact to make a deal, welcomes his associate Ziggy, and after finishing his deal forces Frank into sailing him and his henchmen back to Cuba in one of the hotel’s boats. Rocco refuses to take Gaye to Cuba with him, and in a deceptive embrace, Gaye steals Rocco’s gun and secretly gives it to Frank. In the boat, Frank manages to kill all of the men, and radios back to the hotel.

Significance

Director John Huston’s previous feature film, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948), made extensive use of on location shooting and he wished to do the same with Key Largo. However, due to the high costs involved with shoots of his last film, executives at Warner Brothers denied his requests to shoot on location. As a result, the majority of Key Largo was shot in the studio, with the exception of a few opening scenes. For the Largo Hotel, where the majority of the film takes place, a large scale set was constructed on the Warner Brothers lot and footage of the film’s hurricane, came from stock footage from another of the studio’s films, a Ronald Reagan picture titled Night Unto Night (1949). The sequences in the film that take place in boats were filmed in a large tank at the studio, with miniature boats placed in the background to give the illusion of a vast sea.

The famous singing scene in the film, which features Claire Trevor as the nervous Gaye Dawn, was filmed live with no prior rehearsal. John Huston intentionally ignored the anxious Trevor’s multiple requests for run-throughs of the scene. Sung a cappella, Trevor’s nerves were perfect for her character and added to the authenticity of her rendition of "Moanin’ Low." Trevor received an Academy Award for best supporting actress for her role, and many critics attribute the recognition to this scene.

Key Largo was well received by both critics and audiences alike, and grossed over $8 million at the box office.

Awards and nominations

Won

• Academy Award (1948) Best Supporting Actress: Claire Trevor

Bibliography

Anderson, Maxwell. Key Largo: A Play in a Prologue and Two Acts. Whitefish: Literary Licensing, 2011. Print.

Brill, Lesley. John Huston’s Filmmaking. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1997. Print.

Huston, John. An Open Book. New York: Da Capo, 1994. Print.

Huston, John, and Robert Emmet Long. John Huston: Interviews. Jackson: UP Mississippi, 2001. Print.

"Key Largo (1948)." Turner Classic Movies (TCM). Turner Entertainment Networks, 2015. Web. 3 Sept. 2015. <http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/598/Key-Largo/>.