Bacall to Arms Foray voices Lauren Bacall. The title refers both to Hemingway's "A Farewell to Arms" and actress Lauren Bacall, whose acclaimed film debut was in "To Have and Have Not", based on another Hemingway novel, as well as a play on the term "A Call to Arms". Bob Clampett started his directing career with black-and-white animated shorts for the Looney Tunes series, this phase of his career lasting from 1937 to 1941. In 1941, fellow director Tex Avery departed the Warner Bros. Cartoons studio. Clampett replaced Avery as the head of a unit producing films for the Merrie Melodies series, while
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.