Tribute to The Film Foundation 2021 / The Breaking Point / USA 1950
Michael Curtiz’s somber, restrained rendition of Ernest Hemingway’s To Have and Have Not conjures up the true spirit of the novel. John Garfield plays a former wartime naval officer who gets entangled in illicit trafficking. The noir cloak barely conceals what is essentially an affecting character study of a man coming to terms with the fact that his life didn’t turn out as he imagined.
Long overshadowed by Howard Hawks’ flashy 1944 screen version, Michael Curtiz’s somber, restrained rendition of Ernest Hemingway’s To Have and Have Not is closer in theme and spirit to the novel. It is also the American novelist’s favorite screen adaptation of any of his books. In the finest performance of his short career, John Garfield plays a down-on-his-luck former wartime naval officer who, in an act of desperation trying to provide for his struggling family, gets entangled in illicit trafficking. The noir cloak barely conceals what is essentially an affecting character study of a man coming to terms with the fact that his life didn’t turn out as he imagined. This is a story of post-war disillusionment – the squashed dreams of financial prosperity and familial bliss, and the taxing moral price of survival in the new America.
Joseph Fahim
97 min / Black & white, 35 mm
Director Michael Curtiz
/ Screenplay Ranald MacDougall podle románu / based on the novel by Ernest Hemingway
/ Dir. of Photography Ted D. McCord
/ Music Max Steiner
/ Editor Alan Crosland Jr.
/ Art Director Edward Carrere
/ Producer Jerry Wald
/ Production Warner Bros.
/ Cast John Garfield, Patricia Neal, Phyllis Thaxter, Juano Hernández
/ Sales Park Circus Film Company Ltd
/ Contact UCLA Film & Television Archive
Michael Curtiz (1886, Budapest – 1962, Los Angeles). Selected filmography: Queen of Sin and the Spectacle of Sodom and Gomorrah (1922), 20,000 Years in Sing Sing (1932), The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), Casablanca (1942), Night and Day (1946), The Breaking Point (1950), We’re No Angels (1955).
Park Circus Film Company Ltd
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E-mail: [email protected]
UCLA Film & Television Archive
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Phone: +1 323 462 4921
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E-mail: [email protected]
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