A Few Words About A few words about...™ Key Largo -- in Blu-ray (1 Viewer)

[Robert Harris]

John Huston's 1948 Key Largo, based upon the play by Maxwell Anderson, retains its roots, as it plays out, much like Hateful 8, in a single set.

While there is second unit footage of exteriors on the way to the Keys, and some material at the end at sea, virtually everything takes place at Lauren Bacall and Lionel Barrymore's embattled emporium. Look for material shot in the WB tank.

For those that might surmise that a basically stage-bound film of a stage play might get brutally boring, you'd be wrong.

Pit Humphrey Bogart against Edward G. Robinson and his goons, add in a hurricane, an Academy Award-winning performance by Claire Trevor, and a score by Max Steiner, and you've got one more of those films that's the stuff that dreams are made of.

Key Largo always had a slightly gritty look, and Warner Archive's new Blu-ray is no exception. Don't look for creamy textured black & white here. Contrast is up a bit, shadow detail down, but still gorgeous.

This is another film that needs to be in every serious collection.

Image - 4.25

Audio - 5

4k Up-rez - 4.25

Pass / Fail - Pass

Highly Recommended

 

[Dr Griffin]

I'm glad to be getting this one. Netflix (DVD disc rental site) hasn't had this available (extremely long wait!) for months. This, along with the other titles from The Archive, and others recently, means a lot of black and white nights ahead.

 

[Doug Otte]

I'm sure I missed it, but what does the category "4k Up-rez" mean? Does it refer to how the BD looks on a 4K monitor? Thanks.

 

[Robert Harris]

Precisely.

 

[Dale MA]

Can't wait for my copy. The Maltese Falcon, The Big Sleep and Key Largo triple bill!

 

[Johnny Angell]

This movie is so engrossing that it never occurred to me that nearly all of it takes place on one set.

 

[SAhmed]

There are probably not many titles that could top this for me for being my personal pick for release of the year already! Hope to be proven wrong ( e.g. The Magnificent Ambersons ) but ...

Regards,

 

[Frank Ha]

I have this on order along with The Big Sleep. I've never seen Key Largo. Looking forward to watching it when I can get it brought in to Mexico by some friends.

 

[revgen]

Nice review. I'm looking forward to picking this up.

However, I think this one deserves the "A Few Words About..." tag rather than the "Blu-Ray Review" tag.

 

[PMF]

The only thing that surprises me more than seeing only 9 Posts concerning "Key Largo", is that I'm somehow without my own copy; some 14 months after its release.
How on earth did that happen? So basic, so essential, so classic; one can sometimes make the mistake of believing that its in their BD library, already, that's how.

 

[Harry-N]

The only thing that surprises me more than seeing only 9 Posts concerning "Key Largo", is that I'm somehow without my own copy; some 14 months after its release.
How on earth did that happen? So basic, so essential, so classic; one can sometimes make the mistake of believing that its in their BD library, already, that's how.

Same here. The other night I was channel-surfing on the TV and came upon KEY LARGO showing on the "Movies!" channel. It was all stretched and yucky-looking so I thought I'd pop in whatever version I had in my library. I wasn't sure if it was a DVD or Blu. Turns out it wasn't anything. Somehow, I never purchased this film (or gremlins stole it!).

A few clicks on Amazon and a few days later, I'm happy to own KEY LARGO on Blu-ray.

 

[Robin9]

I just looked this film up on my spreadsheet about my disc collection. I received this disc in March 2016, watched it on the same day . . . and I haven't watched it since! I'm overdue!

 

[Jeffrey D]

Never saw this film- looks like a blind buy for me.

 

[Robert Crawford]

A fine film that I revisit every 4 or 5 years.

 

[bugsy-pal]

The 4-disc Bogart & Bacall bluray set is a great way to obtain this - along with The Big Sleep, To Have and Have Not, and Dark Passage

 

[Harry-N]

I just finished watching the film and I noticed one small camera angle on Edward G. Robinson had a greenish cast to it. The next angle was on Lionel Barrymore and was back to pure black & white again.

One other odd thing that I'd never noticed before was the scene where bogie is throwing lines to Bacall on the dock and he's asked about the craft tied out in the ocean. We can see the Seminoles rowing in the distance and it looks like they're totally steady while virtually everything else is moving vertically with the rough ocean. It just looked odd to me, like it was a process shot that didn't quite match up. Has that always been that way?

 

[Nelson Au]

Hey guys, resurrecting this thread. I’ve been posting on the The Maltese Falcon and The Big Sleep RAH threads. I’ve been finally doing a planned Bogart film viewing project. I’ve seen several Bogart films, but not all of them. This was kicked off with the 4K blu ray of The Maltese Falcon.

I thought I had seen Key Largo before and I may have, but I really didn’t have any recollection of it. I thought this film had some sequences in a fishing boat with Bogart as the captain, but upon research, I see that is To Have and To Have Not. At any rate, this viewing was cool because it wasn’t what I expected exactly. I had a sense of part of the story as I recalled an episode of Magnum PI taking place during a storm where the hero and bad guys are holed up in a mansion. I believe that episode was inspired by Key Largo.

What I didn’t expect was the dominance of Edward G Robinson as Johnny Rocco. He was a really bad man! The other aspect that I didn’t expect was the subdued presence of Bogart and Bacall. Bogart as McCloud and Bacall as Nora were of course essentially held hostage through out. At any rate, this was quite a good film. I enjoyed this one too. The ending was quite good as to how it was resolved. And the support cast are quite good.

The blu ray does look quite good. I didn’t see any issues with it. The image quality is quite nice. As this was my first viewing, I didn’t have any past experiences of earlier DVD releases. There was a sequence that surprised me a little, when Nora and McCloud finish tying up the boat and they walk back to the house from the dock, you can see the background is a wall with the Florida keys painted with trees and the shoreline. I could see this is a large water tank they were filming this in! It was very well done though.

I was a little surprised there were no extras on this disc. But that was Ok.

 

[Capt D McMars]

Hey guys, resurrecting this thread. I’ve been posting on the The Maltese Falcon and The Big Sleep RAH threads. I’ve been finally doing a planned Bogart film viewing project. I’ve seen several Bogart films, but not all of them. This was kicked off with the 4K blu ray of The Maltese Falcon.

I thought I had seen Key Largo before and I may have, but I really didn’t have any recollection of it. I thought this film had some sequences in a fishing boat with Bogart as the captain, but upon research, I see that is To Have and To Have Not. At any rate, this viewing was cool because it wasn’t what I expected exactly. I had a sense of part of the story as I recalled an episode of Magnum PI taking place during a storm where the hero and bad guys are holed up in a mansion. I believe that episode was inspired by Key Largo.

What I didn’t expect was the dominance of Edward G Robinson as Johnny Rocco. He was a really bad man! The other aspect that I didn’t expect was the subdued presence of Bogart and Bacall. Bogart as McCloud and Bacall as Nora were of course essentially held hostage through out. At any rate, this was quite a good film. I enjoyed this one too. The ending was quite good as to how it was resolved. And the support cast are quite good.

The blu ray does look quite good. I didn’t see any issues with it. The image quality is quite nice. As this was my first viewing, I didn’t have any past experiences of earlier DVD releases. There was a sequence that surprised me a little, when Nora and McCloud finish tying up the boat and they walk back to the house from the dock, you can see the background is a wall with the Florida keys painted with trees and the shoreline. I could see this is a large water tank they were filming this in! It was very well done though.

I was a little surprised there were no extras on this disc. But that was Ok.

This is one of my favorite B&B, not quite as much as "To Have and Have Not"but...the cast was perfect, and having Jay Silverheels added to the mix. for me, it's the inneractions between the characters during the storm that drives the story along. And at the end with a fantic hand to hand combat screens on the boat, with Rocco screaming "Soldier....Soldier", and then the bullets and smoke fly!!!

 

[Harry-N]

Now a couple of years after my post above, and I just had a similar occurrence with DARK PASSAGE. A tease on the Movies! channel had me looking for a Blu-ray, and I opted to go full Bogie/Bacall with the four-disc Blu-ray set. Now I've got an extra KEY LARGO to deal with...

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

Now a couple of years after my post above, and I just had a similar occurrence with DARK PASSAGE. A tease on the Movies! channel had me looking for a Blu-ray, and I opted to go full Bogie/Bacall with the four-disc Blu-ray set. Now I've got an extra KEY LARGO to deal with...

You'll just have to watch Key Largo twice as much now.