Popular Culture Review Vol. 13, No. 1, January 2002 | Page 47
Bogart, Bacall, and Howard Hawks
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Hemingway’s narrative along the lines of the war and Code are evident in Warners’
1944 trailer advertising Hawks’ film. The narrator begins:
Ernest Hemingway, soldier of fortune, who can always be found
where adventure beckons, now takes you to the danger zone of
the mid-Atlantic, where stra nge ships slip through the fog with
even stranger cargos. Where every man has a price, and every
woman a past. Where all barriers are down, and the only law is
the law of the Caribbean.'^
The preview emphasized violence as Bogart yells: "'Gimme that gun.” Rummy
sidekick Walter Brennan (in a remarkable transformation from his dignified
university professor/patriarch role in Lang’s Hangmen A lso D ie, the year before)
warns: ‘‘You can’t fight them guys, Harry.” But publicity capitalizes on narrative
violence, justified as a Job and mission for the war. The film’s trailer also played
up the sex angle, suggestively quoting a provocative Bacall: “I’m hard to get,
Steve. All you have to do is ask me.” And later, Bogart (as tough guy breaking
furniture and threatening two Vichy thugs) yells a macho threat: “That broke as
easy as you will. You’re both gonna take a beating till someone uses that phone.
That means one of yuh’s gonna take a beating for nothing, and I don’t care which
one it is!” The trailer segues to Bacall’s sexual assertiveness in initiating a kiss,
igniting repartee. Bogart: “What’d you do that for?” Bacall: ‘T v e been wondering
whether I’d like it.” Bogart: “What’s the decision?” Bacall: ‘T don’t know yet. It’s
even better when you help.”‘^
Hawks’ pairing of “The Look” opposite Bogart, and turning up the heat
via suggestive innuendo was as phenomenally successful as the couple’s chemistry
in real life. Warner Bros, capitalized on the stars’ affair and exploited the pair’s
ofiF-screen romance all the way to the box-office. To H ave and H ave N ot returned
its $1,684,000 cost, grossing $3,442,000 on its initial domestic release (with another
$1,602,000 in foreign earnings, totaling $5,044,000).'® Bogart and Bacall’s sexual
repartee sparked a sequel Warner project co-starring the couple in Hawk’s The B ig
Sleep in an effort to duplicate the on-screen combustion of To H ave and H ave Not.
Advertising and press books for Warners’ H ave N ot included double-fiill-page ads
featuring the couple prominently in a rough, gripping red meat embrace with the
caption: “It happens this way,” and “BOGART in love with his kind of woman!” in
“A Howard Hawks Production” of “Hemingway’s daring story adapted for the
screen!” It cited 1944 industry trades. The H ollyw ood Reporter. "“Highly exciting,
fast-moving, exotic melodrama of the C a s a b la n c a School...Bogart at his
best...Bacall is nothing less than terrific.” Showman's Trade Review: “Lustic, comic,
romantic, melodramatic....” Boxqffice: “In mood, situations, suspense and adventure.