Key Largo - Trivia, Questions and Fun Facts

[discussimdb]

Fan of Key Largo or just want to share your movie knowledge? This topic is dedicated to all trivia and questions related to Key Largo

[liam]

At one point in the movie, Romanian born Edward G. Robinson's character, Johnny Rocco, angrily says, "After living in the USA for more than 30 years they call me an undesirable and want to throw me out of the country...like I was a dirty red or something." A year after this film, he was investigated by the Committee on Un-American Activities which claimed the progressive Democrat, was "frequently involved in Communist fronts and causes". Robinson eventually testified as a friendly witness but he was still grey listed in the 1950's. Robinson also owned a copy of Leon Trotsky's Autobiography "My Life", that the famed exiled had autographed for him.

[francisco]

In honor of this film, the real Key Largo hosts a Humphrey Bogart film festival every year.

[sandra]

Lionel Barrymore was severely disabled by arthritis (clearly visible in his hands) and was confined to a wheelchair, making the scene in which his Mr. Temple character gets up and falls taking a swing at Toots more than a dramatic moment.

[terry]

The original Broadway production of "Key Largo" by Maxwell Anderson opened at the Ethel Barrymore Theater on November 27, 1939, and ran for 105 performances. The original stage cast included Paul Muni, Uta Hagen, and the Broadway debut of character actor James Gregory.

[jesus]

When Lauren Bacall had problems playing her straight leading lady role, John Huston twisted her arm to get some emotion into her face.

[ronnie]

The scene with Claire Trevor drunkenly singing "Moanin' Low" was inspired by a true-life event from World War II. When Humphrey Bogart was entertaining U.S. troops stationed in Italy, his wife at the time, actress Mayo Methot, insisted on doing an impromptu song number, though quite visibly intoxicated and despite being cautioned. Stammering over forgotten lyrics and singing steadily off-key, she gave a winged performance that was a memorable embarrassment.

[violet]

Claire Trevor's Best Supporting Actress Oscar win was this film's only Oscar nomination.

[kristen]

When this movie first opened as a play some years earlier, it premiered at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre. Ethel was Lionel's younger sister.

[marc]

The film was produced in 1948. That same year two major hurricanes occurred--late in the season, less than a month apart--that went directly through the Florida Keys. (See Hurricanes #7 and #8 of 1948.)

[kenzi]

This movie is referenced in Bertie Higgins's 1981 #1 hit song "Key Largo."

[nora]

When Claire Trevor asked John Huston for some insight into her character, he told her, "You're the kind of drunken dame whose elbows are always a little too big, your voice is a little too loud, you're a little too polite. You're very sad, very resigned." Then he leaned on the set's bar in a way that encapsulated the character for her.

[ray]

In this film, Humphrey Bogart's character is held hostage by a gang of criminals, whereas in "The Petrified Forest (1936)" and "The Desperate Hours (1955)," he plays the head of gangs of criminals holding others hostage.

[ronnie]

The film version of "Key Largo" has very little to do with Maxwell Anderson's original play. For example, all the characters in the play had their names changed in the film version. This was very unusual for a play written by Anderson, who was then one of the most highly regarded American playwrights and whose best-known plays had, on the whole, been filmed faithfully.

[toni]

This was the fifth and final movie that Humphrey Bogart appeared in with Edward G. Robinson.

[melinda]

If you compare the numbers on the bow, the same boat was used in the Bogart movies "Key Largo" and "To Have and Have Not."

[phyllis]

John Huston's scapegoat on the production was Harry Lewis. The inexperienced actor wasn't very good, and Huston browbeat him mercilessly to get a performance out of him. But Lewis would later say Huston was the only director who ever really worked with him. The character's loud clothes and high-pitched laugh were ideas from Huston that helped Lewis register on screen as he never would again.

[ken]

Body count: 8, if you include two characters who are shot just offscreen and another who falls into the sea.

[francisco]

Felipa Gómez, who played the Old Indian Woman, was born just five years after the U.S. Civil War ended.

[veronica]

When John Huston was scouting for locations on the Florida Keys, he asked a hotel owner where the storm cellar was. The man informed him that if you dug three feet down you would hit the ocean.