"Hawks bought the literary rights to Ernest Hemingway’s To Have and Have Not from Howard Hughes, who had unsuccessfully tried to make a movie of it at RKO. The novel, published in 1937, was one of Hemingway’s less popular books, and originally no one in Hollywood was especially excited about the property. But when Hawks chose to direct it and signed on Humphrey Bogart as leading man, the project was regarded as money in the bank.
Humphrey Bogart and Walter Brennan as Harry 'Steve' Morgan and Eddie in "To have and have not" (1944)
Bogart had labored for years as the villainous tough guy in more than a score of Warner Bros. films. In The Maltese Falcon (1941), his portrayal of Sam Spade defined the cinematic version of the classic American private eye. And as Rick Blaine in Casablanca (1942), he proved himself as a romantic lead. Whether in a white dinner jacket or a trench coat and snap-brim fedora, Bogart was, by the early 1940s, one of the top movie stars in the world and also a timely symbol of post–Pearl Harbor America: tough but compassionate, skeptical yet idealistic, betrayed yet ready to believe again, and, above all, a potent and deadly opponent.
Mayo Methot and Humphrey Bogart at home, circa 1944
Offscreen, however, Bogart was a man in a deeply troubled marriage of five years to actress Mayo Methot.
Mayo, alcoholic and mentally unstable, had stabbed him in a rage one night in 1942 while he was making Across the Pacific, an incident that was kept secret from the press and from the police. But Bogart, whom his friend John Huston, the director, described as “morbidly faithful” persisted in the marriage".
Source: www.vanityfair.com
Lauren Bacall as "Slim" in "To have and have not" (1944) directed by Howard Hawks, written by William Faulkner and Jules Furthman
William Faulkner said:
'The past is never dead. It’s not even past. As far as I’m concerned, making films and preserving them are the same thing. In this room, none of us who make films and watch them would be here without the people who came here before us'.
Jake Gyllenhaal attending the 82nd Annual Academy Awards on 7th March, 2010 in Los Angeles
"Unfortunately, as part of a general Oscars revamp that included expanding the Best Picture category to 10 nominees and tightening up the requirements for Best Song nominees, in June 2009 the Academy decided to bump all so-called ‘Testimonial’ awards from the telecast to a separate, more intimate, Governors Awards dinner event held in November. Accordingly, Kevin Brownlow, Jean-Luc Godard, Eli Wallach, and Francis Ford Coppola have already received their 2011 Honorary Awards and Thalberg Award respectively. The Academy’s only official reason for this change was to circumvent the telecast’s time limitations and ensure that ‘each honoree will be given his or her full due, without compromise.’ The honorees are still big, it’s the telecast that got small. But some of the ‘fine print’ of the new policy, together with 2010 and 2011′s tripling of the customary Honorary Awards rate suggests that the Academy also just wanted to be able to honor more people.
Roger Corman, Lauren Bacall and Gordon Willis attend the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Inaugural Governors Awards on November 14, 2009 in Los Angeles
I especially recommend Caleb Deschanel’s toast to cinematographic legend Gordon Willis at the first event. It’s true: Deschanel could not have spoken about his friend at that length or in that precise, affectionate, in-group marked tone except in a relatively intimate environment (and certainly not in the Kodak Theater).
With relatively little effort, the Academy could turn the current on-line video of the Governors Awards dinner into a proper show for internet or cable TV network (say, AMC or Bravo) distribution, or both. And with elites, gourmets, and old-timers catered for elsewhere, the Oscars telecast could concern itself exclusively with film’s present.
Lauren Bacall arrives backstage at the 82nd Annual Academy Awards held at Kodak Theatre on March 7, 2010 in Hollywood
Stars of Twilight wouldn’t have to pretend to know or care who Lauren Bacall is".
Source: www.oomska.co.uk
"Jake Gyllenhaal is joining the lists of presenters taking part in Sunday's 83rd annual Academy Awards.
The actor has become a familiar face on Oscar night, having previously appeared at the 82nd, 79th, 78th and 77th Awards. 
Jake Gyllenhaal, Heath Ledger and Michelle Williams attending the British Academy Film Awards (BAFTA's) on 19th February 2006
Michelle Monaghan and Jake Gyllenhaal in "Source Code" (2011)
