Cheap Key Largo (DVD) (Humphrey Bogart, Edward G. Robinson, Lauren Bacall) (John Huston) Price

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Customer Reviews of Key Largo

They DID Have It All....
This is my favorite Bogie & Bacall movie. Maybe it's because I love the sensual mystery of the Keys so much, and, combined with a John Houston production, and two Hollywood screen and real life legends, it can't miss. The story of an old hotel being taken over by gangster Edward G. Robinson and his crew of lug-heads on the lam is filled with drama, intelligent dialogue, and just a wonderful inter-play between a classic group of actors. Bogie & Bacall exude chemistry, as always. Bogie has a few cracks, but he's still our hero ! And Lionel Barrymore is wonderful as the wheel chair bound, but still feisty hotel owner. Claire Trevor is great also as Robinsons drunken, has-been floozie, a role for which she won best supporting actress Oscar. This film is sometimes colorized, avoid that version, it MUST be seen in black and white, as should all those great films of the 1940's (Okay, excluding Betty Grables Technicolor extravaganzas). Being an old Hollywood freak, I tend to see more than is obvious to most when viewing a movie like this. But anyone who appreciates great acting and a timeless story will like this film. It also has one of my favorite endings , a classic Hollywood ending, for a classic film. LOVE it!!

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Edward G. Robinson at this best
Key Largo is just one of John Huston's many memorable films that somehow always seem to transcend the intention--the Hollywood intention being to make a few bucks--and to this day still plays very well and indeed appears as something close to a work of art. It features what I think is one of Edward G. Robinson's finest performances as Johnny Rocco, a sociopathic gangster holding the off-season personnel of a seaside hotel hostage as he concludes a counterfeit money deal.

The story begins as Major Frank McCloud (Humphrey Bogart) pays a visit to the family of one of his G.I. buddies who was killed in Italy during WWII. He finds the welcome from the hotel's only "guests" chilly except for Gaye Dawn (a funny and perhaps prescient Hollywood stage name) played by Claire Trevor who is drunk and befriends him. After a bit McCloud discovers that the hotel's owner Nora Temple (Lauren Bacall) and her invalid father-in-law James Temple (Lionel Barrymore) have been tricked into allowing Rocco's gang to stay and now, as a tropical storm begins to blow, are being held at gunpoint. McCloud's delicate task is to keep the megalomaniac and murderous personality of Rocco under some control so that he doesn't murder everyone.

Note that this is a splendid cast, and they all do a good job. Note too that Huston adapted this from a play by the versatile American playwright Maxwell Anderson. So the ingredients for a good film are clearly in place; and aside from some self-conscious mishmash with the Seminoles of Florida, this is a success. Anderson's desire to explore the psychopathic personality (some years later he adapted William March's novel The Bad Seed into a stage play) finds realization in Huston's direction and especially in Robinson's indelible performance. The utter disregard for the lives of others and the obsessive love of self that characterize the sociopath reek from the snares and callous laughter of the very sick Johnny Rocco. I especially liked the crazed and thrilled grin on his face when he emerges from the hold of the boat in the climactic scene, gun in hand, imagining that he has once again fooled his adversaries and is about to delightfully shoot Humphrey Bogart to death. What I loved about this scene was that Huston did not think it necessary to contrive a fight in which the good guy (Bogart) beats the bad guy by fighting fair. What happens is exactly what should happen, and without regard for the fine points of Marquis of Queensberry-type rules. Also good is Rocco beginning to sweat in fear of his life as the storm moves in while Bogey gives us his famous laugh and grin as he assesses the essential cowardice of the petty gangster.

Lauren Bacall, in one of her more modest roles, does a lot without saying much, and Lionel Barrymore is very good as the cantankerous old guy in a wheelchair. Claire Trevor actually won an Academy Award as Best Supporting Actress for her work, and she was good as the alcoholic moll with a heart of gold. Robinson won nothing, but he really dominated the picture and demonstrated why he was one of Hollywood's greatest stars.

Bottom line: watch this to see the gangster yarn meld into film noir with overtones of the psychoanalytical drama that characterized many of the black and white Hollywood films of the forties and early fifties.

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Not the Best, But Good
I ordered the DVD of this film to replace my old VHS. First, the DVD quality is excellent, though I was never able to access the 'special features'. On my player, the movie just starts. As a fan of the Bogarts, I enjoy this movie like their others. However, I've always felt the parts for both Bacall and Lionel Barrymore were somehow, wrong. Bacall seems almost like she's on Prozac, so restrained is her performance. So many of Barrymore's movements and body language seem more suited to the stage than a movie--just a little too theatrical. However, I've never seen EG Robinson do better, and his toadies all give superlative performances. Claire Trevor deserved her Oscar for this movie, she's that good. Overall, it's still a movie worth having for any fan of the classics. I just don't think it's their best.