7.8 | / 10 |
Users | 4.5 | |
Reviewer | 4.5 | |
Overall | 4.5 |
During WWII, American expatriate Harry Morgan helps transport a Free French Resistance leader and his beautiful wife to Martinique while romancing a sexy lounge singer.
Starring: Humphrey Bogart, Walter Brennan, Lauren Bacall, Dolores Moran, Hoagy CarmichaelFilm-Noir | 100% |
Romance | 59% |
War | 13% |
Thriller | Insignificant |
Adventure | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.37:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.37:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Mono (48kHz, 24-bit)
Polish: Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono
BDInfo verified
English SDH, French, Japanese, Spanish, Polish
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region free
Movie | 5.0 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 2.5 | |
Overall | 4.5 |
The title card of the 1944 film that first paired Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall may read
"Ernest Hemingway's To Have and Have Not", but just about everything except the title and the
hero's name had vanished by the time Hemingway's novel reached the screen. Working with screenwriters
Jules Furthman and William Faulkner (yes, that William Faulkner), director Howard Hawks repurposed the writer's
episodic tale of Depression-era rum-smuggling into an adventure echoing Bogart's earlier hit,
Casablanca. They advanced the time period to World
War II just after France fell to the Nazis
and relocated the action from the Florida Keys to Martinique. Once again, Bogart was cast as a
resourceful American expatriate struggling to remain aloof in a French colony ruled by the
puppet Vichy regime. Once again, he lived in a hotel with an easygoing piano player as its star
attraction. Once again, circumstances conspired to draw the reluctant loner into aiding a married
couple fighting the Axis onslaught. And once again, Bogart's tough guy had his heart melted by a
beautiful woman, except that this time Bogie got the girl, both on screen and in real life.
To Have and Have Not (or "TH&HN") completes the Warner Archive Collection's Blu-ray
release of the quartet of films starring Bogart and Bacall, following The Big Sleep, Key
Largo and Dark Passage. For
reasons discussed in the Video section, TH&HN was the most
challenging of the four restoration projects, but the results were worth the wait.
To Have and Have Not was shot in lustrous black-and-white by Sidney Hickox (The Big Sleep
and White Heat), and
its presentation on Blu-ray presents major challenges. The film's negative
has been lost, and the best surviving element is a nitrate fine-grain master positive archived at
New York's Museum of Modern Art. Due to a variety of factors, including age-related
deterioration, this fine-grain element required special handling in generating a new master for the
Warner Archive Collection's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray. Concerns regarding the viability of
the fine-grain were sufficiently grave that the Blu-ray's preparation was accompanied by a
project to generate new preservation elements, ensuring that TH&HN will remain available for
future generations. A dupe safety negative was used to supply a few shots where the fine-grain
had deteriorated past the point where it could yield a satisfactory image. As per current Warner policy when scanning the best available elements for
purposes of preservation, the fine-grain master positive was scanned at 4K resolution.
After extensive digital repair and correction of densities and shading, TH&HN arrives on Blu-ray
in a sterling presentation. With the exception of stock footage used for a few maritime scenes and
the occasional rear projection, the image is sharp and detailed, revealing fine points and subtle
textures in faces, sets and Bacall's knockout wardrobe. Blacks are solid, whites are crisp, shades
of gray are well-delineated, and the film's grain pattern is natural and finely rendered. WAC has
mastered the film at its usual average bitrate, just under 35 Mbps.
The original soundtrack recording for TH&HN disappeared with the negative, but WAC has reconstructed the mono mix from diverse sources, which the audio engineers have massaged into a coherent whole, presented here in lossless DTS-HD MA 2.0. The dynamic range is limited by the technology of the era, but the dialogue and effects are all clearly rendered, and the energetic score by an uncredited Franz Waxman (Dark Passage, Sunset Boulevard and A Place in the Sun) provides the appropriate musical backdrop to the film's combination of adventure and romance. Hoagy Carmichael's musical performances sound as good as they ever have, as does Bacall's singing debut during "Slim's" brief stint as a cabaret performer. (Rumors persisted for years that the actress' voice was dubbed, but they have long since been disproved.)
The extras have been ported over from Warner's 2003 DVD of To Have and Have Not. The trailer and
cartoon have been remastered in 1080p.
To Have and Have Not is a unique creation, the result of a once-in-a-lifetime moment when art
and life imitated each other so closely that it's impossible to tell which came first. Just as Slim
and Steve exit arm-in-arm at the film's end, the actors married the year after the film's release
and remained a couple until Bogart's untimely death in 1957. One can debate over which of their
four films ranks the highest, but TH&HN has a lightness and charm unmatched by any of their
subsequent outings. WAC has given it a first-rate presentation, which is highly recommended.
Warner Archive Collection
1947
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1949
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