Popular Culture Review Vol. 13, No. 1, January 2002 | Page 42

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Popular Culture Review

This casting problem was solved for star and studio by the increasingly powerful
hyphenate producer-director Howard Hawks (and wife “Slim”) who discovered
and groomed 19 year-old model/covergirl Betty (renamed “Lauren”) Bacall, then
cast her opposite Bogart as female co-star in To H ave and H ave N ot and The Big
Sleep. This pairing was a significant improvement over other actresses—even better
than female weaponry in Sahara.
Hawks’ discovery of female co-star Lauren Bacall and casting of the
ingenue with Bogart in To H ave and H ave N ot and The B ig Sleep accelerated
Bogart’s masculine screen reformulation. Like Casablanca^ Hawks’ To H ave and
H ave N o t and The B ig Sleep were pivotal narratives for Bogart, transitioning his
male persona from destabilized patriotic wartime (anti)hero to gritty, hard-bitten
professional. Bogart’s “reformed” star image opposite Bacall in To H ave and H ave
N ot and The B ig Sleep paralleled Warner Bros.’ shift from wartime to non-warrelated narratives toward the end of World War II to target a postwar viewing
audience. To H ave and Have N ot refined Bogart’s rough hero supporting the war
effort and The B ig Sleep moved his persona back to urban, hard-boiled terrain
recasting him as a cynical noir individualist. The reforming and romanticizing of
Bogart’s character throughout the war (from High S ierra and C asablanca onward)
left an indelible imprint in his masculine armor, as did his amour to Bacall. Thus,
the “sentimental” heart of High S ierra and C asablanca was invigorated by the
sexual rapport of To H ave an d H ave N ot. Its Bogart-Bacall precedent would
romantically inform the male star’s tough hide in The B ig Sleep — as an “A”
professional, despite an unsavory criminal milieu, no longer doing “B” “heavy”
roles.
Howard Hawks effectively functioned as an in-house independent
producer-director at Warner Bros, during the war. Hawks’ “hyphenate” producerdirector creative position at Warners coincided with the industry-wide rise in
hyphenate and independent production in Hollywood throughout World War II.
While allowing more artistic freedom and greater creative control over the
filmmaking process, hyphenate and independent production also provided
substantial wartime tax advantages for prominent, highly paid “above-the-line”
talent in avoiding 90 percent income tax brackets on their large salaries (often
earning a percentage of the film’s gross box-office receipts in lieu of a huge salary—
encouraging higher quality, first-run “A” film product— and being taxed at a mere
25 percent capital gains tax). Hawks had considerable creative power with To H ave
an d H ave N ot (and with The B ig Sleep) in purchasing the stories, setting up the
production deal, and selling the properties at a tidy profit to Warner Bros., then
refusing to allow anyone to act as producer on the films he directed.
In the case of To H ave and H ave N ot, Ernest Hemingway’s novel was
“cleaned up” considerably to appease the PCA and infuse wartime topicality. Red