One of my all time favorites.

Fantastic!

The first must-see film of the year.

It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

Although this is a well-made film, you have to wonder why it was thought "The Breaking Point" could be bettered. However it gave Audie Murphy an opportunity to expand his range in a non-Western role.Audie plays Sam Martin who runs a charter boat out of the Florida Keys. It's the only film version that is set in the location of Hemingway's novel. Sam's business is in trouble, and he undertakes some illegal trips to Cuba running guns for Hannigan, an affable, but ruthless businessman played by Eddie Albert - proving that a charming villain is always more effective than a straight-out evil one.Sam is married and resists the not overly strenuous advances of Hannigan's mistress Eva (Gita Hall). Gita was underutilised here, she looked blonde, cool and interesting; a missed opportunity really, it was this relationship that created much of the tension in "The Breaking Point".Eventually it ends with bullet holes in much of the boat and most of the protagonists.I still find Audie Murphy a fascinating screen presence. Film allowed us to stare eyeball to eyeball into the face that was about the last thing 250 of his country's enemies ever saw. Occasionally we see interviews with war heroes, but the movies gave us an intimate acquaintance with this one.He was a complex guy and not universally liked, some thought him dangerous; he probably was. I once read "No Name on the Bullet", Don Graham's biography of Audie Murphy. Graham interviewed many people who knew him throughout his life and shed light on some of his military exploits beyond what was depicted in "To Hell and Back". Graham tells how Audie often went on solo missions to hunt down German snipers. It took nerve and skill, forged as a youth in the Depression when he hunted food for his family - one bullet, one kill.In "The Gun Runners", Audie is tightly controlled showing little emotion. He didn't change much from film to film, but maybe his movies reflected that iron self-control that enabled a man to stand on a burning tank destroyer firing a machine gun for an hour, holding off scores of the enemy.But that was all a long time ago and possibly a lot of people aren't interested in the stars in that way, simply demanding that the drama hold their attention. I would say "The Gun Runners" does that pretty well. I like the ending, which leaves us with a touch of doubt. It's a very watchable film on a number of levels.

When you cast Audie Murphy, Jack Elam and Richard Jaeckel in a movie, it's pretty much going to be a Western, even if you put it on the ocean. As the story played out I had the distinct impression that it resembled Bogart's "To Have and Have Not" so I guess I shouldn't have been surprised that just about every other reviewer mentioned it on this board. The main tip-off was Everett Sloan in the Walter Brennan role as the alcoholic sidekick to Murphy's Captain Sam Martin. It's too bad no one had the Lauren Bacall part, but both Patricia Owens and Gita Hall were easy on the eyes, even if they didn't get to sashay to a Hoagy Carmichael tune.In many of my reviews of Audie Murphy films I usually mention something about his boyish good looks but this time one of the characters actually did it. When Eva Wahlstrom (Gita Hall) sidles up to the Captain for the first time on his boat she exclaims "Oh, you have such a baby face". Sam's wife Lucy (Owens) also remarks similarly later in the picture, but more along the lines of her desire to keep him safe, and not lose his looks altogether on a dangerous mission.Regarding Sam and his wife, their scenes together as a syrupy sweet couple managed to bother me for some reason I can't explain. Maybe it was just his way of getting the blonde floozy's goat at Freddy's (Herb Vigran) gin mill. If so, looks like it worked.Well the Bogart film gets relocated from the French island of Martinique to Key West and Porto Bello in this tale of Cuban revolutionaries and illicit arms dealers. You usually don't picture Eddie Albert as a villain but he does a pretty good job here as gun runner Hanagan, out to make a quick buck trading in Thompson Machine Guns at a grand a pop. I thought that was a little steep for the late Fifties, but I guess if you're looking to overthrow a government, money's no object. Besides, a lot could go wrong, and it did.Funny, but even though Sam made it back to dry land in one piece, I couldn't help thinking that the story wasn't over with. The authorities came calling on just the hint that his boat made it to Cuba that one time, but now there would be dead bodies floating around the Gulf of Mexico and old Harvey with the loose lips whenever the sherry started flowing again. Maybe another remake will take care of that little problem.

A remake of "To Have and Have Not" based on the Hemingway short story. The plot is reset to the early days of the Cuban revolution. A charter boat skipper (Audie Murphy) gets entangled in gunrunning scheme to get money to pay off debts.Director Don Siegel may be the third person to tackle this tale, but he is not working fro ma dry well. By updating the story to involve the Cuban Revolution (before its success), the film takes on new life and now works as not only a great story but something of a historical document. Assisting Cuban rebels in 1958 may have had a very different sense at the time than it does today after fifty-plus years of Castro.This was the first feature from the fledgling Seven Arts Productions, before they went on to make "The Misfits" (1961), "Lolita" (1962), and several others, including a large number of co-productions with Hammer films.

I picked this movie out because Don Siegel never produces garbage in fact it is almost guaranteed quality what ever the budget...and this movie has a B grade budget.Audie Murphy and Eddie Albert star in this 1958 rendition of Hemingway's To Have and Have Not. It is an intelligent well filmed maritime adventure. Eddie Murphy is superb as the charming villain--I have never seen a better one. Audie Murphy is boyishly handsome and earnest as the hard up boat captain.Well worth the watch. No politically correct baggage or tiresome social messages just action and gun running to Cuba.RECOMMEND