More Meditations on Hemingway: To Have and Have Not (1944), The Breaking Point (1950), and The Gun Runners (1958)

By David in TN
Wednesday, August 5, 2020 at 11:31:00 P.M. EDT

TCM’s Film Noir of the Week is on hiatus during August for Summer Under the Stars.

After I watched The Breaking Point, I viewed the Blu-Ray of Don Siegel’s The Gun Runners (1958), another version of the Hemingway story with Audie Murphy playing the same basic character Garfield played.

John Garfield was one of the greatest actors who ever lived, and was convincing. Audie Murphy was actually something like the character in real life, but was often wooden. Siegel said Audie couldn’t do much with the love scenes.

One scene Audie Murphy could do better than John Garfield. That’s when he takes an M1 Carbine and kills the bad guys.

Audie Murphy’s latest biographer, Baylor University American History lecturer, David A. Smith wrote:

“In many ways The Gun Runners was a standard Audie Murphy performance. In a review of his acting ability, typical of the sort that always sought to shine a positive light on his performances, one critic explained that ‘while it can't be claimed that he helps a dramatic situation, it can be claimed that he never has hurt one.’ It was faint praise, but perhaps the only kind the film warranted. As was by now typical, the action sequences were the only time he really appeared to forget that he was acting. He could still summon his charming smile, and in this film he turned in a creditable job of portraying a man who was helplessly aware that he was getting deeper into a situation that was over his head. In playing that kind of part, Murphy was not really acting at all; it was a feeling he knew all too well.”

N.S.: Although my friend and partner-in-crime, David in TN, kindly sent me a DVD of The Gun Runners, I have yet to view it. However, I watched The Breaking Point on TCM a week or two ago, and watched To Have and Have Not for the second time in almost 50 years about a year ago.

Each picture has great strengths and great weaknesses. In particular, To Have and Have Not falls apart at the end, losing all credibility. We’re supposed to believe that after fishing boat skipper Harry Morgan (Bogart) and nightclub owner Frenchie beat the two Vichy officials within an inch of their lives, that the Nazis would be satisfied with merely burning down Frenchie’s club.

This weakness is a scar on the work of the middle-aged and elderly Howard Hawks. Artistic senility set in early for the Silver Fox.

I believe Red Eddie Muller said that To Have and Have Not was a re-make of Casablanca (1943). Playing Harry, Bogey repeated his performance as Rick.

Actors do that a lot, but it’s nothing to brag about. People who appreciate John Wayne will often say that his performance as Ethan Edwards in The Searchers (1956) was his greatest, but Wayne was repeating his performance as Thomas Dunson in Red River (1948). Thus, as great as Wayne was in the later picture, he cannot get credit for an original performance.

Edward G. Robinson once said he felt sorry for Humphrey Bogart, because Bogie had to keep repeating himself.

The best things about To Have and Have Not are the sexual chemistry between Bogart and Bacall, which was not at all feigned (they married shortly thereafter), and the breathtaking work of Walter Brennan as Eddie, the drunken first mate, a character I am convinced was based on a friend of Hemingway’s.

In The Breaking Point, Julie Garfinkle (better known as John Garfield) gave a brilliant, intense performance as Harry Morgan that leaves Bogie in the shade. I was lost in Garfield’s work, as he got sucked in deeper and deeper by a riptide of evil. Harry is a tough, competent man, but things just get worse and worse.

And Garfield’s Harry, unlike Bogie’s, has a wife (Phyllis Thaxter) and two young daughters, all of whom he loves to death, though another woman (Patricia Neal) tempts him. Both actresses are excellent.

There are also nice little touches in Ranald McDougal’s screenplay, like the bartender/guardian angel, who summons the “cavalry” (Harry’s wife), when the vixen threatens to waylay him.

However, The Breaking Point, too, is a mixed bag. The Walter Brennan character is eliminated, and replaced by a sober, magical negro (Juano Hernandez).

Hernandez is excellent, in spite of the limitations of his role, and I agree with Red Eddie that the fade-out is one of the saddest in movie history. However, Red Eddie is ridiculous when he mentions that in Hemingway’s novel, Harry is constantly saying, “nigger,” and praises McDougal for removing the epithets.

Goodness had nothing to do with it. Racial epithets in pictures were shunned in those days, and chief censor Joseph I. Breen was in a position to cause problems for movie makers who used them, whatever their intentions.

Besides, the book, in which Harry constantly drops “Ns,” is not the same story as the movie, in which Harry’s best friend is black.

Similarly, in the first movie version, Bogie’s Harry is a loner, while Garfield’s Harry is a man who (from the book) says, “A man who’s alone’s got nothing.”

I’ll take Garfield’s Harry, anytime.