That is a bad poster for a very good film. Once again, after a lukewarm film we seek comfort in a Bogart and it does not disappoint. I thought I'd seen it before, but all I really remembered was the end. Like Petrified Forest, it concerns an establishment (in this case a seen-better-days hotel closed for high summer in the Florida Keys (the days before air conditioning)) held hostage by a gang leader and his hoods. Only this time the gang leader is played by Edward G. Robinson and is a monster with no redeeming features, and his men are a pretty sorry bunch as well (among them "Toots"
and "Curly"). They're not on the run, in fact they have snuck in from Cuba, whence Robinson's Johnny Rocco was banished after the end of Prohibition, and are waiting to make a deal with a former rival ("Ziggy") on a shipment of counterfeit dollars. The hotel is owned by a wheelchair-bound Lionel Barrymore who runs it with the help of his daughter-in-law, Lauren Bacall. His son, her husband, was killed in the war, but his commanding officer was Humphrey Bogart, who comes by for a visit while he drifts about the country, having lost his direction and his commitment to his previous profession in that same war. He walks in on the gang, who have not revealed their nature or intentions to Barrymore's Temple, but are not exactly welcoming. In fact, they would have booted him out were it not for the drunken blonde enthusiastically following the horse races on the radio
(Claire Trevor, whom we've just seen as the no-good young wife in Murder My Sweet, and who won an Oscar for her role). She is, it turns out, an ex-singer ("Gaye Dawn") and currently Rocco's moll. There is no love lost between them, however: he regards her as a lush who wasted her talent, whereas she is clearly sickened by him (and helps to orchestrate his demise). One particularly uncomfortable scene is where he forces her to sing for a drink, despite her clear shame and discomfort, and then refuses to give her it afterwards because she "stunk". The more I see of Robinson, the higher I think of him. The change between the character he played in Scarlet Street and Johnny Rocco could not be more extreme. His eyes are dead
and he is equally terrifying when quiet and smug as when flaring into a rage. He humiliates Bogart's Frank McCloud after he's mouthed off by giving him a gun and challenging him to shoot him knowing that he will be shot in return. Bogart demurs, saying it's not worth dying just for there to be one fewer Johnny Rocco in the world, but in so doing he earns an accusation of cowardice from Bacall. However, a cop who had been imprisoned and tortured by Rocco's men grabs the gun and uses it to get to the door, only to be gunned down by Rocco because it was empty.
Rocco also causes the death of two innocent young Indian men (who talk unfortunately rather like the Beano character Little Plum did in my childhood) by convincing a visiting cop that they were responsible for his colleague's death. Ratcheting up the (already considerable) tension is a hurricane that descends, terrifying (to Temple and McCloud's amusement) Rocco and causing him to lose the ship that was to take him back to Cuba. This means that after the sale of the counterfeit money is completed, Rocco and gang dragoon McCloud to ferry them across in a boat that has survived the hurricane at the dock by the hotel. Before he leaves, though, Gaye, in a show of fake grief that Rocco is leaving, steals his gun, and passes it (along with advice to make a run for it between the hotel and the boat) to Frank. Having been stung by the charge of cowardice more than he will let on, Frank turns down the chance, knowing that the thugs plan to bump him off as soon as they sight Cuba. This means that he has to deal with Rocco and his gang of four. Will he do it? Well, that's the part I remembered from before.
This (like Petrified Forest) was a play before, and inherits the talkiness thereof (although it jettisons the blank verse of the original!) but doesn't appear set-bound largely through the talent of its director, the great John Huston. It's not a particularly original plot but is elevated by excellent performances all round, beautiful lighting and a steamy, relentlessly tense atmosphere. Plus it has the Bogart-Bacall pairing with an underpinning of sadness and palpable longing. Can't beat that!
Oh, and I would remiss if I didn't share one of the best exchanges in the film (that I knew tangentially because it was referenced in a song I heard on John Peel's radio show in the '80s):
No comments:
Post a Comment