Don Siegel's The Gun Runners 1958

The limitations placed upon Siegel by the material he is given to film are sometimes severe and he circumvents them with agility and grace.
--Judith M. Kass, Don Siegel (Tantivy Press, 1975)

The Gun Runners was the third film version of Hemingway's To Have and Have Not:  the first was the Bogart/Bacall version of 1944, the second The Breaking Point with John Garfield in 1950 (which I wrote about briefly on March 3,2014).  The first version, directed by Howard Hawks, emphasized professionalism and The Breaking Point, directed by Michael Curtiz, was intensely emotional and political.  Siegel's version emphasizes action and shows a certain sympathy for the Cuban revolution.  Hemingway's story is somewhat minimal, allowing three different interpretations from three good directors.

The Gun Runners starred Audie Murphy, one of the most decorated soldiers of WW II who became an actor, mostly in B Westerns.  One of those Westerns was Don Siegel's The Duel at Silver Creek (1952) and Murphy chose Siegel for The Gun Runners.  Murphy was not much of an actor, but Siegel knew how to show him re-acting -- to Everett Sloane, Eddie Albert, Patricia Owens and Gita Hall -- with facial expressions and various nods.  The Gun Runners was a relatively low-budget film and Siegel also had the experienced cinematographer Hal Mohr, who had worked with him on two previous films and knew how to do a lot with little. Siegel had worked on montage and directing second units for years, before becoming a director, and The Gun Runners is full of kinetic energy building up to a violent end. 

Siegel, though not well remembered today, was a master craftsman of genres.  He directed Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), two excellent police dramas in 1968, Madigan and Coogan's Bluff (he was an important mentor to Clint Eastwood), and even John Wayne's last film, The Shootist (1976).  He also did a another remake of a Hemingway story, The Killers (1964), filmed first by Robert Siodmak in 1946.