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
Joan Barry (American actress) was not associated with "Shadows", but won Chaplin's favour for the part following an "excellent private reading." Indeed, Chaplin spoke highly of her acting abilities, as David Robinson captures in his biography, where he notes "Chaplin’s sincerity in believing that he could make Joan Barry into an actress…. [as] she had ‘all the qualities of a new Maude Adams’ and told his sons, ‘She has a quality, an ethereal something that’s truly marvelous…a talent as great as any I’ve seen in my whole life.” Other sources, including FBI case records and Chaplin autobiographical writings, indicate the young actress to have