1958 Directed by Don Siegel
Remake of "To Have and Have Not" based on Hemingway short story. Plot reset to early days of Cuban revolution. A charter boat skipper gets entangled in gunrunning scheme to get money to pay off debts. Sort of a sea-going film noir with bad girl, smarmy villain, and the "innocent" drawn into wrong side of law by circumstances.
Audie Murphy Eddie Albert Patricia Owens Richard Jaeckel Paul Birch Jack Elam Lee Strasberg Everett Sloane John Qualen John A. Alonzo Steve Carruthers Roy Engel Edward Colmans Stephen Peck Carlos Romero Gita Hall Jack Daly Tony Dantes Tom Greenway Ted Jacques Lita Leon Peggy Maley Joel Marston Joey Ray Freddie Roberto Larry Taylor Larry Thor Herb Vigran Billy Wayne
Gunrunners, Trafiquants d'armes a Cuba, Strich durch die Rechnung, Wapensmokkel naar Cuba
Referencing the ongoing revolution in Cuba to overthrow Batista, this film treads the line between being pro and anti revolution or maybe it's just neutral. It's set in the Florida Keys while the Cuban Revolution is happening only a few nautical miles away, about a charter fishing operator trying to keep his boat under his possession but caught in a bind and getting involved with a sleazy American offering to sell weapons to the revolutionaries. One scene has the arms dealer in a room over a Havana bar dealing with the rebels, of whom one is a man with Fidel Castro's beard, so it might have been meant to be the famous revolutionary leader. The bars, night clubs, and Gita…
Ill advised if not at all bad remake of the excellent Michael Curtiz directed John Garfield starring adaptation of Ernest Hemingway's To Have And Have Not 1950s The Breaking Point itself while not strictly a remake but a different take on the same source novel for the beloved Howard Hawks helmed Bogart & Bacall 1944 classic. To expect Audie Murphy to fill the shoes of either Humphrey Bogart or John Garfield, two titans of film acting is unfair in the extreme that said his tight lipped interior style fits pretty well here. Everett Sloane plays the sidekick character ok but he appears to be mostly mimicking Walter Brennan from the Hawks film. In fact while the story hews closer to the…
And another To Have and Have Not adaptation!
I didn't actually realise that Don Siegel's The Gun Runners was such a thing or I may not have added it to this project, especially as The Breaking Point was so fresh in my mind.
This one is solid but not as good, perhaps because it lacks the darkness of The Breaking Point or the high adventure excitement of To Have and Have Not. Siegel gets caught between the two here. The action is pretty good but the connection between Audie Murphy, rather miscast in the lead, and Patricia Owens and Gita Hall, isn't nearly as strong.
That being said, it *does* have Eddie Albert and his…
Like a TV-movie version of To Have And Have Not. Not special... but the last shot left me wanting to reevaluate things.
Siegel directing Audie Murphy, though, seems like it oughta be high-level SCFZ bait... and some of the dialogue suggests that Siegel loved Murphy as an actor as much as Penalosa does.
Oh there's guns.......but ain't nobody running....this film is more like jogging with a subtle limp.
Terzo adattamento (nel giro di appena 14 anni) del romanzo To Have and Have not di Hemingway. Dopo Hawks e Curtiz è la volta di Siegel che dirige con mestiere un noir esotico dal canovaccio semplice, incentrato su avventura marinaresca e sentimenti. Eddie Albert è un losco figuro che vive di inganno e traffici illeciti, ideale da contrapporre al profilo del protagonista, un Audie Murphy uomo comune che si trova a gestire peripezie più grandi di lui - che poi è un paradosso affascinante quello di giocare sull’aspetto da bravo ragazzo di Murphy se si pensa al suo incredibile passato da eroe (e leggenda) di guerra con 240 vittime nemiche accertate ed il record di soldato più decorato.
In Italia arriva come Agguato nei Caraibi.
The third movie inspired by Hemingway’s "To Have and Have Not."
It's solid, but never really catches fire – Siegel handles action and drama with his usual taut economy, but Audie Murphy is fatally miscast in the lead, coming across as Bogie-lite, and his relationship with his screen wife, played by Patricia Owens, doesn't convince – their cutesy scenes together slow down the picture.
The MVP here is Eddie Albert as a larger-than-life criminal.
Third screen version of Hemingway's To Have and Have Not, directed by the usually reliable Don Siegel, is sadly kind of lifeless with a miscast Audie Murphy in the lead giving a wooden performance that makes the film extremely tedious. The sole bright spot is Eddie Albert who plays the main bad guy and even if he does portray the least likely gunrunner in all of cinema he at least injects some much needed charisma into the proceedings. This is a technically well made film and the finale is kind of exciting but it can't hold a candle to the The Howard Hawks' version with Bogart and Bacall, which is less faithful to the source material but emmenently more entertaining and remains the best version of this tale.
A great noir from master filmmaker Don Siegel with a rarely better Audie Murphy and a small role for cinema bastard Richard Jaeckel elevate the Gun Runners into something better than the sum of its parts. It attempts at political commentary go nowhere and like a lot of late 50s noir it lacks the bite of early genre masterpieces but the final shot offers a truly stark ending that gives the film a whole new reading.
The masterpiece adaptation of this Hemingway story is Curtiz’s “The Breaking Point,” BUT Siegel does a fantastic job here; this version is far better than I expected. Highly recommended.
Lackluster remake of To Have and Have Not, Don Siegel tries his best but Audie Murphy just ain't no Bogart.
AUDIE MURPHY...DON SIEGEL...TALENTED CAST...RE-TAKE BOGART...GARFIELD...HEMINGWAY
Most Decorated War-Hero of WWII...Audie Murphy...by 1958 had a Decade Long Career in Mostly Westerns,
would Go On to 50 Roles in Movies and TV, took the Challenge of Comparison to Humphrey Bogart and John Garfield. Both Considered Class-A Actors, and Enjoyed Great Popularity.
Murph was Never in Their League, but a Proven Fighter Nevertheless,
was Up for a Choice Icon of Literature, Ernest Hemingway, and Americana and the 2 Aforementioned Top-Notch Performers Did Not Dissuade the “Medal of Honor” Recipient and the Opportunity to “Be All That He Could Be” as an Actor.
Audie Murphy is Quoted Deep in His Career...”Acting was a battle I never won.”
This Version was Directed by the Great…
