VividSimon Simply Perfect

Cortechba Overrated

Stellead Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

Invaderbank The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

classicsoncall When you cast Audie Murphy, Jack Elam and Richard Jaeckel in a movie, it's pretty much going to be a Western, even if you put it on the ocean. As the story played out I had the distinct impression that it resembled Bogart's "To Have and Have Not" so I guess I shouldn't have been surprised that just about every other reviewer mentioned it on this board. The main tip-off was Everett Sloan in the Walter Brennan role as the alcoholic sidekick to Murphy's Captain Sam Martin. It's too bad no one had the Lauren Bacall part, but both Patricia Owens and Gita Hall were easy on the eyes, even if they didn't get to sashay to a Hoagy Carmichael tune.In many of my reviews of Audie Murphy films I usually mention something about his boyish good looks but this time one of the characters actually did it. When Eva Wahlstrom (Gita Hall) sidles up to the Captain for the first time on his boat she exclaims "Oh, you have such a baby face". Sam's wife Lucy (Owens) also remarks similarly later in the picture, but more along the lines of her desire to keep him safe, and not lose his looks altogether on a dangerous mission.Regarding Sam and his wife, their scenes together as a syrupy sweet couple managed to bother me for some reason I can't explain. Maybe it was just his way of getting the blonde floozy's goat at Freddy's (Herb Vigran) gin mill. If so, looks like it worked.Well the Bogart film gets relocated from the French island of Martinique to Key West and Porto Bello in this tale of Cuban revolutionaries and illicit arms dealers. You usually don't picture Eddie Albert as a villain but he does a pretty good job here as gun runner Hanagan, out to make a quick buck trading in Thompson Machine Guns at a grand a pop. I thought that was a little steep for the late Fifties, but I guess if you're looking to overthrow a government, money's no object. Besides, a lot could go wrong, and it did.Funny, but even though Sam made it back to dry land in one piece, I couldn't help thinking that the story wasn't over with. The authorities came calling on just the hint that his boat made it to Cuba that one time, but now there would be dead bodies floating around the Gulf of Mexico and old Harvey with the loose lips whenever the sherry started flowing again. Maybe another remake will take care of that little problem.

mark.waltz This being the third version of Ernest Hemmingway's novel "To Have and Have Not", it is updated to the Florida Keys of the late 50's where a revolution is going on in Cuba and a gun smuggling ring wants the use of Sam Martin's boat. Audie Murphy, who played himself as a World War II hero in "To Hell and Back", now takes on Bogart's classic role yet is about as far from Bogart in charisma as Cuba is from democracy. There is also the case of the missing vixen, the Lauren Bacall role in the original. Now, Sam is married (to a fairly feisty woman played by Patricia Owens) and runs a fishing vessel that is about to be repossessed for non-payment of dock fees. Everett Sloane takes on the comic relief role of Sam's drunken sidekick (played in the original by Walter Brennan) and gives basically the same performance that Brennan did. Eddie Albert is the bad guy, out to control or fleece anybody he can, and is accompanied by his mistress (Gita Hall) who adds the only heat in the film.While the action sequences are very suspenseful, the film seems like something that was being done on television crime shows, only expanded to 93 minutes for the big screen. Albert's villain is a seemingly likable guy who goes off the nice guy wagon the moment he is confronted in Cuba by a soldier wanting to see his papers. He gives a truly memorable performance. Murphy tries his best, but there is no escaping what he was up against, and the women in the film are simply stereotypes, particularly Peggy Maley as the drunk at the bar. Gita Hall as Albert's mistress takes the role played by Dolores Moran in the original and makes it appear more important than it is.

ctomvelu1 WWII hero and busy actor stepped into Bogart and Garfield's shoes for a third version of a Hemingway story, "To Have and Have not." The film is bare-bones, budget-wise, but makes good use of its Florida locations to tell the story of gun runners and romance among the the coastal folk. Murphy isn't half-bad in the lead role of a charter boat captain caught up in a smuggling scheme, although I could not quite get used to Murphy in a boat captain's hat (I was so used to seeing him in Army helmets and cowboy hats). Eddie Albert plays a very convincing bad guy, and the film is loaded with familiar faces of the period, including Paul Birch, John Qualen, Jack Elam, Herb Vigran and Everett Sloane. Worth a look, mainly for Murphy/

bkoganbing Ernest Hemingway's classic short story To Have And Have Not gets yet another remake, an independent production for Seven Arts that stars Audie Murphy taking the place Humphrey Bogart and John Garfield as Hemingway's iconoclastic fisherman/charter boat skipper.No Lauren Bacall like slinky low voiced siren to take our hero's mind off business. In fact Murphy is happily married to Patricia Owens. But while he has a happy home life he owes some big money around Key West. His boat isn't even completely paid for and the bank is breathing down his neck. Eddie Albert maybe the answer to his financial prayers. He wants to charter Murphy's boat for mysterious reasons for a trip to Cuba and remember this is 1958 and the Cuban government is rightly suspicious of strangers without proper clearance going to their island. In fact Albert is a gunrunner looking to sell to revolutionaries at a nice profit.The film takes no political sides as to whether it favors the Batista government or the Castro revolutionaries. All you gradually learn along with Murphy is that Albert is one ruthless individual and quite the user. Director Don Siegel shot this film on location in Newport Beach, California, curiously enough exactly where Michael Curtiz shot The Breaking Point, John Garfield's film of this story. Bogart's was done on the Warner Brothers back lot, none of them got anywhere near Papa Hemingway's beloved Caribbean waters. Siegel did keep the action going at a good clip.Audie Murphy showed a bit of versatility here as an actor, taking a break from the B westerns he was doing at Universal. But Eddie Albert who when he does play a villain does remarkably well as he did in The Longest Yard and Attack. One never thinks of him that way, his image is forever fixed with Green Acres, but he was a favorite of mine and his range never ceased to amaze me.The Gun Runners is your average B picture film about a controversial political issue in which it takes absolutely no sides.