In the first hotel restaurant scene with Hoagy, beautiful up-tempo guitar and other string music is heard.
Django Reinhardt and his Hot Club of France produced some of the most unique musical "jazz" pieces known, during and after WWII.
Is it possible that some of Reinhardt's music appears uncredited in this film? It sure sounded like it.
You are probably thinking of Limehouse Blues.
It is a song recorded by many different artists, Django Reinhardt being one of them.
If you listen closely you can actually hear the character cricket say "okay, Limehouse Blues" just before they start playing it.
You're right.
I looked at the soundtrack listing for To Have and Have Not on IMDb and Carmichael is credited playing Limehouse Blues, but a studio orchestra undoubtedly backed him.
Reinhardt influenced so many jazz guitarists. I thought a movie of this stature would have attempted to entice Django to play the music.
E pluribus unum
Django Reinhardt was living in occupied Paris during the war, when this movie was being made. He had been unable to escape France, and as a gypsy and a jazz artist he was in constant danger of being sent to a death camp by the Nazis. Only the protection of a few sympathetic Nazi officers who happened to be fans of his kept him alive at all. With jazz being officially outlawed and gypsies being marked for extermination, trying to get passage to the United States to make a cameo playing jazz in a movie where Nazis were the bad guys would have been neither easy nor healthy.
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Did Reinhardt with his group appear in any feature film, anywhere in the world? His band's sound was so unique, a performance could easily be inserted into a film.
E pluribus unum
I'm not aware that he ever actually appeared in any feature film. There have been documentaries with some clips of him playing, but that's all I've ever run across.
But of course, at least we have the recordings!
Yes it sounds exactly like Django but he does not seem to be in the film, at least not onscreen. However he did appear in Stage Door Canteen (1943)
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