Watching "Key Largo" in 2021
(And Perversely Rooting for the Storm)
Bringing contemporary priorities and anxieties to a classic film can lead to misunderstandings and ungracious readings, but it’s also a deeply, unshakably human thing to do. One of the joys of watching movies is the chance to cast aside your own bullshit and deal with someone else’s, which come with much lower stakes. But we constantly carry small devices that transmit all of the world’s bad news and all of our friends’ and acquaintances’ nonsense, so good luck completely divorcing yourself from all of that. Oh, and if you’re using that small device to read this newsletter right now? Thanks for your support, please subscribe and share!
Key Largo is a classic film, one that’s sustained its appeal thanks to its gripping plot, thorny themes, and fantastic performances. It is also a film about a potentially cataclysmic weather event looming over everyone’s heads, something that feels very pertinent in 2021!
The introduction of climate anxiety into what would otherwise be a timeless piece of Old Hollywood filmmaking creates a special wrinkle for modern viewers, one that, among other things, gave me a brief but perverse desire to see the storm “win” by wiping out everyone.
But before we go further with that terrible thought, I owe you wonderful readers another quartet of films for your Halloween viewing pleasure.
Pre-Code Horror
(Four notable horror movies made before the full enforcement of the Hays Code)
There was a brief but fruitful period where the Hays Code was technically in effect, but weak in enforcement. While not as explicit as works that would come after the code’s official demise, these early provocateurs can still chill and unnerve modern viewers.
Frankenstein
Repeat alert! Frankenstein actually appeared in our first film foursome, but it returns here for good reason—the film (somewhat abstractly) depicts a child being murdered. Okay, so maybe not a “good” reason, but this plot point and Colin Clive’s Henry Frankenstein edging against a God complex were choices the Hays Code would restrict within the next few years.
Island of Lost Souls
Repeat alert! I just used “repeat alert.” Also, this is a repeat of the choice to lift from another list. However, I’d be lucky to have people decide to watch just one of these proposed film slates, so I don’t feel bad stacking the deck in favor of some of my favorites.
Island of Lost Souls is a grim gem from RKO Pictures, a studio that would become a bigger player in horror the following decade thanks to producer Val Lewton. However, while Lewton made waves by toeing certain lines and brushing against the edges of certain standards, this picture from Erle Kenton had more purchase to defy norms outright. The creature designs retain their gruesome impact, and certain moments of horror, including a brief shot of a vivisection happening in Dr. Moreau’s “House of Pain,” can still land a gut punch on audiences used to harder stuff. It also remains charged thanks to its examination of colonialism and other destructive power imbalances.
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
I revisited this because I recalled there being a frisson of uncomfortable sexuality, that Dr. Jekyll’s desire to separate his baser self was driven by his discomfort at how easily he could be aroused. In other words, the man might have become a monster out of a misguided attempt to stop being horny.
Upon revisiting this 1932 gem, I realized it doesn’t “suggest” that arousal is what bedevils the good doctor so much as it belts the message at you. An impromptu and sexually charged encounter with a working class woman, Ivy, lingers with Dr. Jekyll in near-literal fashion, as the image of her idly swinging leg remains superimposed over our lead and his colleague as they leave her quarters and resume their discussion.
The eroticism is quickly overwhelmed by the fury of Mr. Hyde, and his effective imprisonment of Ivy involves violence still strong enough to make viewers blanch. While the film would certainly dare the wrath of the not-yet-ironclad Hays Code, it was received well by critics and audiences, and would even secure Fredric March an Academy Award for his performance as the good doctor/bad person.
Freaks
Tod Browning’s Dracula largely passed muster with the censors, as it played matters as safely as it could for a horror film made in such a morally rigid time. It was the film Browning made the next year, Freaks, that remains controversial to date.
If you’ve heard of the film, you’ve heard about its casting choices, which used actual performers from the carnival shows that turned their abnormalities into something salable, or, more frankly, a spectacle. It was a provocative decision, one that hastened Browning’s retirement from filmmaking, but it’s also an important part of a terrific morality play, one that depicts a group of “commoners” who unite to defend themselves against the physically gifted but morally bankrupt trapeze artist, Cleopatra, and her equally crude partner, the strongman Hercules.
Key Largo and Its Biggest Star, a Hurricane
Key Largo is, among many other things, a great Humphrey Bogart film about World War II that isn’t Casablanca. It’s less directly about the war; after all, it takes place after its official end, though for soldiers like Bogart’s character, Frank McCloud, it carries on like tinnitus ringing in the ears, imperceptible to others but relentless all the same.
Released in 1948, the film is one of many vaunted works from director John Huston, who, like the film’s lead, had his own wartime experience. Huston rose to the rank of major during his service in World War II, and he received the Legion of Merit. He also made several films about the war, though one was censored by the Army and another was suppressed until 1981.
As a soldier, McCloud acted heroically and earned the admiration of his men, including a deceased member of his troops whose family he visits at the start of the story. However, in its aftermath, he seems to have reconsidered what that kind of selfless courage really amounts to, and whether the risk of life and limb yields any kind of meaningful reward. After all, the world may have toppled one threat, but too many others, like Edward G. Robinson’s once-exiled gangster Johnny Rocco, are happy to cheat, hurt, and corrupt the public for their own gain. Rocco holds McCloud and others hostage while he waits to arrange a deal for counterfeit money. As this happens, all of the human drama is shrunk by a passing tropical storm, an indifferent swipe of nature that could wash away any combination of saints and sinners without regard to their moral statuses.
For most of the story, a seemingly cynical McCloud presents as either a cagey hostage or a weary cynic as he shows little desire to directly challenge and overthrow his captors. His reasons are both pragmatic (he and his friends are outnumbered and outgunned, after all) and philosophical (it’s possible that there’s just not much good that “good” can do). It’s a demeanor seemingly at odds with his military service. He’s faced a larger threat in the recent past, so how much can one gangster really intimidate him? The gangsters don’t seem to see him as much of a threat, but they’ve also been too sanguine for their own good in regards to the potential hurricane that could wipe out all of their schemes.
However, and here comes the big spoiler, the skies clear in time for the climactic final showdown between good and evil, having maneuvered us into a position where Frank can face his captors and win the day.
While the Hays Code had much to say about immorality, modesty, violence, and sacrilege, one point is of particular interest for this film: Per the code, criminals need to be punished by the story’s conclusion. When you know the rules, you have a pretty clear idea from the start of Key Largo of who won’t come out ahead. We wrap with McCloud triumphing over Rocco, which is deserved but a little bittersweet, if only because Edward G. Robinson puts in such a fantastic turn as the gangster. He’s a mix of primal charisma and cold fury, a man of superficial charm and clear cunning. He’s onscreen with Bogart, arguably the most recognizable face of his era, and yet Robinson maintains a magnetic pull. He’s loathsome, but he’s captivating.
It’s also a bit disheartening to see such a straightforward showdown after entertaining so many thorny questions about the real impact of heroism and the indifference of the natural world. The ending works, far be it from me to get in John Huston’s face about a filmmaking decision, but, y’know, we know there’s a rule that says the criminals have to be punished. Seems fair to wonder how much that reined in the potentially dark conclusions some of those themes could have explored. It’s also fair to wonder how significant a role the hurricane could have played if we weren’t driving toward a happy ending. Seeing everything come to nothing thanks to the hurricane would have been anticlimactic, but it would have been an ugly catharsis to see one of our modern fears play out so neatly.
Films retain their vitality for many reasons, including their ability to presage the concerns and preoccupations of later generations. They also lose their vitality because they fail to understand how grotesque they will become as decency catches up to culture (looking at you, Breakfast at Tiffany’s.) Still, it’s both a mistake and inevitable to scrutinize a film too closely with modern eyes. In 2021, watching a film where a ferocious weather event blows over all of our characters, threatening total devastation that would upend everyone’s ambitions, cuts to the core of some utterly reasonable anxieties about the times we are currently in. Through a wholly modern lens, it feels too gracious to let the hurricane do relatively little (not none, but let’s not give away too much) harm, a soothing lie that of course the cataclysmic can pass without changing or ending the lives of people we thought were central to what was going to happen.
But that’s our problem, not the film’s. Huston could do many wonderful things behind a camera, but he (probably) couldn’t use it to see how much anxiety we would have about weather events seventy-odd years after his film would be released. If you ask Key Largo to just be a parable about climate change, it will let you down with its conventional ending, but it will also offer you timeless entertainment in the form of a knotty, fun crime film with stellar acting work, and it’ll sneak in some thorny ideas about what it means to fight back against evil in a world where evil feels as inescapable as bad weather. If you can’t go to it without a little distance from your modern hang-ups, watch it anyway. A film with the “right” message about climate change won’t save us on its own, but a good one can bring a little joy to such a stormy period in human history.