To Have and Have Not (film) in 1945 was mixed yet often unflattering. Firstly, early publicity and much of the initial reaction to the film centered around Lauren Bacall, either praising her or criticizing her part in the film as merely as a gimmick for attention from the press. Other critics found the film to be betraying Hemingway's novel due to only the first fifteen minutes of the film bearing resemblance to the novel. Finally, Americans were preoccupied with World War II and had little interest in a hero (Bogart) whom consistently rejected commitment and whose only interest in France's cause was financial, to help himself
To Have and Have Not (film) be made clear to appear as self-defense. As the movie was filmed during World War II, Hawks moved the setting from Cuba to Vichy-controlled Martinique as required by the Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs to placate the Roosevelt administration. They objected to the unfavorable portrayal of Cuba's government as against the U.S. government's "Good Neighbor" policy toward Latin American nations. Writer William Faulkner was hired on by Hawks on February 22, 1944, to avoid recounting political conflict between Free France and the Vichy government in the story line and to satisfy the Production Code. It was reportedly Faulkner's