Daily Dialogue — December 12, 2019

“You know you don’t have to act with me, Steve. You don’t have to say anything, and you don’t have to do anything. Not a thing. Oh, maybe just whistle. You know how to whistle, don’t you, Steve? You just put your lips together and… blow.”

— To Have and Have Not (1944), screen play by Jules Furthman and William Faulkner, novel by Ernest Hemingway

The Daily Dialogue theme for the week: Kiss. Today’s suggestion by Thomas Behrens.

Trivia: The most famous scene in the film is undoubtedly the “you know how to whistle” dialog sequence. It was not written by Ernest Hemingway, Jules Furthman, or William Faulkner, but by Howard Hawks. He wrote the scene as a screen test for Bacall with no real intention that it would necessarily end up in the film. The test was shot with Warner Bros. contract player John Ridgely acting opposite Bacall. The Warners staff, of course, agreed to star Bacall in the film based on the test, and Hawks thought the scene was so strong he asked Faulkner to work it into one of his later drafts of the shooting script.

Dialogue On Dialogue: Watch the entire scene. The dialogue sparkles. And two kisses, both hot.