To Have and Have Not (film) and his girl (Bacall). Critics called the film a fast, witty romance with a plot as merely "an excuse for some good scenes." "Variety" cited the film's inferiority to "Casablanca" and other Warner Bros. melodramas, but acknowledged the film's success in its characterization. "Time" called the film a, "tinny romantic melodrama which millions of cinemaddicts have been waiting forever since "Casablanca". "New York Variety" was mixed about the film citing, "nifty productional accoutrements" with "too unsteady" of a story line. Other reviewers called it, "definitely swell entertainment", while others stated it was an delightful remake of "Casablanca". American film critic
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