Key Largo (1948 movie)

Key Largo is a 1948 film starring Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Edward G. Robinson and Claire Trevor. It was directed by John Huston. Trevor won the 1949 Best Actress in a Supporting Role Academy award for her performance. This was the fourth and final film pairing of married actors Bogart and Bacall. Adapted from Maxwell Anderson's 1939 play. Ziggy, one of the film's gangsters, is played by Marc Lawrence who made a career playing gangsters in movies. Exterior shots of the hurricane were actually taken from stock footage used in Night Unto Night, a Ronald Reagan melodrama made the same year by Warner Bros.

Plot

Frank McCloud (Bogart) visits a rundown Florida Keys hotel run by crippled James Temple (Barrymore) and his daughter-in-law Nora (Bacall), widow of Frank's friend from the war. The hotel has been taken over by Johnny Rocco (Robinson) and his gang. Frank is indifferent at first but Rocco's treatment of his alcoholic mistress Gaye (played by Trevor) and his murder of two Indians convinces Frank that Rocco must be stopped. His only chance comes when Rocco forces Frank to pilot the gang's boat toward Cuba.

Actual events

At one point in the movie McCloud (Bogart) describes having served in the World War II battle at San Pietro, Italy ; director John Huston had been involved in that battle as the creator of the documentary film San Pietro (1945) while he was in the armed services' motion picture division.

In the film, Temple (Barrymore) describes the 1935 hurricane that nearly destroyed Matacumbe Key . This was one of worst hurricanes in U.S. history and many of the victims were workers who were building the Florida Keys portion of U.S. Highway 1 through the Florida Keys. The highway is seen in the film's opening.

It's rumored that Clair Trevor's character is based on gangster Lucky Luciano's mistress Gay Orlova .

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