Just put your lips together...and blow.

…spoken by Marie ‘Slim’ Browning (Lauren Bacall) to Harry Morgan (Humphrey Bogart), whom she called ‘Steve’, in the 1944 film To Have and Have Not. The film was directed by Howard Hawks and the screenplay written by Jules Furthman and William Faulkner, based on the novel by Ernest Hemingway. Here’s a bit more of the dialog:

(She kisses him)

Harry: What'd you do that for?

Slim: Been wondering if I'd like it.

Harry: What's your decision?

Slim: I don't know yet. (She kisses him again)

Slim: It's even better when you help. Uhh... sure you won't change your mind about this? This belongs to me, and so do my lips, I don't see any difference ... OK You know you don't have act with me, Steve. You don't have to say anything, and you don't have to do anything. Not with me. Ohh, maybe just whistle. You remember how to whistle don't you? Just put your lips together...and blow.

(She exits. Bogie smiles to himself and then whistles, impressed) ¹

Reviews on IMDB compare To Have and Have Not favorably to Casablanca. It marks Bacall’s screen debut and the beginning of the love affair between Bogie and Bacall; she was 20 at the time, and he was 45, and married.

Trivia

• Lauren Bacall became known for her sultry voice and for her lowered gaze, which she has said she adopted because she was shaking so badly that keeping her chin down and looking up at Bogart was the only way she could think of to control her trembling. ²
• Bogie and Bacall became off-screen loves^*, marrying in 1945. ³
• When Humphrey Bogart died of cancer in 1957, Lauren Bacall had a golden whistle buried with him. On the whistle was inscribed, “if you want anything, just whistle.”⁴

_____________________

¹Created by ryono@lclark.edu Updated: 2-Jul-99 Expires: 12-Jun-2076 http://www.whysanity.net/monos/tohave.html ² IMDB, http://us.imdb.com/CommentsShow?0037382 ³ http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/LDO/bene54/call-bulls.html ⁴ http://www.whysanity.net/monos/tohave.html ^*More on the off-screen love affair in Lauren Bacall’s autobiography, By Myself.