From time to time, I’m still working through the Hollywood classics and I keep being amazed by how enjoyable they are. I see this John Huston film being described as a noir but I don’t think it counts as one. I’m not sure what the genre is called but it’s one of those where the characters are all trapped by circumstances in a confined space and have to put up with each other. As usual, this provides the opportunity to go into what makes each of them tick and it’s a real pleasure to see even the supporting characters being put under the microscope. Great performances all around and it even ends with a relatively realistic yet thrilling gunfight!

After leaving the army, Frank McCloud makes a stop at a hotel in Key Largo, Florida run by the father and widow of a soldier who served under him. As it’s off season, the hotel is nominally closed but Frank finds that it has rented out by a group of suspicious men who are obviously mobsters. The father James Temple is a cripple and the widow Nora is the one who runs the hotel. Both are happy to see Frank and ask him to stay longer to hear his stories. Meanwhile the local police are searching for two Native American youths who have escaped from custody and James is friendly with their community. But as a hurricane draws near, the mobsters pull out guns and effectively take Frank and the Temples as hostages. They are led by mob boss Johnny Rocco who has been deported to Cuba and has snuck back into the US to do a deal. They have also knocked out and hold captive a police officer who have become suspicious of them. Stuck in the hotel as the storm grows worse, Rocco challenges McCloud on the nature of heroism and whether evil can be stopped.

I credit this film for having a strong balance between its plot, acting performances and thematic consistency. The character of McCloud is well-written, a veteran who performed feats of great bravery during the war but having difficulty reintegrating into society after returning home has tired of heroism. Meanwhile Rocco boasts about being too large a figure for anyone to take down and challenges who would be stupid enough to sacrifice his own life to try to do so. But of course when the storm rages, his bluster amounts to nothing in the face of the overwhelming power of nature. I’m mostly surprised by just how strong even the supporting characters are: the aging alcoholic beauty Gaye Dawn who was once Rocco’s paramour and is now being abused, Rocco’s thugs who manage to have personalities of their own. Nora’s character could have been better developed but there’s still some depth in how she managed to grow roots in the Keys of Florida and decided to stay on after her husband’s death.

The film does make a misstep and unfortunately it’s a serious one. I was heartened at first when the characters talk about how all this used to be Indian land and how they have been wronged throughout American history. Yet the Native American characters have no real place in the plot at all but just end up becoming some inadvertent victims of Rocco. They don’t even get to know what’s really going on. Why introduce them at all if that’s the extent of the role you’re going to give them? I suppose that’s as much acknowledgement as we can expect to get out of a film from the 1940s.

Still the film is enjoyable with decent character development and the final fight makes for a plausible way for the lone McCloud to eke out a victory. It may not be one of the true Hollywood greats but it’s solid work.