To Have and Have Not

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

To Have and Have Not is a 1937 novel by Ernest Hemingway about Harry Morgan, a fishing boat captain who runs contraband between Cuba and Florida. The novel consists of two earlier short stories ("One Trip Across" and "The Tradesman's Return") that make up the opening chapters and a novella (that makes up two-thirds of the book) written later.

Legend has it that Hemingway wrote the book as part of a contractual obligation and hated it.^{[citation needed]} It is also claimed that he wrote the book at the Compleat Angler Hotel on Bimini, in the Bahamas.

The book is difficult for the modern reader because of the numerous and varied racial epithets used by the characters.

[edit] Film adaptations

The 1944 film To Have and Have Not nominally based on the novel and directed by Howard Hawks, moved the story's setting from Key West to Martinique under the Vichy regime.

The second film version, titled The Breaking Point (1950), was directed by Michael Curtiz and starred John Garfield. It shifted the action to southern California and made Garfield a former PT Boat captain.

Pauline Kael has claimed that the ending was used for John Huston's film Key Largo (1948), and that "One Trip Across" was made into The Gun Runners (1958).

[edit] Source

Pauline Kael on film adaptations: capsule review of To Have and Have Not for The New Yorker, reprinted in 5001 Nights at the Movies.