Was Frank a coward?

If you watched the film till the end, you'd have your answer.

Frank knew the gun was not loaded. He was biding his time and getting angry enough to kill Rocco.

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Frank was not a coward nor did he know the gun was empty. Bieng brave also does not equate with being stupid.

frank just wants to get out of the situation alive.

Although Franks has small turning points as the film progresses, final irresolute turning point comes when the osceola brothers are killed. The exchange of looks between McCloud and Rocco says it all. once the osceola brothers get killed McCloud moves from inactive to proactive.

A coward, no. Nor was the man suicidal. The semi automatic being loaded or not is meaningless.

Just a musing of mine.

Whether or not Frank knew the gun was or was not loaded isn't even the issue IMO. The fact that the only reason Johnny gave Frank the gun and dared him to shoot him was that HE knew it WASN'T loaded. So who's the REAL coward?

No, Frank was not a coward, though in the beginning he thought of himself a coward.

Key Largo has as its theme Heroism, and how we all can be heroes if we apply ourselves to the task. Not everyone can fight evil directly, and not even those who can are able immediately.

Key Largo addresses the angst so many people have who felt they probably didn't deserve the glory they got during or after the war, or felt that their contributions to the war effort against tyranny were insignificant compared to the efforts of so many who didn't come home, or who came home with missing limbs.

Frank McCloud demonstrated, though, that heroism need not be reckless, but it must be courageous enough to face down death, even if it seems certain. His contrast is the sheriff's deputy Clyde Sawyer, who's recklessness surely got him killed. He might've thought he was a dead man anyway when he picked up the gun that Frank dropped on the chair, but what did he think was going to happen when he got out that door? Did he think none of Rocco's goons would follow him and shoot at him as he made an escape? In the middle of a hurricane?

Frank also had to identify the evil in their midst, which he did, and declare war on it. He was very tactful, careful not to upset Rocco too far, though it almost got the better of him in one scene, but that scene showed that Frank had realized he had the kind of courage Temple's son had during the war. He had been irritating Rocco, playing on his insecurities and on his desire for More.

And in the end, Rocco lost it. He ditched Gaye, a woman who truly loved him, for the prospect of something More down the road. His recklessness would get the better of him, and his desire to be master of his fate, and his world, did so as well. His murder of Sawyer got the better of him too. Might he have bothered going back to Cuba had he not murdered Sawyer? Because the whole thing at the hotel could've very easily been very quiet, involving nobody. Frank stoked Rocco's pride and ambitions, his anger at being cast out like a dirty Red, knowing it would in the end, some way, be his undoing.

We all fight our battles in very different ways. This was a character arc for Frank, to discover the courage he didn't know for certain he had.

The way I see it he was disillusioned from the war and probably wanted to resolve things peacefully and be courageous through acts of kindness and love rather than acts of violence. In the end he had to kill them but only when it was clear that he had no other option.

It might get a little lengthy but my writing follows the flow of my thinking [smile]

I think it's probably a mix of disillusion and self-preservation. The movie, probably like the play it was adapted from, plays like the War in microcosom with the obligatory evil : Johnny Rocco and his goons and the good guys : Frank and al. The main intercourses in the film, the one that drive the narrative can be summed up in three words: Frank vs. Johnny, soldier vs. murderer, good vs. evil etc.

I bet men like Frank or his ill-fated friend from the Army were idealists, they knew they fought for a noble cause, hence they were not afraid to die, because their death would have a meaning, it would clear the world of its filth, of its poisoning vileness and barbarity. Rocco stands for everything Frank fought as a soldier, yet he's very much alive although the war has been over for three years. What's that to mean?

Indeed, what does his friend's sacrifice mean when there are still men killing for money, for "making a point", or for covering their cowardice. Where does God or Justice stand when a brave man like Deputy Swayer dies and Rocco stays unpunished. yes, it's disillusion but is it that surprising? That's what the Film-Noir genre is about, disillusion, a prominent feeling after the Victory's euphorical effect was toned down by the uncertainty of the world's fate, at the dawn of the Atomic Age. Who could put his faith in human nature after that?

I want to believe that's not what Frank believes at the beginning of the movie, and maybe he had a reason to go to Florida, besides telling Mr Temple about his son. Maybe he was escaping from his own pessimism, his own lack of faith toward the world, believing in that sunny Paradise his friend used to talk to him about. And so were probably Nora and Mr Temple, idealists, accepting the fate of their beloved George as a tribute to pay for getting a better world afterwards. That's a respectable mindset, and it's understandable for a man like Frank to flee from his own demons and try to find some peace in Key Largo.

But the presence of Johnny Rocco would confront him to the very demons he tried to escape from. And in the pivotal moment when Rocco dared him to shoot, everything was fueling Frank's mind with anger, with an impulse to kill him, but what for ultimately? There would be plenty of Roccos to take his place anyway, like the War didn't deprive the world from scum or evil. For long as there will bemen, there will be wicked ones, so why should the good ones die to leave room for them?

That dilemma is perfectly captured by Gaye Dawn's line "Better to live a coward or die a hero", of course, this rings false in Bogie's book, but a second reading to that line gets us closer to what Frank might have had in mind, "better to preserve yourself a little while and pass for a weak man than die instantly and be a hero" "calculated weakness can be more resourceful than a pointless bravery". There's no point in heroism if it's deemed to fail, it's as meaningless as being called a coward. The point is to give a meaning to your sacrifice, but before doing so, you have to believe in it.

Frank is an existential character, not necessarily a hero, because his life is worthier than his cause, if only to better serve the cause. It's not the action that counts, it's the one you do according to your personal beliefs and standards. Basically, it wasn't the time to confront Rocco and Frank's self-esteem was too high at that moment to think he could waste his life for Rocco or for pleasing the eyes of George's widow. Enough pressure to add peer pressure to that.

Frank was intelligent, and no one even wanted to believe he acted cowardly. Look how many times he braved Rocco's anger by giving a drink to Gaye or shielding Nora. He never acted brave, he was brave ... something he might've learned from the War, like Patton said "you don't win a war by dying for a country, but by making the other one die", that's the principle, George was a hero in the noblest meaning of the word, but hey, Frank was here, sniffing the cool breeze of Florida and toying with Nora's beautiful hair.

It's all the more interesting because failure is a recurring theme in Huston's movies, all his movies are about characters who try to escape from their inner condition but most of the time fail, because they're essentially tragic. The past inevitably comes back to haunt them or they get wrapped up by their own ego or alienated by their own cause. In Key Largo, the failure is not to have changed the world for the best, to have seen people dying for nothing, so to speak and to be called a hero while a real hero wouldn't have survived.

I guess that's what filled Frank's heart with bitterness and anger toward himself and the world. He tried to escape from that but in Huston's universe, you don't escape easily from your past. What Frank got was Rocco posing like a successful guy, rich, feared and respected, free despite his criminal past, he was the living incarnation of what Frank felt about the world, and about his status as failure. But there's a light of hope, being a failure is one thing but no Hustonian character is a loser.

Indeed, Frank knew that he had to fight no matter what, postponing the time of the confrontation wouldn't avoid it and it's only after Rocco kills the innocent Indians (Sawyer took a chance and wasn't a 'civilian') that Frank makes up his mind. He knows killing Rocco won't change anything, but not killing him would leave a much more indelibile stain in his soul. He had to act, that was his destiny as a fighter, a soldier, a man of morality who wouldn't let the killing of the two Indians get unpunished. An existential character gives a meaning to his act, but paradoxically, believes that he's got but one destiny. He chooses what to do but most times, there's only one thing to do.

And the climax says it all, he's dispassionate, cold and methodical, killing one by one, until terminating the worse of all and killing the last demon who'd ever have to torture his soul. This is the light of excitement that ignite Bogie's eyes while staring at that door from the boat's rooftop. He knows he's going to accomplish himself once and for all and really escape from his tormented past.

It's fitting that we're in a Huston movie because they usually provide a great deal of escapist value, it's about people trying to transcend their own condition, yet their quest for freedom or success lead them to a physical or moral entrapment. There's something of Fred C. Dobbs in Frank McCloud, something of The Night of the Iguana in Key Largo, people isolated and entrapped to give the word 'escape' its fullest meaning. Frank wouldn't find peace in Florida but also the piece of this soul.

It's escapism as the quest for any trapped soul and entrapment for any soul trying to escape its condition, you've got to earn it, whether you lose or fail. Key Largo was Frank's key to his own salvation. And God, this is why I absolutely adore Huston movies.

Darth Vader is scary and I [love4] The Godfather