Metrograph

Arriving in the Florida Keys off-season on the eve of a hurricane to fulfill the request of a deceased war buddy, WWII vet Frank McCloud (Humphrey Bogart) pays a visit to his pal’s grieving widow (Lauren Bacall) and her father (Lionel Barrymore) at the hotel owned by the latter, and soon finds himself not only having to endure the battering of the storm but the deadly serious threats of a quintet of Chicago gangsters led by a brutish Edward G. Robinson who, with moll Claire Trevor in tow, hold the hotelier and friends hostage. A film drenched in putrid atmosphere and literally drenched by lashing sheets of rain, tight as a drum, tense as a Mexican standoff, and just about as nasty as postwar film noir gets.

Distributor: Warner Bros.