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 to Hold To Have and to Hold To Have and to Hold (1899) is a novel by American author Mary Johnston. Published by Houghton Mifflin, it was the bestselling novel in the United States in the following year (1900). "To Have and to Hold" is the story of an English soldier, Ralph Percy, turned Virginian explorer in colonial Jamestown. Ralph buys a wife for himself - a girl named Jocelyn Leigh - little knowing that she is the escaping ward of King James I, fleeing a forced marriage to Lord Carnal. Jocelyn hardly loves Ralph - indeed, she seems to abhor him.