Key Largo • The Next Reel

In 1948, John Huston managed to crank out two of his most well-known films — The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, a masterpiece that received many accolades but took a while to warm up at the box office, and Key Largo, a noirish crime film that takes place during a hurricane on the Florida Keys which did great at the box office but didn't create a big splash in the awards circles. Join us — Pete Wright and Andy Nelson — this week as we continue our series about John Huston with Key Largo, a film that works in many aspects for us but doesn't work in others. We talk about the actors and what we think of their performances — Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Edward G. Robinson, Lionel Barrymore, even an appearance of Jay Silverheels who most famously played Tonto on "The Lone Ranger." And we definitely don't forget to chat about Claire Trevor, a fantastic actress who won the film's only Oscar for Best Supporting Actress, along with why we felt she won that award. We discuss the origins of the script, how Huston and his co-writer Richard Brooks reworked the original material to create something with more political subtext, and how that works for us. And we talk about the film's relationships w/both the film noir genre as well as the crime genre, and how the cinematography really works advantageously to create vibes from these genres. It's a film that, while we like it, doesn't hold up as well this go around. That being said, it's still worth watching if you haven't seen it before, and it's fun to talk about. Listen in!
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