Caribbean Club

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The Caribbean Club is a bar on Key Largo Island in Florida . It is the oldest bar in the Upper Keys and was made famous by the gangster film Gangster in Key Largo with Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall . The bar is located on US Highway 1 on the bay side of the island ( Blackwater Sound ).

history

Originally a wealthy as a fishing club for less men ( Fishing club for man of modest Means ) used Marina was in 1938 by Carl Graham Fisher was founded, who had planned the plant as the first part of a chain of similar objects along the Keys. Fisher was a former millionaire impoverished by the stock market crash of 1929, who worked in the real estate business in Florida, had lived temporarily on Key Largo and died in Miami in July 1939.

The main building of the complex originally consisted of a bar and a kitchen. There was a jetty and charter boats could be rented. When it opened in January 1940, Fisher had already died. Tom Hanley was the club's first manager; he bought the property in 1945 and added a small hotel extension with six rooms. The kitchen specialized in seafood , the chef was Roy E. Harris.

An illegal but tolerated casino was operated in the bar during the holiday season. A historic cannon of the HMS Winchester , a 60-gun ship of the line of the Royal Navy , which sank in 1695 and whose remains were found in 1938 by Hugh M. Matheson off the coast of Key Largo, served as decoration .

In 1948 the Krone family took over the bar from the Hanleys. In 1955 the building burned down. The hotel and the kitchen were destroyed and not rebuilt. In 1963 Ruth and Lefty Whitehurst bought the Caribbean Club from Richard Craig. As a result, their children ran the bar, which is now run by the grandchildren. Guests are locals as well as tourists, only drinks are served. The interior is decorated with memorabilia from the Florida Keys, the movie Gangster in Key Largo, and actor Humphrey Bogart. A large billboard on the highway refers to the bar in connection with the 1948 film: “Caribbean Club - where the famous movie Key Largo was filmed”.

The Caribbean Club hosted the Netflix- published Bloodine web series in 2015 .

Film Key Largo

In late summer 1947, the director lived John Huston and screenwriter Richard Brooks Hotel des Caribbean clubs to the script for a film version of Maxwell Anderson -Theaterstücks Key Largo from 1939 to customize. Huston liked the title of the play, but insisted on an extensive change in content. The film was to take place in a hotel on Key Largo, the Caribbean Club corresponded to the ideas of Huston and inspired him. While Brooks was writing the script on Huston's instructions, he spent his time fishing on the property's pier. In order to offer his only guests (out of season) more entertainment, Hanley had the casino set up in the bar a few weeks before the winter season.

"Now our lives are laid out more sensibly, I'll still fishing during the day, you can write, and in the evenings we'll put on neckties and go to the tables, just the two of us."

"Now it is more sensible to plan our life [here], I will continue to fish during the day, you will write, and in the evening we will put on our ties and go to the [game] tables, just the two of us."

- John Huston to Richard Brooks

Known for his passion for gambling, Huston is said to have lost a substantial sum ($ 25,000) at the craps dice table and playing roulette ; Brooks also gambled away an amount equal to the compensation for his work on the script. The croupier at the Caribbean Club was called "Ziggy"; In the movie Gangster in Key Largo , a character with this name also appears. In addition to Huston and Brooks, Huston's third wife, Evelyn Keyes with her tame monkey Dodie, the producer Sam Spiegel and the director Anatole Litvak lived with them in the Caribbean Club .

The film was then produced between December 1947 and March 1948 mainly in Burbanks Studios (Stages 16, 19, 22 and 26) by Warner Brothers in Hollywood . The interior of the Caribbean Club was recreated for this purpose. Only a few and short external scenes were created at the original location on Key Largo. Nevertheless, even today the bar is often mentioned in tourist guides as the location of the film.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c "Motor Boating", December 1941, issue 6/1941, International Magazine Company, New York, p. 41 and 91 (English)
  2. ↑ a b Brad Bertelli and Jerry Wilkinson, Key Largo, Images of America , ISBN 978-0-73859-0-639 , Arcadia Publishing, 2012, p. 110 (English)
  3. ↑ a b c d Stuart B. McIver, Dreamers, Schemers and Scalawags, Florida Chronicles Series , Volume 1, Chapter 7, Key Largo's Unholy Rollers , ISBN 978-1-56164-1-550 , Pineapple Press, 1998 (English)
  4. ↑ In the Footsteps of "Bloodline": A Visit to the Florida Keys Filming Locations , Florida Sun Magazine
  5. ↑ IMDb: Key Largo (1948) - Filming Locations (English)

Web links

Coordinates: 25 ° 8 '42 "  N , 80 ° 23' 48.5"  W.