I watched this film along with Key Largo back in 2014 but damn if I could remember much about the story. And no wonder. In looking at the film's reception and reputation after a rewatch, I learned it has one of the most convoluted plots in film history. Yet never while watching did I think "Wow this is so confusing." If I got lost I assumed it was a fault in me and I needed to pay attention. A couple times in the beginning I did rewind because the exposition was dropping too many names to keep up with. Since I also spent a great deal of my mental bandwidth watching the filmmaking, looking at shots and lighting and performances, crucial snippets of dialogue or key plot points could whiz by.

I didn't even ask myself who killed the guy in the car that was driven off the pier. This was famously asked by the screenwriters to Raymond Chandler, author of the novel: who killed the chauffeur? Neither director Howard Hawks, nor screenwriter William Faulkner could figure it out. Chandler himself responded "I don't know." I vaguely had a sense of what was going on and all the motives at play, but loose ends and labyrinthine plotting never bothered me. This is a film that works on style and performance. We trust the film is taking us on a ride that can be enjoyed superficially and with sharp dialogue to boot.

Lauren Bacall is alluring in every scene: mysterious, confident, and generating that palpable chemistry with Bogie. She had something special as an actress that you can still see 30 years later in The Shootist of all films. Seeing her as the iconic femme fatale again is a treat. That husky voice, her facial expressions, the eyebrow twitch, and little flare of her nostrils now and then would have put a spell on me, as they must have done for Bogart. Speaking of Bogie, he does a variation of his Sam Spade performance here with the usual verve and toughness. When you have Faulkner as your screenwriter and a Chandler novel as your source material, the dialogue and banter is going to be the best you'll get on the silver screen. Retorts go by fast and we get a scene between Bogart and Bacall discussing race horses laced with innuendo and double-entendres. One could listen closely and guess at some of the innuendo's double meaning, but it's so well-written and subtle that modern audiences may miss the implications entirely.