Director: Michael Curtiz
Cast: John Garfield, Patricia Neal, Phyllis Thaxter, Juano Hernandez
Have I Seen It Before: No. It more than a little bugs me that this is definitely the first 35mm projection I've seen this year, and it even more bugs me that I can't honestly remember the last film I took in an analog format. That really must change, or 2025 will really get the best of me. I wonder if these truly are the twilight days for the format outside of big markets.
Then Christopher Nolan will release something and the whole debate will be restarted anew.
Did I Like It: As a film noir, all the elements are here. The thing moves along at a nice clip. There's just a little bit of tension as to who will get away with what, and who might unfairly suffer in their wake. What's more, the eventual resolutions of those plot lines manages to find answers that aren't as pat as one might think when they see the age of the film. It ends on a slightly unfair, melancholy note that raises it to be more memorable than standard examples of the genre.
As a Hemingway tale, I wonder if it is a little lacking. There's a fisherman (more than a few of them, in point of actual fact) in the mix, so if one squinted at the affair from a fair distance, the specter of Papa might flit through your mind. Beyond that, there's no elemental perspective on man as a creature of the 20th century. Harry Morgan is not contemplative of his relationship with a fish, or how that fish threatens to unravel him as he desperately searches for his own courage. No, he's just looking for an ever-increasing pile of money. Maybe To Have and Have Not (1944) got it closer.