Here's Howard Hawks' account of how he came to make a movie
out of To Have and Have Not, according to Todd McCarthy's
biography of Hawks. It should be taken with a large grain of
salt, since Hawks was a notorious fibber. Especially when it
came to making himself look good at someone else's
expense.
Hawks and Hemingway were friends, and in late 1939
Hawks and his impossibly stylish young wife Slim went to
visit Hemingway in Key West for some hunting, fishing and
drinking. One night, Hawks later said, he told Hemingway, "I
can make a movie out of the worst thing you ever
wrote."
"What's the worst thing I ever wrote?"
"That piece of junk called 'To Have and Have Not."
"I needed the money."
"Well, I knew that. At least I had to guess it."
"You can't make a picture of of that."
"No, but the two leading characters were marvelous in their
relationship with each other. What about if we told how they
met?"
DJ-Anonyme@webtv.net wrote: miker wrote:
"I like it but it's not as polished as some of his other
work. He was trying to get it out the door so he could go
(back?) to the Spanish Civil War, but the publisher's lawyers
wouldn't let it go because of legal concerns over Dos Passos
suing. Libel or something. Rather than rewrite it, huge
portions of the book were simply cut."
Has it ever been put back in? Is there an uncut, "author's
cut" of the book?
Mark
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