To Have and Have Not (film) To Have and Have Not (film) To Have and Have Not is a 1944 American romance-war-adventure film directed by Howard Hawks, loosely based on Ernest Hemingway's 1937 novel of the same name; however, the story was altered for the film. It stars Humphrey Bogart, Walter Brennan and Lauren Bacall in her film debut; it also features Dolores Moran, Hoagy Carmichael, Sheldon Leonard, Dan Seymour, and Marcel Dalio. The plot centers on the romance between a freelancing fisherman in Martinique and a beautiful American drifter which is complicated by the growing French resistance in Vichy France. Ernest Hemingway and Howard Hawks
Lauren Bacall not provided a quick career resurgence. "The Big Sleep" laid the foundation for her status as an icon of film noir. She would be strongly associated with the genre for the rest of her career, and would often be cast as variations of the independent and sultry femme fatale character of Vivian she played in the movie. As described by film scholar Joe McElhaney, "Vivian displays an almost total command of movement and gesture. She never crawls." Bacall was cast with Bogart in two more films. In "Dark Passage" (1947), another film noir, she played an enigmatic San Francisco artist.