Largo at Sixty
It isn't John Huston's best directed film, hardly his most ambitious, and thematically, his fuzziest. And yet, for all of that, Key Largo, 60 years of age this hurricane season, is stocked with as many memorable moments as his best work.
Huston's Formula
Produced in 1948, this compact, atmospheric thriller on the brittle nature of bravery - at least, that's all that's left of playwright Maxwell Anderson's political poetry in Huston and Richard Brooks' indulgent adaptation - is perhaps the purest example of the classic Huston formula: an interesting assemblage of characters gathered together by circumstance - in this case, a hurricane-threatened Florida hotel cum gangster hideaway - who, in no time, begin to badger and bait one another to the point of high tension.
Memorable Cast
The cast here ranks with one of Huston's best: Humphrey Bogart as a sad-faced, self-righteous coward who must regain his courage to thwart the villains, Lauren Bacall as the feline beauty who doubts him, Lionel Barrymore as her morally confused hotel-owner father, and, in a near-parody of parts past, Edward G. Robinson as the toad faced tough guy who pulls rank on them all, including his martyr of a moll, dipsomaniacal diva Claire Trevor.
Here's To You, Mr. Robinson
Though it's a grand group, the film goes to grapefruit-faced Robinson. Key Largo is a veritable scrapbook of cherished Robinson images: the introductory traveling shot that finds him smoking a cigar in the bathtub, the shadowy two shot in which he whispers lascivious sweet-nothings in Bacall's ear, the anger-relish on his face as he stops her hands from clawing his jowls (a "wildcat" he calls her), and the unadulterated disgust with which he denies poor Trevor a drink, after she humiliatingly indulges him with a song. The underrated Robinson even manages to steal the film's climax, a boat-bound gun battle with Bogart, with a dramatic collapse in the fog.
Florida Adventure
It's an over the top performance in an over the top film, with its emphatic close ups, bombastic score, and flash of lightning after every loaded line of dialogue - all on Huston's orders, of course, his relish evident in every tact. It's wry opera, delivered with pluck, pomp and panache.
Thinking of a Florida adventure this winter? Stay home and fire up the DVD player. There's no higher adventure to be had in the Sunshine State than Key Largo.
