Rent Key Largo (1948)

“That’s right, Pop, we’re gonna steal all your towels.” - Key Largo review by LJ

A veteran stops at a hotel to visit the family of a fallen comrade as a storm closes in. Unfortunately turns out some gangsters have come here for a deal and take everyone hostage. Cue a tense standoff action thriller. It sounds amazing. Disappointingly though the actual film isn't as tense or thrilling as I thought this noir would be.

Gangster Noir. - Key Largo review by Steve

Humphrey Bogart visits the family of the dead soldier he fought beside in Italy: his father (Lionel Barrymore) and widow (Lauren Bacall). Bad timing. The hotel they run on the Florida Keys is taken over by gangsters led by Johnny Rocco (Edward G. Robinson) while the building is battered by a mighty hurricane. Escape is impossible.  

It's the same set up as The Petrified Forest (1936) in which Bogart played the outlaw Duke Mantee as the last gasp of the wild west, an individualist. But Rocco is far more insidious. He buys the political process and operates in plain sight, subverting justice, raking profit out of the system.

This time Bogart is on the right side of the law.  He plays his signature role, the loner who won't stick out his neck for anyone (but then does). But his status as an outsider is no longer a symbol of American isolationism in early WWII, as it was in Casablanca. It is because having survived  the war, he is disillusioned by the hold men like Rocco have on America.

Crime is now organised and corrupts legitimate business. This would become a key theme of fifties mob films. The politician on the make and gangster bosses protected by the cops and City Hall would become familiar film noir personnel. Bogart and Bacall's last film together is a classic. Kudos too for Claire Trevor's well deserved Oscar as Rocco's boozy moll.