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) were close friends and on a fishing trip, reluctant to go into screenwriting, Hemingway was told by Hawks that he could make a great movie from his worst book which Hawks admitted was "To Have and Have Not". Jules Furthman wrote the first screenplay, set in Cuba like the novel, but the screenplay was extensively altered to be set in Martinique instead of Cuba because the portrayal of Cuba's government was believed to be in violation of the United State's Good Neighbor policy with Latin American countries. Hawks's other good friend William Faulkner was the main contributor to the screenplay