To Have and Have Not (film) his fishing boat to tourists, along with his unofficial mate Eddie (Walter Brennan). Eddie is Harry's close friend and one time trusted co-worker, but he has of late become an alcoholic. The island is a tinder-box of dissent, harboring many people sympathetic to Free France. At his hotel home, hotel owner Gérard (Marcel Dalio) (known as "Frenchy" to English speakers) urges Harry to help the French Resistance by smuggling some people off the island. Harry steadfastly refuses, choosing to keep aloof from the current political situation. Also at the hotel, he meets Marie ("Slim") Browning (Lauren Bacall), a young American
To Have and Have Not ends meet in supporting his family. Harry begins to regularly ferry different types of illegal cargo between the two countries, including alcohol and Cuban revolutionaries. The Great Depression features prominently in the novel, forcing depravity and hunger on the poor residents of Key West (the "Have Not's") who are referred to locally as "Conchs". "To Have and Have Not" was Hemingway's second novel set in the United States, after "The Torrents of Spring". Written sporadically between 1935 and 1937, and revised as he traveled back and forth from Spain during the Spanish Civil War, "To Have and Have Not" portrays