Key Largo dvd movie.|
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Features • NTSC In Theaters : 1948 DVD Release : 15 February, 2000 |
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| ♥♥♥♥♥ | Edward G. Robinson Overpowers |
| "Key Largo" was made in 1948, during the height of the studio system, and when Warner Bros. ruled the roost. Humphrey Bogrart, Lauren Bacall, Edward G. Robinson, Lionel Barrymore, Claire Trevor, Thomas Gomez; they don't make casts like *that* anymore.
Although Bogart and Bacall have top billing, the movie really revolves around Robinson's character, syndicate kingpin Johnny Rocco, who's taken over a sleepy family-run hotel on the Florida coral reef Key Largo (hence the movie's title). Although he was stood only about five feet tall, no one had a bigger screen *prescence* than Edward G. From "Little Caesar" to "Double Indemnity" to "Key Largo," when Eddie Robinson spoke, the forcefulness of his conviction demanded your eyes and ears be glued to the screen. Older viewers may remember seeing him at the movies, rather than just on the TV. Well, I was only lucky enough to have seen him on the big screen once, at the Biograph on W.57th in Manhattan, as Rocco. It's the most memorable intro of any of his movies: Sitting in the bathtub, smoking a cigar and reading the paper, while a fan on a chair lazily whirls to keep him cool. The camera slowly dollies toward him, and when his mug filled the screen, the packed audience broke out into spontaneous applause. And he didn't even say a word! Now, *that's* screen presence! Actually, it's sort of unfair to Bogey, who even though he was the hero in this movie is still overshadowed by Robinson's overpowering presence and performance. The key to Bogart's screen persona was his cool demeanor and his deadpan wisecracks, which he pulls off wonderfully, as he always does. But Edward G. Robinson's performance is larger-than-life and Johnny Rocco is a force to be reckoned with, almost as powerful as the hurricane which sweeps over the Keys. Before method acting came to the fore, no actor could better capture basic emotions like fear and anger like Robinson. He's literally trembling with fear at the prospect of his death at the hands of the storm. He's like a cornered rat. "Show it your gun, why don't you?" Bogart quips, "Shoot it, maybe it'll stop." The other standout performances in "Key Largo" are Lionel Barrymore as Mr. Temple and Clair Trevor, as the nightclub singer who's lost her youth and her looks. Barrymore is the movie's moral center, and he helps Bogart to find the guts he needs to confront Rocco. Trevor's impromptu performance of a blues song notches the tension up, and provides the movie with the strongest clash of wills between Robinson and Bogart. In reality, Trevor was still a looker at the time, and let wardrobe and makeup "mature" her to play the "lush" Gay Dawn. It's the performance of her career, and she deservedly won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for it. Masterfully directed by John Huston, who made many movies with Bogart ("Maltese Falcon," "Treasure of the Sierra Madre" and "The African Queen" are the other most noteable), "Key Largo" was filmed by the great German director of photography Karl Freund, who was DP on Fritz Lang's "Metropolis" and "M." Freund's dramatic use of light and shadow recalls the great German Expressionistic movies, and the low angles from which he filmed Robinson establish Rocco with menacing forcefulness. Max Steiner's Wagnerian soundtrack is rife with heavy brass and percussion and paints a devastating aural portrait worthy of Rocco and the hurricane which ravages the island. Whenever I lament the demise of larger-than-life drama in today's movies, "Key Largo" is one of the movies I turn to time and again to renew my faith in the art of moviemaking. Director Billy Wilder once commented on the demise of "movies" in favor of today's special effects extravaganzas on the one hand and stagey, parched, artsy "films" on the other. "Key Largo" reminds the viewer, to borrow a line from Janet Leigh, that "there really was a Hollywood." |
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