Gentlemen Prefer Blondes

 

Director Howard Hawks

Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell

novelist Anita Loos

GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES           B                                                                               USA  (91 mi)  1953  d: Howard Hawks

I can be smart when it’s important, but most men don’t like it.                                               —Lorelei Lee (Marilyn Monroe)

During the conservative era of Eisenhower’s America in the 1950’s, Douglas Sirk was offering his own subversive take on the “women’s picture,” using lurid symbolism and garish color schemes to reflect what’s going on under the surface in films like Magnificent Obsession (1954), All That Heaven Allows (1955), and Written On the Wind (1956), drawing attention to the stereotypical and straight-jacketed roles of women in society, caught up in the material mindset of the American Dream while also accentuating the tragedy of believing in false ideals. Hollywood, however, was in the business of promoting those same consumerist ideals through its own overblown romanticism, where this film is the epitome of reinforcing the existing social order, where marrying a rich man was the answer to a woman’s prayers, as money, not love, was the overriding concern, without any apparent concerns that they could be viewed as a sex object or purchased as a commodity themselves.  Perpetuating the stereotype that liberation comes in the form of a pocketbook, where economic stability supersedes all matters of love, the Hollywood mythmaking machine was busy at work creating larger-than-life figures on the screen, with Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell representing the industry’s two biggest sex symbols, where the cartoonish storyline is overlooked by the Technicolor musical extravaganza that is literally an escapist cinematic spectacle, adopted as a marketing strategy to compete against television audiences, offering a glittering allure that wasn’t available on those black and white television sets, where the spread of the new home medium was part of the post-war economic boom.  As Hawks himself noted, “The girls were unreal, the story was unreal.  We were working with complete fantasy.”  Monroe’s undeniable sex appeal put glamour back into the movies on a large scale, where she epitomized the objectification of women in the 1950’s, as advertising campaigns for her movies echoed the selling of consumer goods, emphasizing the importance of appearance and obedience to male expectations, underscored by the title, where marriage was viewed as the ideal, with happiness revolving around choosing the right husband, where cinematic illusion deftly plays into the audience’s fantasies, reiterating the Cinderella fairy tale with the princess searching for the handsome prince.  And Monroe does not disappoint, never disappearing behind the character, as what we see onscreen actually “is” Marilyn Monroe playing a sex kitten in all its exaggerated femaleness, with her signature breathy voice, where nearly all her subsequent roles are reiterations of this same sexually provocative character, while Jayne Mansfield’s blonde bombshell in Frank Tashlin’s THE GIRL CAN’T HELP IT (1956) is almost a parody of Monroe in this film.  The entire film may be seen through a voyeuristic lens, as these women are continually ogled and gawked at by men throughout the entire length of the picture, no matter the setting, yet these enterprising young women have learned to take advantage of their beauty and feminine sexuality, where having a voluptuous figure has its advantages, as they are literally on display as shiny ornaments in a fish bowl, where the film showcases them as sex objects like a prurient advertising campaign selling tickets for its own product, with Monroe already known as a pinup girl, while the film may as well be a billboard advertising for Hollywood itself.  Released just a few months prior to the premiere of CinemaScope, what truly stands out is the movie’s shameless materialism, yet when these women exhibit a strong assertiveness and use their feminine guile to get what they want, acknowledging at one point, “If we aren’t able to empty his pockets between us, we aren’t worthy of the name Woman,” their sexual manipulation is equated to female enterprise leading into the postwar consumer landscape of the 50’s with its unquestioned acceptance of the full-fledged patriarchy of American capitalism.  While it has its screwball comedy moments, much like Howard Hawks’ earlier film MONKEY BUSINESS (1952), this garish, veering-towards-camp musical never really comes across as a subversive satire of the American Dream, instead it blatantly peddles the product.   

Adapted from the 1925 novel by Anita Loos, the first female staff screenwriter in Hollywood, authoring hundreds of Hollywood films in the 1910’s, it started as a series of short sketches published in serial installments by Harper’s Bazaar known as the “Lorelei stories,” written in the form of her diaries, revisiting the myth of the irresistible American blonde in the jazz age of the Roaring Twenties, who uses her “stupidity” and eroticism for her own benefit, where the magazine’s circulation quadrupled overnight, making her a millionaire and a celebrity, running as a Broadway play in 1926-27, followed by a 1928 silent comedy release under the same title directed by Malcolm St. Clair, which was something of a flop, where no copies are known to exist, so it is now considered a lost film.  It was revised in a Broadway version starring Carol Channing in 1949, accentuating the entertainment aspect through elaborate musical production numbers, while the film release, with Loos as a script consultant, was the seventh highest-grossing film of 1953, eclipsing the popularity of the novel.  The film doesn’t really stack up against the best song-and-dance musicals of the era, as the songs themselves are weak, never rising to the level of Marlene Dietrich in Josef von Sternberg’s The Blue Angel (Der Blaue Engel) (1930), for instance, who could convincingly direct each song to the individualized fantasies of every man in the room, and what passes for dancing is more like choreographed movement that is intentionally tacky, as neither Russell nor Monroe could dance, with Hawks nowhere near the set, having no interest in directing large-scale musical numbers, turning those sequences over to choreographer Jack Cole and his assistant Gwen Verdon.  The costumes designed by William Travilla are glamorously divine, working with Monroe on eight films together, best expressed in a rousing Marilyn Monroe showstopper near the end, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) -- (Movie Clip) Diamonds Are A... YouTube (4:26), where her celebrated pink evening gown, as well as gloves, jewelry, shoes, and hair were parodied by Madonna in an equally iconic music video in 1984, Madonna - Material Girl (Official Video) [HD] - YouTube (4:45), glorified again by Nicole Kidman in a more chaotic version with quick cuts in Baz Luhrman’s MOULIN ROUGE (2001), Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend (2001) HD - YouTube (2:42), both meant to evoke the sexuality of Monroe, but reinvented with a modernist sophistication.   It’s surprising how much dance movement elevates the best musicals, whether it’s Gene Kelly or Fred Astaire or a host of others, as they tend to hold up over time, while those without it seem so much more inert and statuesque, feeling dated, relying so much more upon a script that may not always provide the saving grace, where this very much appears to be a product of the times.  That said, what this film really established was the brilliance of Marilyn Monroe’s comic timing, initially perceived by the industry as just another “dumb blonde” (as initially written by Loos), which she accentuates with stereotypical exaggeration, where her archetypal Hollywood sex goddess actually helped to resuscitate the musical’s mainstream commercial and critical recovery in the 21st century, embodied by films like Moulin Rouge (2001) and Rob Marshall’s CHICAGO (2002), perhaps driven by nostalgia, but her delivery of some of the best lines may be the real surprise of the film, exemplified years later in what is arguably her best comic role in Billy Wilder’s madcap comedy Some Like It Hot (1959), followed not long afterwards by her final film and what many consider her greatest dramatic role opposite Clark Gable and Montgomery Clift in John Huston’s desperately sad The Misfits (1961).  But this musical is on the opposite spectrum, more of a zany spoof on male expectations, overtly playing to the male gaze, while countering that with something the audience is not expecting, turning into a female buddy movie, with Russell and Monroe playing best of friends without a hint of competitive rivalry, where their lack of formal education is replaced by firsthand experience, becoming a disorienting daydream of female empowerment, allowing the women to seemingly control their own destiny, so long as it fits within the safely conventional parameters of 1950 America.  The underlying sexual ambiguity is an interesting component of the film, and may help explain why this is listed by none other than Rainer Werner Fassbinder in Rainer Werner Fassbinder's 10 favourite films of all time.  It’s extremely touching to see the considerable care Russell takes in trying to protect the acutely shy young starlet from a director who had little patience for her anxieties, offering the maturity and wisdom of a big sister, often conveyed in overly protective wise cracks, but their lifelong friendship off the screen was equally genuine, though they never worked together again.     

While the script adapted by Charles Lederer veers from the norm, what’s interesting is how underwritten all the male roles are, with most little more than buffoons, and how much more detailed the female relationship becomes, which is atypical of Hollywood films of the period, something not often seen before THELMA & LOUISE (1991).  Lorelei Lee (Marilyn Monroe) and Dorothy Shaw (Jane Russell) are American showgirls (“from the wrong side of the tracks”) who appear in red sequin dresses to deliver the opening number, appearing even before the opening credits, Two Little Girls from Little Rock - Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (HD) YouTube (2:48), emulated a decade later by two sisters, Catherine Deneuve and Françoise Dorléac, in Jacques Demy’s The Young Girls of Rochefort (Les demoiselles de Rochefort) (1967).  As the two greatest sex symbols of the era, one blonde and the other a brunette, they couldn’t be more different, as the ditzy blonde Lorelei is angelic, even innocent-looking, with a restrained sexuality, while the more intellectually discerning Dorothy is bold and brash, whose sexuality is raw and sassy.  Dorothy is more pragmatic, but Lorelei insists her brunette friend is dumb because she’s always falling for some good-looking guy without any consideration of his financial standing, with Dorothy suggesting Lorelei has “Novocaine in her lipstick,” as men always swoon after being kissed, while Lorelei in turn warns Dorothy in her own affectionate, yet convoluted way, “I want you to find happiness and stop having fun.”  Rather than resist their female objectification by men, they instead accentuate all their sensual qualities to draw even more attention to themselves, actually parodying the male stereotype of a sex symbol by presenting a convincing illustration of feminine seduction as illusion, performing one artificial female stereotype after another, intentionally feeding into the audience’s own insatiable fantasy of beauty, which of course Hollywood helped invent.  Russell was the headliner, loaned out from RKO by Howard Hughes, earning ten times the salary of Monroe, but it was Monroe who was given the climactic musical number, coming out of this film a first-rate star, singing all of her own vocals except the operatic high notes introducing the signature song, which were dubbed by infamous ghost singer Marni Nixon.  The tagline for the film was “The Two M-M-Marvels Of Our Age In The Wonder Musical Of The World!”  They are opposites when it comes to marriage, with one guided by money and the other by a healthy skepticism of love, as Lorelei is only interested in a man’s wealth, like her millionaire fiancé Gus (Tommy Noonan in a role originally meant for Cary Grant), a hopelessly naïve and prudish man who can provide for all her financial needs, where lavish presents are a substitute for real love.  Dorothy, on the other hand, prefers men who are handsome and charming, and is more concerned about the sparks of attraction, showing no real interest in their wealth, which is immediately established in their backstage rapport which confirms their character and their motivations, with Lorelei acting the part of a sophisticated lady, intending to marry Gus in France, while Dorothy is a straight-shooter, where her lines feel more like sarcastic zingers.  The chink in the armor is Gus’s father, as he despises Lorelei, suspecting she’s little more than a gold digger, looking for any hint of scandal to call off the marriage, and forbids them from traveling together on the Atlantic ocean liner to Europe, with Dorothy filling in as her chaperone.  Luckily for her, the all-male U.S. Olympic team is onboard, which quickly draws her eye, fascinated by the anatomy of the male physique, which escalates into a snappy musical number as she wanders around the men on exercise apparatus and eventually a pool, with homoerotic implications in their flesh-colored attire, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) -- (Movie Clip) Anyone Here ...  YouTube (3:54), all but ignoring Dorothy as she takes a tumble into the pool, which was purely accidental, but like a trooper she remained in character, so they kept the shot.    

Unbeknownst to either woman, Gus’s father has hired a private investigator in the form of Ernie Malone (Elliott Reid) to watch Lorelei on the journey and report back anything suspicious.  As a diversion, he snoozes up to Dorothy, pretending he’s a rich playboy and that it’s all accidental, but his eye is on Lorelei, hoping to catch her in an act of indiscretion.  In one of those swanky, luxury liner cocktail hours with guests in formal attire, Lorelei happens upon the elderly owner of a diamond mine, Sir Francis “Piggy” Beekman (Charles Coburn), and her eyes light up in dollar signs, while his face turns into a giant diamond.  Despite being old enough to be her grandfather, and married to boot, traveling with his wife (Norma Varden), Lorelei grows fascinated by Lady Beekman’s diamond tiara, even trying it on for size, where her reaction is priceless, “I just love finding new places to wear diamonds.”  This gargantuan piece of jewelry becomes the object of Lorelei’s obsessive fascination, using her flirtatious charm to spend more and more time with Beekman, who’s of course flattered by her attention, telling him what he wants to believe, feeding into his own illusion about himself in order to get what she wants, eventually convincing him to actually “give” it to her, thoroughly dismissing the objections and concerns of his wife, which becomes the narrative thread for the rest of the picture, with Lorelei refusing to give it back, even after being accused of being a thief, Marilyn Monroe And Jane Russell In "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" - " I'm Going To Keep It" YouTube (3:27).  Dorothy discovers Malone peeping on her friend, discovering his real motives and sees him for the lout he is, but his persistence with her pays off, and after a surprising kiss, she can be heard uttering “I think I’m falling in love with that slob.”  Even after ending up being down and out in Paris, thrown out of their hotel without a dollar to their name, they do what they do best, return to the stage, becoming immediate star attractions, with tragedy turning optimistically to fortune, yet there’s that little matter of the diamond tiara to contend with, turning the judicial system into a theatrical farce, becoming a mockery of the presumed superiority of European values (with its rich historical and literary history), as the brash Americans aren’t what they seem, turning this into something of an economics lesson.  Exhibiting an innate talent for American entrepreneurship, coming soon after the end of The Marshall Plan and Postwar Economic Recovery, which rebuilt a war-torn Europe, this has an all’s well that ends well storyline, going through a circuitous route to get there, with a few surprising twists, eventually coming face to face with Gus’s father, who’s ready to send Lorelei to the slammer, but she has a way of twisting even the most unpersuasive of men around her little finger, and this one’s no different, as she seems to have a way with wealthy men, speaking their own language, as all she really wants is what they’ve already got.  Who could argue with that?  The double wedding bells of the finale seems overly contrived, resembling a Hollywood fairy tale, as these thoroughly bland men are simply no match for the complexities of women possessing such unique insight into the psychology of men, thoroughly outwitting and outfoxing them on every occasion, and while it fits the happy ending movie format, one might “not” view this as a happy ending, but rather a dismal one that presents a darker view of marriage where women are trapped within the sexist 50’s demands of conformity and gender expectations.  This is a dated musical fantasia that best exemplifies the talents of these two resolute women, which even took the movie studios by surprise, as they were never able to recapture this same chemistry of female camaraderie, using their looks and sexual charisma to have fun at the expense of men, exhibiting a potent form of power that is still overlooked today. 

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) - Video Dailymotion YouTube (1:31:25)

To Have and Have Not

Ernest Hemingway

William Faulkner

Lauren Bacall magazine cover

Bogie and Walter Brennan

Hawks on the set with Bogie and Bacall

TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT      B                    

USA  (100 mi)  1944  d:  Howard Hawks

You know you don’t have to act with me, Steve. You don't have to say anything, and you don't have to do anything. Not a thing. Oh, maybe just whistle. You know how to whistle, don’t you, Steve? You just put your lips together, and blow.
—Marie “Slim” Browning (Lauren Bacall)

While CASABLANCA (1942) is a beloved film and a timeless classic, filled with memorable dialogue, this is an offshoot of that film with Howard Hawks trying to resurrect that same kind of romantic fervor during wartime, but it feels trivial in comparison, lacking the darker themes so apparent in the original, becoming something of a bemused, lightweight spin-off that is notable for introducing 19-year old Lauren Bacall to the silver screen, while also using the collective talents of two Nobel and Pulitzer Prize winning authors, Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner.  Hawks was good friends with both men, where the story goes that on a fishing trip together, Hawks challenged Hemingway that he could make a successful film out of his worst novel, calling To Have and Have Not “a bunch of junk” (a dark and brutal Depression era story that is endlessly bleak, where the protagonist refers to blacks as “niggers”), which was his way of urging Hemingway to come to Hollywood, write for the movies, and make a boatload of money.  Hemingway refused, of course, but Hawks was up for the challenge, first employing screenwriter Jules Furthman, then prestigious novelist William Faulkner to write adaptations, completely altering the original novel, where only the opening scenes with would-be big-game fisherman Mr. Johnson (Walter Sande) resemble the source material.  While Faulkner is one of America’s greatest novelists, he was a Hollywood screenwriter for hire since the early 30’s and did it largely for the money, working out of necessity because his income as a novelist was woefully insufficient.  As a result, his Hollywood screenplays are uneven and never rise to his stature as a novelist, but he worked well with Howard Hawks, writing five of his six credited screenplays.  Ironically, the screenplay he was most proud of received no screen credit, Jean Renoir’s THE SOUTHERNER (1945), because technically he was under contract by a different studio.  Despite the stature of the writers, Hawks was known for changing scripts as he went along, adapting the material to his shooting needs, where according to Bacall’s autobiography, she described the director’s “brilliantly creative work method” each morning on the set, where Hawks would sit in a circle with Bacall and Bogart and others in the scene with a script girl reading the scene.  Hawks would spice up the dialogue until he and Bogart felt comfortable before discussing the camera set-ups with the cinematographer Sidney Hickox.  This process explains the Hawks working method, always catering to the needs of his actors, making them feel comfortable, giving them the needed assurances.  It was Hawks’ idea to pair Bogart with Bacall, who was actually discovered as an 18-year old model on the cover of Harper’s Bazaar magazine by Hawks’ wife Nancy "Slim" Keith, bringing their own pet names for each other into the film (which the Hollywood couple continued to use in real life), with Bogart calling her Slim, while she calls him Steve.  Sparks were literally flying between Bogart and Bacall on and off the set, falling in love during the production, with Bogart reportedly “giggling” whenever he was around her, so Hawks eliminated all the other love interests in the storyline, making them the romantic centerpiece of the film.  During the shoot Bacall was age 19, while Bogart was 45, with Bacall never reaching these cinematic heights again, as she would never get better lines, marrying a year after the film was released.  Forever known as Bogie and Bacall, they became the most romantic couple that existed in Hollywood during the 40’s and 50’s, embracing their role as the ultimate Hollywood power couple.  In October 1947, they led a Washington delegation of two dozen others that included John Huston, William Wyler, Gene Kelly, Danny Kaye, Sterling Hayden, Ira Gershwin, Geraldine Brooks, and Judy Garland (Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, and “the Hollywood elite ...), all protesting McCarthyism and the era of Hollywood blacklisting announced just a month later, only to end up on subsequent blacklists themselves, having to openly denounce and repudiate communism before working again in the industry, with some, like Hayden, forced into naming names, an act he regretted for the rest of his life. 

It is ironic that with such an elite corps of writers, this is such an overly contrived and poorly written film, where the electric chemistry fueling Bogart and Bacall was captured with beguiling eye contact and some snappy dialogue, becoming the essence of the film, particularly the distinguished element of Bacall, who more than holds her own, pulling her own weight in a relationship, openly honest, tough, smart, and seductively alluring, in every respect Bogart’s equal, where she even sings, but the overall story feels hackneyed, where performances alone don’t make a film.  Without her presence this would be a really dull and insipid affair, as she’s the reason to see this film, steamrolling over everyone else, including Bogart, becoming one of the great breakout performances (how was she not nominated during awards season, as the Academy waited until 2009 to award her a Lifetime Achievement Award), catapulting her into instant stardom, with Hawks on a roll, delivering eleven consecutive box office hits from 1939 to 1951.  An intriguing Vertigo (1958) variation, Hawks claimed Bogart fell in love with Bacall’s character in the film, so she had to keep on playing her all her life.  The film is set during war time in 1940 on the small Caribbean island of Martinique, a French colony, after the fall of France, resulting in a Vichy government under a lengthy occupation by the Nazi’s.  This same balance of power was taking place on the island, where almost all the action takes place inside the Hotel Marquis, the film’s principal location.  Bogart is Harry Morgan, who runs a charter fishing boat renting excursions to tourist fishermen, like Mr. Johnson, who openly mocks the boat presence of Eddy (Walter Brennan), Harry’s alcoholic first mate, who spends most of the trip drinking beer or sleeping it off.  Johnson hooks a big game marlin on two occasions, but loses each one, as he’s unwilling to follow the instructions of the skipper, even losing the fishing rod and gear, accidentally dropping it overboard.  In a dour mood afterwards, he prickles at the thought of what he owes, claiming he can’t pay until the bank opens the next morning, with everyone meeting back at the hotel which features Hoagy Carmichael as Crickett the piano player.  Marcel Dalio plays the hotel owner Gérard (aka Frenchy), having a word with Harry in his room, asking if he could transport some “friends of friends,” a request he refuses, not wishing to get involved in the touchy political divide.  Across the hall, however, Marie (aka Slim) famously asks if anybody has a match, quickly disappearing afterwards.  Yet she’s seen again at a table having drinks with a drunken Mr. Johnson, under the curiously watchful eye of Harry, evading his lecherous grasp while moving quickly to the piano for a song, Am I Blue (1944) Hoagy Carmichael YouTube (1:40), then picking his pocket immediately afterwards.  Having a stake in the contents, Harry follows her upstairs and confronts her about the incident, which she doesn’t deny, offering reasons Harry can understand, discovering Johnson has more than enough money to pay Harry what he owes in travelers’ checks, also finding an early morning ticket for a flight out the next morning.  Meanwhile, the friends Gérard mentioned arrive at his door, upset how easily they are dismissed, but Harry is firm in his position, returning to the scene of the crime with Slim and the wallet, finding an embarrassed Mr. Johnson at their discovery.  As the friends exit the hotel, however, shots ring out, with police chasing after them, leading to mayhem, where Johnson is killed by a stray bullet before he has a chance to repay Harry.  Mopping up the scene is an enormously large Vichy police official, Captain Rénard (Dan Seymour), hauling in Harry and Slim for questioning, taking all of Harry’s money and his passport while slapping Slim in the face for perceived insolence, their fates seemingly linked together.

While the two take to each other immediately, Harry is impressed how she didn’t flinch during the police interrogation, “That slap in the face you took.  Well, you hardly blinked an eye.  It takes a lot of practice to be able to do that.”  After fleecing a customer for a bottle of wine, there is an introductory cat and mouse game played, pursuing, then deferring, with each asserting themselves at some point, then pulling back when they don’t get the expected reaction, but by the end of the evening they are a couple.  The most interesting part of the film is the spontaneous interplay between Bogart and Bacall, which is easygoing and pleasurable, like eye candy to watch, among the truly great screen couples, where the origins of their great love affair takes place on camera, where an unparalleled coolness sharing cigarettes becomes a metaphor for sexual foreplay (contributing to his early death from esophageal cancer at the age of 57, leaving her a widow at the age of 32).  Like a Bogart character, Bacall is equally rebellious and individualistic, a woman with a past, viewed as an unattached loner, a drifter visiting South American who happened to arrive on the island when she ran out of money.  Her slim figure and husky voice fit all the femme fatale requirements, defiant, tough as nails, yet intuitively smart and perceptive, offering what studios described as “The Look.”  She doesn’t have to guard herself as she has nothing to hide, openly confessing her attraction to Bogart with the infamous whistle line, Lauren Bacall Whistle YouTube (55 seconds).  In this film, it doesn’t have the depth of magnitude of Bogart and Ingrid Bergman in CASABLANCA, who share a back story, where the atmosphere is so much murkier.  It’s also not one of Bogart’s better films, as his character is a little brutish and sadistic.  This film is all about Bacall’s deadly eye contact and her slow murmuring purrs when she comes on to him.  But with no money left, Harry is forced to reconsider Gérard’s earlier offer, taking money up front, buying a ticket for Slim out of the country that afternoon, while agreeing to transport resistance fugitives under cover of darkness, picking up Paul and Hélène de Bursac (Walter Surovy and Dolores Moran) at a designated off-island location, but they are intercepted by a patrol boat, with Paul cowardly trying to turn himself in, getting shot in the process, but Harry shoots out the searchlight and escapes in the fog, all meeting back in the hotel cellar, with Harry tending to the feverish man’s wound, discovering Slim has not left, wanting instead to be near him, assisting him in removing the bullet, with the patient making a miraculous overnight recovery.  By the next day, however, Eddy is in the clutches of the police, with Rénard and his goons soon visiting Harry at his hotel room asking questions about the de Bursacs, threatening to withhold alcohol from Eddy, which could leave him seriously harmed.  Harry has apparently heard enough, grabbing a gun in his desk, shooting one of the goons, placing the other two in handcuffs, ordering a release of Eddy.  When they refuse he brutally pistol whips each one of them until they comply, also signing “letters of transport” allowing the de Bursac’s free passage.  Baffled by his change of heart and sudden transformation, Gérard wonders what made him change his mind.  Harry reveals, simply, “Well, I like you and I don’t like them,” which is all that seems to matter.  Diverging dramatically from Hemingway’s novel, removing the tragic tone of despair, where there was a feeling that the novel had been betrayed, with a title about the economic disparity between classes making little sense here, where the film is anything but tragic, offering a lighthearted and even happy conclusion, including a joyous hip-wiggle from Bacall, a shuffle from Brennan, and a festive jazz free-for-all from the band sending them off in high style, "To have and have not" (1944) – Final scene (HD) - YouTube (58 seconds).