Key Largo (film) - Song

Song

A high point of the film comes when Robinson's alcoholic former moll, ex-nightclub singer "Gaye Dawn", played by Claire Trevor, is forced by Rocco to sing a song a capella before he will allow her to have a drink. Trevor was nervous about the scene, and, in fact, assumed that she would be lip-syncing to someone else's voice. She kept after director Huston, wanting to rehearse the song, but he put her off, saying "There's plenty of time," until one afternoon he told her that they would shoot the film right then, without any rehearsal. She was given her starting note from a piano, and, in front of the rest of the cast and the crew, sang the song. It was this raw take that was used in the film.

Author Philip Furia said about the song – "Moanin' Low" – " about a woman who's trapped in a relationship with a very cruel man. And ... you see realize that that's exactly her real life situation. slowly break down, and her voice falters and she sings off key." Robinson is dismissive but "Bogart pours her a stiff drink, walks it over ... under gunpoint ... and gives it to her and says 'You deserve this'—it's just a great dramatic scene, it's a wonderful use of a song in a non-musical picture. won based purely, I think, on that performance."