The Sheila Variations

In A Lonely Place: Bogart's best performance

A post that made me happy to read. Good screenshots, snippets of dialogue ... It's a favorite of mine- not as well-known as i think it should be. I think it's Bogart's finest acting. Seriously - even with all the great roles - this one is the most pained and explosive ... He's fanTASTIc.

I wrote about In a Lonely Place here in one of my many unfinished blog-series: Under-rated Movies.

Other under-rated movies in my wee series:

This post covers 5: Ball of Fire, Only Angels Have Wings, Dogfight, Zero Effect and Manhattan Murder Mystery

Four Daughters

Searching For Bobby Fischer

Joe vs. the Volcano

Something's Gotta Give

Truly, Madly, Deeply

The Victor Laszlo - Rick Blaine dilemma

Open thread:

Talk about the ending of Casablanca. Talk about Ilsa's choice. Or actually - Rick made the choice for her: You will go with Laszlo. Ilsa loves both men. Not in the same way, but she does love both men, and she walks away from the "grand passion".

In my opinion, it is this very self-sacrificial feeling to the end of that movie that makes it a classic. If everyone had gotten what they wanted, (or - to put it another way: if Rick and Ilsa had gotten what they wanted) it just wouldn't have been as effective. The movie works because of that bittersweet wistful "what if" streak running through it.

Anyway: anyone who has anything to add to all of this: interpretations, additional thoughts, an analysis on HOW these two could POSSIBLY walk away from one another ... bring it on.

Rick:

vs.

Laszlo - in his finest moment:

Here's Ebert's review of the film.

Excerpts:

If we identify strongly with the characters in some movies, then it is no mystery that ``Casablanca'' is one of the most popular films ever made. It is about a man and a woman who are in love, and who sacrifice love for a higher purpose. This is immensely appealing; the viewer is not only able to imagine winning the love of Humphrey Bogart or Ingrid Bergman, but unselfishly renouncing it, as a contribution to the great cause of defeating the Nazis.

Yes. It is that unselfishness, the renouncing of the great love, that makes this film so effective. But still: so painful. Everyone pays a price in this scenario - everyone.

Here's another excerpt from Ebert to discuss:

What is intriguing is that none of the major characters is bad. Some are cynical, some lie, some kill, but all are redeemed. If you think it was easy for Rick to renounce his love for Ilsa--to place a higher value on Laszlo's fight against Nazism--remember Forster's famous comment, ``If I were forced to choose between my country and my friend, I hope I would be brave enough to choose my friend.''

From a modern perspective, the film reveals interesting assumptions. Ilsa Lund's role is basically that of a lover and helpmate to a great man; the movie's real question is, which great man should she be sleeping with? There is actually no reason why Laszlo cannot get on the plane alone, leaving Ilsa in Casablanca with Rick, and indeed that is one of the endings that was briefly considered. But that would be all wrong; the ``happy'' ending would be tarnished by self-interest, while the ending we have allows Rick to be larger, to approach nobility (``it doesn't take much to see that the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world''). And it allows us, vicariously experiencing all of these things in the theater, to warm in the glow of his heroism.

Anyone have anything to add?

Welcome, people coming here from Ann Althouse! Feel free to add your thoughts in the comment thread about this film. It's a great discussion going on.

Pauline Kael: 5001 Movies: "The Big Sleep"

Ahhh. One of my favorite movies ever made. Obviously. I posted about it enough!

The Big Sleep 1946

Humphrey Bogart is Raymond Chandler's private eye in this witty, incredibly complicated thriller. You may not be able to figure out the plot even after the denouement (Chandler reported that while the film was in production, William Faulkner and the other screenwriters had to appeal to him for guidance, and apparently Chandelr couldn't exactly figure it out either), but it's the dialogue and the entertaining qualities of the individual sequences that make this movie. It takes place in the big city of displaced persons -- the night city, where sensation is all. The action is tense and fast, and the film catches the lurid Chandler atmosphere. The characters are a collection of sophisticated monsters -- blackmailers, pornographers, apathetic society girls (Lauren Bacall and Martha Vickers are a baffling pair of spoiled sisters; the latter sucks her thumb), drug addicts, nymphomaniacs (a brunette Dorothy Malone seduces the hero in what must surely be record time), murderers. All of them talk in innuendoes, as if that were a new stylization of the American language, but how reassuring it is to know what the second layer of meaning refers to. Howard Hawks directed -- and so well that you may even enjoy the fact that, as he says, "Neither the author, the writer, nor myself knew who had killed whom."

I never ever get tired of watching this movie. The script has to be one of the best scripts ever written. I love love this movie. And yes ... nobody knew who had done what. Not even Chandler, who wrote the thing. Classic.

One of my favorite scenes ever filmed is in The Big Sleep, and anyone who has seen it will know what I'm talking about when I say: "in the bookstore." I've watched this movie and gotten totally stuck on that bookstore scene, rewinding it over and over and over. It never gets old, and it never ceases to surprise.

God. Great movie.

Pauline Kael: 5001 movies

More soundbites from this great film critic.

Angels with dirty faces 1938

An entertaining picture lurks behind that uninviting title. Warners threw its assets together in this one: James Cagney at his cockiest as a gangster, Pat O'Brien as a priest, and Humphrey Bogart, Ann Sheridan, George Bancroft, and the Dead End Kids, too. It has jokes and romance and a smashing big last sequence on Death Row -- the priest asks the gangster to act cowardly when he's executed, so that he won't be a hero to the Dead End Kids, and Cagney comes through with a rousing finale.

Great flick. Filled with actors you would recognize. I love Cagney.

Pauline Kael: 5001 movies

Next up?

All Through the Night 1942

The title of this Humphrey Bogart picture is taken from the Johnny Mercer and Arthur Schwartz song (which is sung in a nightclub sequence) and doesn't provide a clue to what the story is about. Some people might think this is one of the good Bogarts that they've missed; on the contrary it's a sugar-coated anti-Nazi message comedy, and so negligible that you've forgotten it ten minutes after you've staggered out. (It feels long.) Concocted by Leonard Spiegelgass and Edwin Gilbert from a rattlebrained screen story by Spiegelgass and Leonard Ross, and directed (ineptly) by Vincent Sherman, it's set in New York (a studio version) during the Second World War. Bogart is "Gloves" Donohue, a Broadway gambler-promoter, and he and his bunch of meant-to-be-lovable Damon Runyon-esque demi-racketeers (among them Jackie Gleason) rout an entire Nazi fifth column organization, headed by the supersuave Conrad Veidt, dachsund-loving Judith Anderson, and baby-face hit-man Peter Lorre, who operate under cover of an antiques-auction business. The movie oozes sentimentality, and the coy, frolicsome music is like a TV laugh track.

Yeah, I've seen it. Yeah, I agree with Kael. I mean, any Bogart movie is worth a look - he's always good, but the movie is dumb.

Pauline Kael: 5001 movies

Last one for today, and it's a doozy. I love this movie so much.

The African Queen 1951

An inspired piece of casting brought Humphrey Bogart and Katherine Hepburn together. This is a comedy, a love story, and a tale of adventure, and it is one of the most charming and entertaining movies ever made. The director, John Huston, has written that the comedy was not present either in the novel by CS Forester or in the original screenplay by James Agee, John Collier and himself, but that it grew out of the relationship of Hepburn and Bogart, who were just naturally funny when they worked together. Hepburn has revealed that the picture wasn't going well until Huston came up with the inspiration that she should think of Rosie as Mrs. Roosevelt. After that, Bogart and Hepburn played together with an ease and humor that makes their love affair -- the mating of a forbidding, ironclad spinster and a tough, gin-soaked riverboat captain -- seem not only inevitable, but perfect. The story, set in central Africa in 1914, is so convincingly acted that you may feel a bit jarred at the end; after the lovers have brought the boat, the African Queen, over dangerous rapids to torpedo a German battleship, Huston seems to stop taking the movie seriously. With Robert Morley as Hepburn's missionary brother, and Peter Bull. Bogart's performance took the Academy Award for Best Actor. (Peter Viertel, who worked on the dialogue while the company was on location in Africa, wrote White Hunter, Black Heart -- one of the best of all moviemaking novels -- about his experiences with Huston.

Great movie. Just great.

Pauline Kael: 5001 movies

Last one for today. Her boiled-down review of Across the Pacific which (naturally) I have seen. Not wacky about it. The story BEHIND the film, and what it was, and why it was made, is more interesting than the film itself. (I only know this now because of my Bogart craze a while back.) Pauline Kael goes into the whys and wherefores of this movie. It's really interesting background.

Across the Pacific 1942

After his exhilarating debut film, The Maltese Falcon (1941), John Huston had a commercial failure with In This Our Life; then he tried to repeat the success of the Falcon with an action-adventure story, using some of the Falcon cast -- Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, Sydney Greenstreet. The film was supposed to be about a group sailing to Honolulu to thwart a Japanese plan to blow up Pearl Harbor; during the second week of shooting, the Japanese did blow up Pearl Harbor. The production was shut down and there was a hasty rewrite. The result is a complicated plot about spies who plan to blow up the Panama Canal, and there are assorted captures and hairbreadth escapes. Huston manages to give the sequences some tension, and though the shipboard scenes were -- in the custom of the time -- filmed on the studio back lot, the images are airy and spacious. But Huston couldn't do anything about the essential mediocrity of the material, and when he was drafted into the Army Special Services before the picture was finished, he showed what he thought of the mess: he hurriedly shot a scene with Bogart trussed up and about to be killed, and then left his replacement director, Vincent Sherman, to figure out how to save Bogart in time to prevent the bombing of the Canal. The movie isn't really bad -- just bewildering. Mary Astor comes off the worst; cast as a conventional heroine, she looks heavy and uncomfortable, and too big for Bogart, who, incidentally, was called Rick here -- the name that was carried over the next year in Casablanca.

Interesting stuff, huh? She's right, too - those scenes on the ship are pretty amazing. "Airy and spacious" indeed - it doesn't look like a set, even though you KNOW it is one.

Lauren Bacall and Harper's Bazaar

For background, please read this. If you don't feel like reading it, I will re-cap:

Lauren Bacall was 17 years old, and modeling clothes at various department stores in New York City. This is the early 1940s, understand, so here's the deal:

The body type in style at that time was pretty bodacious. The bullet bras, the miniscule waists, the curving hips ... This was what was "in". (I shoulda been born then, I tell ya.) Lauren Bacall, a lanky teenager, with a long lean body, was not at all in style. She said it herself, when she came to my school to do a seminar, "The clothes didn't hang right on my body. They didn't look good on me."

Diana Vreeland, fashion editor of Harper's Bazaar, thought differently. At the time, she was the only one. But that's what makes a visionary, and Vreeland was, indeed, a visionary.

She saw Betty Bacall, and decided to put her on the cover of Harper's Bazaar.

Now, I will be COMPLETELY obnoxious and quote myself, from the post above:

I believe the photo was taken in 1941 or 1942 - and she was standing in front of a huge Red Cross. It is an arresting image. She has a flat blank face, she stares straight at the camera - there is nothing coy about her. Her skin is pale, her lips are bright red. Again: she doesn't quite look like what models looked like in that time period. She looks like what models look like now. There is a very clear identity on her face - you can see her personality - which models didn't quite have at that time. Think of the runway models now - how they stalk right at you - with this flat blank "Yeah, this is who I am" stare. That was what Bacall looked like on that cover.

The Harper's Bazaar cover was, as Bacall described it to us, "the twist of fate that changed my life forever".

What did Bacall mean by that? Slim Hawks, Howard Hawks' wife, saw the cover and showed it to her husband, saying: "What about this girl?" Howard Hawks, incredible film director (my personal favorite) had been looking for a project. He was a Svengali, he wanted to create a certain type of woman for movies (ahem, let me point to myself again. Here's my post on the Howard Hawks woman.) As a result of Lauren Bacall's Harper's Bazaar cover, Howard Hawks called this skinny teenager out to Hollywood to put her under his own personal contract, to develop projects for her - the first being To Have and Have Not - starring (of course) Humphrey Bogart. Her performance in that film has got to go down in history as one of the greatest and most startling film debuts of all time. Also, you know, there was the little thing of that romance that began on that film!!

Anyway, there's the background.

And here's what just happened. In the original post, I mentioned that I had been Googling up a storm, looking for the exact image of Lauren Bacall's first cover for Harper's Bazaar. I knew the image, because it's in her first autobiography - but I had a HELL of a time finding it online. I found other images from the shoot (which showed up in the pages of that issue) - but not the cover.

So just now, I got an email from a woman named Anna. She must have tripped over that post, through a Google search of her own, and she very very kindly sent me the image of that first Harper's Bazaar cover.

I'm thrilled. I'm thrilled to have the image, and I'm thrilled to now be able to share it with you all. It's enormous - so I put it in the extended entry.

Enjoy. LOOK at that face!!! Isn't it so OBVIOUS why she would attract attention?? Isn't it so apparent that she was MEANT to be a star??

Lauren Bacall ... Part III

Her third autobiography has come out. Of course I must read it. I read and loved the other two. A kind of funny article here which gives you a glimpse of Bacall, age 80, on her book tour.

I like, in particular, this quote from Bacall:

"I am always associated with [Bogart] in people's minds — 'the greatest love story ever told.' You can't get away from that. He'd never believe it, of course... It's great that he's still appreciated by so many, because he's worth it. He was a very special human being, Bogart."

I love the "he'd never believe it, of course." Such a nice glimpse into the commonsensical mind of that man.

And here for your viewing pleasure:

And here, what might be my favorite: This was before the romance even blossomed, a publicity shot for To Have and Have Not ... but it's beautifully obvious what was beginning to happen between these two individuals:

She's 19 years old in that photo, about to embark on her first romance ever (ahem, we all should be so lucky to have THAT be our first romance!)

Finally, maybe the most famous picture of all:

That lovely young girl is 80 years old now, and she's still around, and not just as a faint echo of who she used to be, a memory in our collective unconscious, but still getting good parts, writing a new book, acting with great directors. Rare.

Top 5 Mania

Top 5 Humphrey Bogart scenes in films

1. The last scene in Casablanca. Especially the look on his face when he says, "Here's lookin' at you, kid."

2. High Sierra - the last scene, where he is a fugitive from the law hiding in the mountains, screaming down at the cops: "COME AND GET ME!"

3. The Caine Mutiny - the interrogation scene, where you watch him disintegrate mentally - rolling those little ball bearings around in his hand

4. African Queen - when he emerges from the water covered in leeches.

5. To Have and Have Not - the stunned and turned-on look on his face after Lauren Bacall says the "Just put your lips together and blow" line to him.

Top 5 Mania

Top 5 lines said by Humphrey Bogart in his films:

1. "I don't mind if you don't like my manners. I don't like them myself. They're pretty bad. I grieve over them long winter evenings." - The Big Sleep (another good one from The Big Sleep is: "She tried to sit in my lap while I was standing up.")

2. "I was misinformed." - Casablanca

3. "I hope they don't hang you, precious, by that sweet neck. Yes, angel, I'm gonna send you over." - The Maltese Falcon

4. "Ahh, but the strawberries that's... that's where I had them. They laughed at me and made jokes but I proved beyond the shadow of a doubt and with... geometric logic... that a duplicate key to the wardroom icebox DID exist..." - The Caine Mutiny

5. "I stick my neck out for nobody." - Casablanca

Yet another reason to love Lauren Bacall ...

Read this anecdote. I love it. Such a spitfire, still!

Obsession Central: Bogart, Bacall - Sheila's Daily Fix

Bogart hated doing publicity shots, and got out of them as often as he could - which, of course, was much easier once he was a huge star.

Martin Weiser - the studio photographer who had been personally assigned to Lauren Bacall (his job was to create the mystique, take the shots which would blanket the country on the release of To Have and Have Not) wanted to get some publicity shots for To Have and Have Not of just the two stars. Weiser was actually assigned to do just that, but Bogart refused. "No. I won't do it. I hate doing them, and I won't do it." He was immovable.

Bacall, knowing that these photos would be important for her career, sweet-talked Bogie into allowing it.

45 years later, Martin Weiser, in an interview, was still able to remember the "magic" of his photo shoot - which had to be squeezed in between a lunch break and the filming of the afternoon.

Of course, at this point, Bogie was married to someone else (very unhappily - the two of them were known as "the Battling Bogarts" - she stabbed him in the back with a knife - he blacked her eye - their battles were famous) - and Lauren Bacall was a teenager about to become a massive star.

But the growing connection between the two of them is obvious in the photo below, which is one of the shots from Weiser's photo shoot:

Daily Fix

From the last scene of The Big Sleep:

Last exchange of the film:

She: And what about me?
He: You? What's wrong with you?
She: Nothing you can't fix.

One more for the road

Sigh.

Obsession Central: Bacall

Another one of those photos. CW - this is for you!!

Apparently, Truman regretted this photo later - but nobody else did!

She's 20 years old. She married Bogie a month or so later. This was in her period of white-hot celebrity - which was soon to end. (Not for good - she would come back - but never with the intensity of that first flash.)

Look at her. No wonder Bogie always called her "Baby".

Obsession Central: Bogart

The picture kind of says it all, doesn't it?

Obsession Central: Bogart and Morris Carnovsky

Last night I saw Dead Reckoning, which should clue you in to the fact that I am now beginning to watch the relatively BAD movies that Bogart made. My video store doesn't have "High Sierra" or "The Petrified Forest" (the film that launched his career) - so I now have to submerge myself in melodrama.

Er ... have to, Sheila?

"Dead Reckoning" borders on camp, but it is not Bogart's fault. In the midst of the camp, and in the midst of the almost laughably silly last scene - he remains truthful. He gives an affecting performance. This is the movie where he has the famous monologue about how he wishes he could magically make women be about 4 inches small, "small enough to put away in my pocket" - and then you could go out to dinner - with the woman in your pocket - sit down at the table, "take her out, and let her run around among the coffee cups" - (that image made me laugh) - "And then - when you want her to be life-size and beautiful..." (for obvious purposes) "You just wave your hand, and there they are."

But Lizbeth Scott who plays the woman opposite him is ... she is FILLED with camp. She is FILLED with melodrama. How did he not burst out laughing at some of her moments? I wanted to wave my hand and make HER 4 inches small and put her away in my pocket for good.

I also didn't really care for the shape of her nostrils.

One treat for me, in watching the film, was that Morris Carnovsky played Martinelli - the casino-owner. If you had grown up in the 30s and 40s and had any awareness of theatre and good actors, you would have known the name Morris Carnovsky. I feel like I know Morris Carnovsky. He was a veteran of Broadway, a serious actor of the classics. He was married to Phoebe Brand, a petite boisterous actress who, I believe, died a couple years ago. Carnovsky and Brand were involved with the Group Theatre in the 1930s - that fabled organization which lasted only a decade but which had such an enormous impact on our culture.

We feel the impact now, and even if you don't even know about the Group Theatre, it is there.

Lee Strasberg was one of the founders. A bad director, and a brilliant teacher of actors - he went on to run the Actors Studio for many years. And he trained many of the people who defined American cinema in the 50s, 60s, and 70s. James Dean, Brando, Marilyn Monroe, Montgomery Clift, Jack Nicholson, Steve McQueen, Ellen Burstyn, Al Pacino, Christopher Walken, Harvey Keitel ... the list is endless. Eli Wallach, Anne Jackson...

Elia Kazan, brilliant director and limited actor, started as one of the acting ensemble in the Group Theatre. He was the toast of the town for about 4 or 5 years, before he realized that he was quite limited as an actor - and that he would better off being a director. He was right.

Harold Clurman, one of the greatest critics of our time, of ANY time, was one of the founders of the Group Theatre. A true zealot, a true intellect - an incredible writer. His books are in print to this day, and directors and playwrights alike would do well to study them. On Directing is considered a classic.

Jules (known as Julie) Garfield (who later became a huge Hollywood star in the late 30s and 40s - and changed his name to John so as not to offend the delicate sensibilities of the anti-Semitic times) came from the Group Theatre. The lead role in Clifford Odets' Golden Boy was written for Julie. However, the part was eventually given to Luther Adler. Julie played the great role of Siggie, the boisterous unintellectual cab driver who is always romping in bed with his wife Anna (played by Phoebe Brand). I was in a production of this show - I played Anna. Garfield never really got over being rejected for the lead role, however, and accepted a 2 picture movie contract with Warner Brothers. He, obviously, became massively successful - and is considered by many to be the first "Method movie star". Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, Jack Nicholson - all owe a huge debt to Julie Garfield. Garfield died of a heart attack at the age of 39.

Oops, one thing to add about Julie Garfield: While indeed he was quite dissipated in many of his habits - and he cultivated to perfection the role of the bitter outsider which he used to great effect in his parts - and yes, he did live hard, and drink hard - many believe that the unending harassment he received from the HUAC who went after him with a singlemindedness and ruthlessness that they showed to nobody else - many believe that it was that which led to his premature death. They were determined to "get" Julie Garfield. He was a big star, a heartthrob, etc. He was the "name" that the committee wanted the most. Anyone who testified for the HUAC - Miller, Kazan, Odets - all those people - they all mention that the name the HUAC wanted the most was "John Garfield". Some people believe that Garfield was hounded to death. 39 is quite young to have a heart attack, obviously. Anyway, it's a shame. It would have been very interesting to see how he would have grown, and what being an older man would have given to his acting.

Clifford Odets. Wrote about 6 great plays, and then a bunch of mediocre ones. But his great plays are so great that it makes you want to put down your pen forever. I've performed in many of them. They are as fun to act as they are to read. Odets became a star because the Group Theatre produced his plays.

Morris Carnovsky was one of the acting ensemble. Made a name for himself playing roles much older than himself. He was very much looked up to. Many of the Group actors were much younger, barely out of their teens. Some, like Julie Garfield, were completely uneducated, and had nothing but raw ambition, and a desire to be part of an ensemble - an ensemble that actually tried to produce plays about the time they were living in, plays that actually addressed The Great Depression, and the desperation they saw around them. At this time, Broadway was mostly producing Philip Barry comedies and Moss Hart comedies - all amazingly wonderful, but all about the upper-class, untouched by the Depression, floating through life, having romances, smoking cigarettes, witty repartee. The Group was interested in something different. Odets became their voice.

Carnovsky became a kind of father figure to the young and mostly Jewish actors, raised in the ghetto of the Lower East Side. They looked up to him, they learned from him. Carnovsky was experienced as an actor, had been on stage for many years, he was an educated man. He was someone to emulate - great work ethic, great respect for his craft.

Carnovsky's career was ruined by the blacklist. He didn't work again. At least not in films. He became a teacher.

I am still angry at what I have been denied, so many years later, because of this man not being allowed to act. What performances he might have given, what parts he might have played...

I have actually never SEEN Morris Carnovsky act until last night - and there he was, acting with Bogart. Carnovsky is the second male lead, and he is fantastic. I recognized his face as though it were the face of an old friend. I got tears in my eyes. "There he is," I thought. "There is Morris Carnovsky."

This film was done in 1947. His career ended in 1951. Staring at him, I felt this sadness, this: look out, my friend. The dark bat wings are already flapping above your community ... get ready ... get ready ... You will never work again.

Quotes: The Big Sleep

Vivian Speaking of horses, I like to play them myself. But I like to see them work out a little first, see if they're front-runners or come from behind, find out what their whole card is, what makes them run.

Marlowe Find out mine?

Vivian I think so.

Marlowe Go ahead.

Vivian I'd say you don't like to be rated. You like to get out in front, open up a lead, take a little breather in the backstretch, and then come home free.

Marlowe You don't like to be rated yourself.

Vivian I haven't met anyone yet that can do it. Any suggestions?

Marlowe Well, I can't tell till I've seen you over a distance of ground. You've got a touch of class, but I don't know how, how far you can go.

Vivian A lot depends on who's in the saddle.

Quotes: The Big Sleep

Vivian: You go too far, Marlowe.

Marlowe: Those are harsh words to throw at a man, especially when he's walking out of your bedroom.

Quotes: The Big Sleep

Vivian (Bacall): I don't like your manners.

Marlowe (Bogart): I don't mind if you don't like my manners. I don't like 'em myself. They're pretty bad. I grieve over them long winter evenings.

Quotes: The Big Sleep

Sternwood: How do you like your brandy, sir?

Marlowe: In a glass.

Obsession Central: The Big Sleep

The Big Sleep, as incomprehensible as it is, is fast becoming one of my favorite movies. My Top 50 movies list is due for a HUGE overhaul.

There's so much juicy stuff to enjoy in The Big Sleep ...

-- The way Mr. Sternwood, dying, cooped up in his greenhouse, gets this overwhelmingly famished look on his face, as he watches Marlowe (Bogie) take a sip of brandy. It is like - the way he yearns for a taste - even though alcohol is now forbidden to him - the yearning is so loud he doesn't even need any lines to convey it. I watch Mr. Sternwood's reactions to Marlowe drinking and I can taste the brandy

-- During the filming of the entire first scene between Bogart and Bacall - where he is called to talk to her in her bedroom, and there she is, pouring a drink - Anyway, Bacall said that, as always, she was so nervous for that scene that she was literally trembling from head to foot. She calls it her "quake". So much so that she thought she would drop the glass onto the floor. Funny - you watch the scene, and you'd never know.

-- Does anyone remember the female cab driver? Marlowe gets into her cab, and basically tells her to follow Geiger's car. She has black hair, a little cap on, she's cute. At the end, they have some pretty outrageous sexual banter, which goes something like: He hands her a big tip and says, "Here. Buy yourself a cigar." She hands him a card and says, "Listen - if you ever need a ride again..." He grins at her, takes the card, and says, "Day or night?" Her reply is, "Night. I work during the day." And they both laugh - and she drives off.

Anyway - that actress' name was Joy Barlowe - and this was her first job. She also was quakingly nervous. She had this big scene with Humphrey Bogart, ya da ya da, she was terrified.

In addition to all of that - little kid gloves were part of her costume - and they made it very difficult for her to slide the card out of her wallet to hand over to him. She couldn't get it right. Her fingers would stumble, she couldn't get the card out, they'd have to do another take.

Barlowe describes being positively mortified. To make Humphrey Bogart do 10 takes, because she couldn't do this simple little action of handing him a card. She thought she was going to get fired.

Finally, after a fumbling take, Bogart said to her, "Try it this way, honey," - and he put one of the cards above the sun-visor. She could just reach up, grab it, hand it to him.

It worked.

She was always grateful to him for that. For his patience with this new and nervous actress, and for coming up with a smooth solution to her problem.

If you watch the moment, too - it's a great moment. Soooo smooth. She is this black-haired kind of fresh-mouthed cabbie, and he is grinning into the window at her, appreciating her.

Nice.

-- The amazing actress, Martha Vickers, who played Lauren Bacall's sister - remember her? The one who gets the family into the whole mess in the first place, getting messed up with pornographers, and drugs, etc. Marlowe describes her as "Pretty....And pretty wild." She did such an incredible job with her role (and she was just a teenager, pretty new to acting) - that Howard Hawks (the director) felt she upstaged Bacall, and so cut her scenes back considerably.

But anyway, here's a story about Martha Vickers, the teenage actress who so convincingly played a drugged-out thumb-sucking nymphomaniac.

Hawks had an idea for one of the scenes - where Marlowe comes in, and finds her sitting, all dressed up in the empty house - obviously some kind of lecherous photo shoot had been going on. And Marlowe comes upon her, and she is high on drugs, and completely out of it. Anyway, Hawks had an idea for this scene (which ended up not making it into the movie): He wanted Vickers to simulate an orgasm.

He asked her to do so. This is in front of Bogart, Regis Toomey (who plays the DA), and a couple of other people.

"Sweetheart, what we want here is for you to simulate that you're having an orgasm."

Martha Vickers asked, "What's an orgasm?"

Nobody spoke. Nobody knew what to do. Literally. These three men, Hawks, Bogart, and Toomey - standing there with a teenage actress - asking them what an orgasm was. Dead silence. Hawks called a 10 minute break, and called Toomey aside. He asked Toomey to please go and explain to "Miss Vickers" what an orgasm was.

Toomey, who apparently was a good-natured fellow, but also the product of a strict Irish Catholic upbringing (so funny to imagine!!), went over to Martha and explained it to her. (Wish I could have been a fly on the wall for that one.)

Toomey said later to Bogart, "The girl didn't know anything. I asked, 'Are you a virgin?' 'Uh yes.' 'Do you know what an orgasm is? Mr. Hawks wants you to be having an orgasm here.' 'No, I don't know what it is.' 'You don't know what an orgasm is?' 'No.' And so, dammit, I explained to her what an orgasm was. And she got the idea all right. Howard liked the scene very much."

After that, it became a huge joke. Hawks would say to Toomey, "If I ever have to explain an orgasm again, I am calling on you." And Bogie would laugh and laugh like a madman.

For some reason I just love that story.

Obsession Central: Bogart

"He's the ugliest handsome man I've ever seen."

-- Lauren Bacall on Humphrey Bogart

Obsession Central: Bogart

"He's the ugliest handsome man I've ever seen."

-- Lauren Bacall on Humphrey Bogart

Obsession Central: Bogart

I rented In a Lonely Place last night, a Humphrey Bogart film from 1950.

Nicholas Ray, who later went on to direct Rebel without a Cause, is the director.

There are a couple of interesting stories behind this very good film. If you like Bogart, and you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it. It's another side to him, something he rarely got to show: his intellect. Bogart was a well-read man. Most of his best friends were writers. He preferred writer-friends to actor-friends, and had the utmost respect for the printed word.

He wrote an essay defending the Hollywood Ten, during the HUAC hysteria, when his friends were being hounded to death and blacklisted, and his essay is something else, truly. He wrote every word.

In In a Lonely Place he plays Dixon Steele, a semi-washed-up screenwriter in Hollywood. There's something a little "off" about him. He obviously has talent, he had had some successes a while back - but he has a hair-trigger temper, and there's something else. Something else. It's a paranoia, yes - but there's this unbeLIEVable sadness too. The kind of sadness that Bogart can portray, without a word, without a gesture. All he has to do is just sit there, let the camera pick up what's going on his face and you feel all this grief.

This film has been called "one of the best pictures ever made about Hollywood" and I would agree.

Dixon Steele trusts no one. He has an agent, who hovers around him, trying to get him to get back to work. There's an old drunk actor who hangs out at the same bar, a washed-up actor who obviously was once great - and Steele treats him very gently, and with respect, in the face of everyone else's derision.

There is gentleness in the Steele character. Bogart makes that completely believable. You kind of fall in love with him, actually. Which is why the movie works on such a deep level - because when he falls, and he does fall, it is tragic. You find yourself rooting for this odd dark man - and yet - he's scary at times, as well.

Gloria Grahame, who was completely underestimated as a talent at the time, got the lead. She's great - Her performance would completely fit into a modern-day film. There's nothing dated about it. (Well, except for the shape of her eyebrows.)

I don't want to give the plot away, because you just have to watch it unfold ... and watch this man's life fall apart.

What is interesting about this part, in comparison to other roles - like in Casablanca or Maltese Falcon and others - is that ... the typical Bogart thing that we all recognize: the tough-guy act, the way he is with women, the straight-talking, the intensity - all of that is there, but because of the material, it is no longer idealized. It is seen through another filter - and suddenly it seems like this man is a tremendously damaged individual, that nothing will heal him. He is HARD. I'm not sure if I'm making the point correctly.

All of the qualities which make him so wonderful in Casablanca exist as well in In a Lonely Place - only now they seem like character flaws.

Brave. Brave for Bogart to do that with his image.

My favorite moment? Well, I have a couple.

Gloria Grahame as the neighbor - who eventually ends up falling in love with Bogart - says to him in their first scene together when they meet:

"I like your face. It's interesting."

Dixon Steele becomes a little bit obsessed with her in that moment. He latches onto her - she likes his face, she likes his face - maybe there's hope for him if someone like THAT is into HIM! It's sad. You worry for him.

The next time they meet, they stand in the foyer of his apartment. There is some great back-and-forth banter. She is obviously a woman with an edge. She doesn't play games. She keeps her distance from him. He calls her on it. "You're the I-don't-want-to-get-hurt type." She says, "Is there anything wrong with that?" He smiles and says, "I suppose you save yourself a lot of trouble."

In the middle of this banter, when he is pushing her to have dinner with him that night, and she is holding him off - all with humor though - she obviously likes him - she just thinks he's going too fast - Anyway, here's my favorite moment:

In the middle of this, he suddenly says, a propos of nothing: "You are out of your mind."

I had no idea what he was referring to. He breaks away from her, and goes to the hallway mirror, and peers at himself anxiously. He stands there, staring at his own reflection. He says, to himself, with no self-pity - it's just the facts - "Who could like this face?"

He turns back to her and then - as he moves in to kiss her - says, in this - "come on, let's be realistic" voice, "Look at it..."

She doesn't let him kiss her by the way.

But the way he says "Look at it..." It's sexy, it's sad, it's like he is a little boy actually. He can hardly believe his luck. And his hope for something, his eagerness for a relationship ... it's a little bit scary. He needs it too much.

And another favorite moment which - I mean, I don't want to be accused of hyperbole - (Me??) but I think it might be the "real"-est I've ever seen Bogart.

It's at the very end.

A huge fight has occurred between the two of them. Things get quite frightening. He is out of control. He is truly out of control with her. This is not an actor, doing polite fight choreography. She is frightened. He is in a rage - you can tell that his whole life is slipping out of his grasp. She was his chance at happiness ... and what makes his violence so scary is that ... he knows that he is breaking his own heart by turning his violence on her - There is such LOSS in his violence ... It's a scary scene. It feels real.

He comes out of her bedroom, and - he just leans on the back of the couch for a minute.

He leans on the back of the couch.

I can't describe why it is such a moving moment - but the way he leaned on the couch told me his entire life-story of disappointment and defeat.

Tears filled my eyes.

Now that's some fine acting.

When the film came out in 1950, it was hailed as Bogart's best work. Some critics still think that it is his best work.

If you ever see it on the shelf somewhere, I recommend you see it. It's yummy stuff.

Obsession Central: Bogart

I rented In a Lonely Place last night, a Humphrey Bogart film from 1950.

Nicholas Ray, who later went on to direct Rebel without a Cause, is the director.

There are a couple of interesting stories behind this very good film. If you like Bogart, and you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it. It's another side to him, something he rarely got to show: his intellect. Bogart was a well-read man. Most of his best friends were writers. He preferred writer-friends to actor-friends, and had the utmost respect for the printed word.

He wrote an essay defending the Hollywood Ten, during the HUAC hysteria, when his friends were being hounded to death and blacklisted, and his essay is something else, truly. He wrote every word.

In In a Lonely Place he plays Dixon Steele, a semi-washed-up screenwriter in Hollywood. There's something a little "off" about him. He obviously has talent, he had had some successes a while back - but he has a hair-trigger temper, and there's something else. Something else. It's a paranoia, yes - but there's this unbeLIEVable sadness too. The kind of sadness that Bogart can portray, without a word, without a gesture. All he has to do is just sit there, let the camera pick up what's going on his face and you feel all this grief.

This film has been called "one of the best pictures ever made about Hollywood" and I would agree.

Dixon Steele trusts no one. He has an agent, who hovers around him, trying to get him to get back to work. There's an old drunk actor who hangs out at the same bar, a washed-up actor who obviously was once great - and Steele treats him very gently, and with respect, in the face of everyone else's derision.

There is gentleness in the Steele character. Bogart makes that completely believable. You kind of fall in love with him, actually. Which is why the movie works on such a deep level - because when he falls, and he does fall, it is tragic. You find yourself rooting for this odd dark man - and yet - he's scary at times, as well.

Gloria Grahame, who was completely underestimated as a talent at the time, got the lead. She's great - Her performance would completely fit into a modern-day film. There's nothing dated about it. (Well, except for the shape of her eyebrows.)

I don't want to give the plot away, because you just have to watch it unfold ... and watch this man's life fall apart.

What is interesting about this part, in comparison to other roles - like in Casablanca or Maltese Falcon and others - is that ... the typical Bogart thing that we all recognize: the tough-guy act, the way he is with women, the straight-talking, the intensity - all of that is there, but because of the material, it is no longer idealized. It is seen through another filter - and suddenly it seems like this man is a tremendously damaged individual, that nothing will heal him. He is HARD. I'm not sure if I'm making the point correctly.

All of the qualities which make him so wonderful in Casablanca exist as well in In a Lonely Place - only now they seem like character flaws.

Brave. Brave for Bogart to do that with his image.

My favorite moment? Well, I have a couple.

Gloria Grahame as the neighbor - who eventually ends up falling in love with Bogart - says to him in their first scene together when they meet:

"I like your face. It's interesting."

Dixon Steele becomes a little bit obsessed with her in that moment. He latches onto her - she likes his face, she likes his face - maybe there's hope for him if someone like THAT is into HIM! It's sad. You worry for him.

The next time they meet, they stand in the foyer of his apartment. There is some great back-and-forth banter. She is obviously a woman with an edge. She doesn't play games. She keeps her distance from him. He calls her on it. "You're the I-don't-want-to-get-hurt type." She says, "Is there anything wrong with that?" He smiles and says, "I suppose you save yourself a lot of trouble."

In the middle of this banter, when he is pushing her to have dinner with him that night, and she is holding him off - all with humor though - she obviously likes him - she just thinks he's going too fast - Anyway, here's my favorite moment:

In the middle of this, he suddenly says, a propos of nothing: "You are out of your mind."

I had no idea what he was referring to. He breaks away from her, and goes to the hallway mirror, and peers at himself anxiously. He stands there, staring at his own reflection. He says, to himself, with no self-pity - it's just the facts - "Who could like this face?"

He turns back to her and then - as he moves in to kiss her - says, in this - "come on, let's be realistic" voice, "Look at it..."

She doesn't let him kiss her by the way.

But the way he says "Look at it..." It's sexy, it's sad, it's like he is a little boy actually. He can hardly believe his luck. And his hope for something, his eagerness for a relationship ... it's a little bit scary. He needs it too much.

And another favorite moment which - I mean, I don't want to be accused of hyperbole - (Me??) but I think it might be the "real"-est I've ever seen Bogart.

It's at the very end.

A huge fight has occurred between the two of them. Things get quite frightening. He is out of control. He is truly out of control with her. This is not an actor, doing polite fight choreography. She is frightened. He is in a rage - you can tell that his whole life is slipping out of his grasp. She was his chance at happiness ... and what makes his violence so scary is that ... he knows that he is breaking his own heart by turning his violence on her - There is such LOSS in his violence ... It's a scary scene. It feels real.

He comes out of her bedroom, and - he just leans on the back of the couch for a minute.

He leans on the back of the couch.

I can't describe why it is such a moving moment - but the way he leaned on the couch told me his entire life-story of disappointment and defeat.

Tears filled my eyes.

Now that's some fine acting.

When the film came out in 1950, it was hailed as Bogart's best work. Some critics still think that it is his best work.

If you ever see it on the shelf somewhere, I recommend you see it. It's yummy stuff.

A word on obsessions

No sign of the end of the Bogart Tunnel. I may very well never come out. But then again, I felt that way a couple years ago, after seeing LA Confidential, when I slipped off the rails into Russell Crowe mania. And I didn't have a blog then!! Imagine the entries!

Once a passion, always a passion.

The Eminem thing shows no signs of dying out. He and I are going on a couple years now. Of course, the intensity has faded a bit, and I am able, once again, to listen to other music. But he's still in pretty much constant rotation.

So obsessions do normalize, eventually. What can I say? When I love something, I go all out.

Yesterday, I finally got some antibiotics. Had a nice birthday-chat with my dad, while waiting for the bus. Went into my video store, knowing that the second I got home, I would take this codeine-cough-suppressant thing - and be dead to the world. So what did I need? A Bogart movie, n'est ce pas.

Unfortunately, my video joint doesn't have High Sierra or The Petrified Forest - the two films I really want to see now.

But - randomly - they DID have In a Lonely Place - which I have never seen. The Bogart biography I just finished made a couple of choice comments on Bogie's performance which made me think: Hm, sounds like that movie was something special.

So I pounced on it. Excited.

Took the bus home, through the cool blue twilight. Sick as a damn dog. Got home. Pajamas on. Curled up in my arm chair. Took the cough suppressant. Immediately began to feel it working, a warmth in my limbs, a softness in my throat and in my brain, and I watched In a Lonely Place.

More thoughts to come. It is a WONDERFUL movie. A true surprise. Not a bad scene in the whole thing.

And then - to bed.

Slept peacefully for the first time in 5 days.

Obsession Central: Bogart

Bogart, after doing film after film after film where he played a villain - this was in the early 30s - where he always seemed to get shot by Edward G. Robinson - finally got a chance to show another side to his character in Maltese Falcon. Yeah, that guy kind of was a bit shady, played both sides of the law, but he was tough, he was gritty, and in the end, he did the right thing, even though he did love the girl. He let her hang by her "sweet neck", regardless of his personal feelings for her.

But because he had only played bad guys, interminably, he was completely baffled and "phobic" (his words) about doing love scenes. He felt awkward, silly, had no idea what to do - and also embarrassed about the scar on his lip.

His first screen kiss was with the delicious Mary Astor in Maltese Falcon - and apparently he couldn't get it right, couldn't grab her right, couldn't get his act together, couldn't relax. They did take after take. He started to sweat profusely, and the makeup-guy had to keep running over to dab at Bogart's face.

John Huston finally exploded, "It's just a simple kiss, it's nothing! Grab her, kiss her, turn her loose! That's it!!"

7 takes later, Huston was finally satisfied.

Mary Astor later said about Bogart, "He didn't like love scenes. He's not really a kissing type. But Bogie didn't have to kiss the girl. He didn't have to touch her. You knew by the way he looked at her."

They worked together again in Across the Pacific (Just so you know: I am typing all of this THROUGH my embarrassment. I am embarrassed that I know all of this information. But there is nothing else to do but to share it.) Anyway: Astor and Bogart had to kiss again a year later, in Across the Pacific. Bogart still treated the whole thing awkwardly, embarrassed.

At one point, she pulled back and snapped at him, "Try not to knock my teeth out next time!"

Bogart was mortified and mumbled, "I'm sorry, kid."

Mary Astor then, of course, had to profusely apologize to him because she saw how embarrassed he was.

Bogart said later that, from his years of playing villains, he became used to treating leading ladies simply as colleagues, not romantic or sexual figures, or potential conquests - since he never had to play love scenes with them.

And even though eventually everyone figured out that this short balding scarred-lipped lisping man was DAMN sexy - he never really figured that out, and never was comfortable with all of that. Bette Davis was sure that that was why his love scenes are so effective.

"He holds parts of himself back. The way men do in real life. Women understand that, they recognize that. It's very attractive."

(Again: I am mortified at my autistic level of knowledge. Pressing through it, pressing through it)

Bogart said to an interviewer once, "I don't like love scenes, maybe because I don't do them very well. It isn't possible to shoot a love scene without having a hairy-chested group of grips standing four feet away from you, chewing tobacco. I'll handle that in the privacy of my bedroom, old boy."

To give you an idea of the vibe around Bogart at the time they were going into Casablanca -

Jack Warner, head of Warner Brothers, apparently said, to Ingrid Bergman, scoffingly, before the shooting began:

"Who'd want to kiss Bogart?"

Ingrid calmly said, "I would."

Women were ahead of the curve on that one.

Obsession Central: Bogart

Bogart, after doing film after film after film where he played a villain - this was in the early 30s - where he always seemed to get shot by Edward G. Robinson - finally got a chance to show another side to his character in Maltese Falcon. Yeah, that guy kind of was a bit shady, played both sides of the law, but he was tough, he was gritty, and in the end, he did the right thing, even though he did love the girl. He let her hang by her "sweet neck", regardless of his personal feelings for her.

But because he had only played bad guys, interminably, he was completely baffled and "phobic" (his words) about doing love scenes. He felt awkward, silly, had no idea what to do - and also embarrassed about the scar on his lip.

His first screen kiss was with the delicious Mary Astor in Maltese Falcon - and apparently he couldn't get it right, couldn't grab her right, couldn't get his act together, couldn't relax. They did take after take. He started to sweat profusely, and the makeup-guy had to keep running over to dab at Bogart's face.

John Huston finally exploded, "It's just a simple kiss, it's nothing! Grab her, kiss her, turn her loose! That's it!!"

7 takes later, Huston was finally satisfied.

Mary Astor later said about Bogart, "He didn't like love scenes. He's not really a kissing type. But Bogie didn't have to kiss the girl. He didn't have to touch her. You knew by the way he looked at her."

They worked together again in Across the Pacific (Just so you know: I am typing all of this THROUGH my embarrassment. I am embarrassed that I know all of this information. But there is nothing else to do but to share it.) Anyway: Astor and Bogart had to kiss again a year later, in Across the Pacific. Bogart still treated the whole thing awkwardly, embarrassed.

At one point, she pulled back and snapped at him, "Try not to knock my teeth out next time!"

Bogart was mortified and mumbled, "I'm sorry, kid."

Mary Astor then, of course, had to profusely apologize to him because she saw how embarrassed he was.

Bogart said later that, from his years of playing villains, he became used to treating leading ladies simply as colleagues, not romantic or sexual figures, or potential conquests - since he never had to play love scenes with them.

And even though eventually everyone figured out that this short balding scarred-lipped lisping man was DAMN sexy - he never really figured that out, and never was comfortable with all of that. Bette Davis was sure that that was why his love scenes are so effective.

"He holds parts of himself back. The way men do in real life. Women understand that, they recognize that. It's very attractive."

(Again: I am mortified at my autistic level of knowledge. Pressing through it, pressing through it)

Bogart said to an interviewer once, "I don't like love scenes, maybe because I don't do them very well. It isn't possible to shoot a love scene without having a hairy-chested group of grips standing four feet away from you, chewing tobacco. I'll handle that in the privacy of my bedroom, old boy."

To give you an idea of the vibe around Bogart at the time they were going into Casablanca -

Jack Warner, head of Warner Brothers, apparently said, to Ingrid Bergman, scoffingly, before the shooting began:

"Who'd want to kiss Bogart?"

Ingrid calmly said, "I would."

Women were ahead of the curve on that one.

Obsession Central: Maltese Falcon

Letter to Jack Warner, from George Raft, a big star, turning down the role in The Maltese Falcon:

"As you know, I strongly feel that The Maltese Falcon is not an important picture."

Obsession Central: Maltese Falcon

Letter to Jack Warner, from George Raft, a big star, turning down the role in The Maltese Falcon:

"As you know, I strongly feel that The Maltese Falcon is not an important picture."

Obsession Central: Bogart

Humphrey Bogart started out as a stage manager, in the 1920s. Occasionally, along with the job of stage manager, he would understudy lead roles. He knew nothing about acting. He described the first night he had to go on, and hearing other actors talking to him, and sensing the audience out there - and he said he had never been so afraid in his life.

He started getting parts on his own, however. Usually second to the leading man. He wasn't a tough guy yet. He played young urbane lovesick kids, and apparently (this may just be a legend) said, as an improvisation one night, "Tennis, anyone?" That pretty much sums up the kinds of parts he played.

Usually he was never mentioned in the reviews.

One review, however, for the play Swifty was the first one that ever mentioned him, the first time his name was ever in the newspaper.

Here is what the review said:

"The young man who embodies the aforesaid sprig is what is usually and mercifully described as inadequate."

Bogart kept that clipped-out review for the rest of his days.

Obsession Central: Bogart

Humphrey Bogart started out as a stage manager, in the 1920s. Occasionally, along with the job of stage manager, he would understudy lead roles. He knew nothing about acting. He described the first night he had to go on, and hearing other actors talking to him, and sensing the audience out there - and he said he had never been so afraid in his life.

He started getting parts on his own, however. Usually second to the leading man. He wasn't a tough guy yet. He played young urbane lovesick kids, and apparently (this may just be a legend) said, as an improvisation one night, "Tennis, anyone?" That pretty much sums up the kinds of parts he played.

Usually he was never mentioned in the reviews.

One review, however, for the play Swifty was the first one that ever mentioned him, the first time his name was ever in the newspaper.

Here is what the review said:

"The young man who embodies the aforesaid sprig is what is usually and mercifully described as inadequate."

Bogart kept that clipped-out review for the rest of his days.

Bit of Trivia

-- that perhaps everybody else already know.

You know the scene in Treasure of the Sierra Madre where the little Hispanic kid runs up to Bogart, trying to sell him a lottery ticket? And he bugs him and bugs him until finally Bogart throws a glass of water in his face?

The little kid shows up a couple of scenes later, to tell Dobbs his ticket won - just in time to save the day, and give them the necessary cash to go prospecting...

Anyway - you know that kid?

That was Robert Blake. Mr. I-went-back-to-the-restaurant-to-get-my-gun-and-when-I-returned-to-the-car-my-crazy/skank wife-was-dead Blake.

I know he's in a lot of trouble right now, and sounds like he's guilty as sin, but he was some actor, when the part was right. In Cold Blood comes to mind, with that great shot of him looking out the window, as the rain falls, and the reflection of the raindrops makes it LOOK as though he's crying. Classic.

Yesterday I stayed home and read this biography of Bogart I have (help? Obsession?) - and there were many quotes from the young and intimidated "Bobby" Blake, who was 11 or 12 at the time, about what Bogart was like.

The main impression Blake had - or the main thing he remembered - which shocked him, as a little kid - was how Bogart would look at the script, and immediately start cutting his lines down. Crossing stuff out, mercilessly.

Smart man.

If you can convey something without words, all the better.

But Blake watched this process, thinking, "Wow! He doesn't want to talk!"

Obsession Central: Treasure of the Sierra Madre

So like I said: I've been very very sick for the past 3 days. Bed-ridden kind of sick. My rib-cage actually hurts.

One advantage of illness, is that you can watch 3 movies a day, while lolling about in your pajamas, and feel very little guilt. I mean, I do that normally, but when I'm sick, I feel even less guilt.

This weekend, I watched "Treasure of the Sierra Madre" - which, no doubt, is a great great favorite with many people out there.

What a fantastic movie - quite ahead of its time, I think. Ahead of its time because of the darkness of the story, its ambiguities, its lack of redemption at the end ... the pointlessness of it all - the nihilism ... and then the roaring laughter as they realize that all their gold has blown away ...

I loved it. The acting is so good, all around, that you want to eat it up with a big spoon. YUM.

Roger Ebert puts this film on the Best Movies Ever Made list. Most other reviewers do as well, and it is in the Top 100 Films Ever Made, chosen by the AFI.

I loved Roger Ebert's words on the movie. Here is the review in total, for those who are interested.

The excerpts I like, though:

It tells this story with gusto and Huston's love of male camaraderie, and it occasionally breaks into laughter -- some funny, some bitterly ironic. It happens on a sun-blasted high chaparral landscape, usually desolate, except for the three gold prospectors, although gangs of bandits and villages of Indians materialize when required. At the end, it has Bogart in a delirious mad scene that falls somewhere between "King Lear" and "Greed."

Bogart plays Fred C. Dobbs, one of the movie characters everybody can name.

So true, huh?

The descent of his character into paranoia is, again, indicative of his greatness and also his lack of ego as an actor. He did not care about appearances. He cared about truth. Dobbs is a scary guy. A tragic guy.

And then - Ebert talks about Walter Huston - My God, who can ever forget Walter Huston's performance?? Wasn't he magnificent? It's deceptively simple, what he does. I watched his acting like a hawk, because the performance is now considered a classic performance, one of the great examples of movie-acting ... I feel like I could see the movie 20 times and still not get to the bottom of what makes Huston's acting so fantastic.

Ebert tries to analyze it too:

The performance is a masterpiece by Walter Huston, John's father, and won an Academy Award ... Listen to the way the senior Huston talks, rapid-fire, without pause, as if he's briefing them on an old tale and doesn't have time to waste on nuance. He does a famous dance when he finally finds gold, playing the stereotype of a grizzled prospector, but see how his eyes are sometimes quiet even when he's playing the fool; he reads every situation, knows his options, tries to slow Dobbs' meltdown.

That's part of it. He does "play the fool". It is like Huston is The Fool to Bogart's King Lear. And yet - of course - in this picture, as in Shakespeare, the Fool is always the wisest character of them all.

But Ebert ends his review with a discussion of the Dobbs character, as so fearlessly created by Humphrey Bogart:

I've seen "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre" many times, but watching it again today on a new DVD, I found myself gripped as always by Bogart's closing scenes. The movie has never really been about gold but about character, and Bogart fearlessly makes Fred C. Dobbs into a pathetic, frightened, selfish man -- so sick we would be tempted to pity him, if he were not so undeserving of pity. The other two characters get more or less what they deserve at the end of the film, but with less satisfaction for the audience. After Howard is taken in by an Indian tribe, there is a gratuitous shot, where a young maiden pats his whiskers and he all but winks directly at the camera; this shot, and the idyllic village life surrounding it, belong in a lesser movie.

As the stories of Howard and Curtin evaporate into convention, however, Fred C. Dobbs somehow moves to a higher level of tragedy. Hearing things in the night, desperate for a drink of water, staggering under the desert sun with the gold he valued so much, Dobbs is the tragic hero brought down precisely by his flaws. There is a pitiless stark realism in these scenes that brings the movie to honesty and truth. Leading up to them is a down-market Shakespearean soliloquy when Dobbs thinks he is a murderer and says, "Conscience. What a thing! If you believe you got a conscience, it'll pester you to death. But if you don't believe you got one, what could it do to ya?" He finds out.

When Dobbs, after begging for money in the streets at the beginning of the film, uses the coins to get a shave and a haircut - there is a close-up of him, as he asks John Huston (the man in the white suit, also the director of the film - making a brief cameo) for money. He wants to go buy a whore, and so he has gotten himself gussied up.

But his hair is so thin, his face is so tragic and serious - he has his thin hair combed over to one side, sleeked, he is in his 50s, his face has all these lines, he has that weird almost buck-toothed mouth - and it is an unforgiving closeup, as he asks for money again.

He looks so pathetic. So ... old and unattractive.

Granted: Bogart wasn't your typical Good-looking Movie Star Guy. But still - this is the most unattractive and pathetic you will ever see him. Bogart rarely played pathetic guys, guys your heart aches for even though you would not want to spend one minute in their presence ...

It's a brave performance - completely successful - and yes, it is tragic in its scope.

Trivia about the film:

Humphrey Bogart and John Huston worked many times together - pretty much always to very very famous results.

Maltese Falcon - which has to be one of the most impressive directorial debuts in motion picture history. Bogart, already a star, agreed to do the film - after George Raft turned it down, not wanting to trust his career to an unknown director.

African Queen - Jesus. What a film!

Key Largo - another great and atmospheric movie. I'll post about it later. Watched it from my sick-bed this weekend.

So anyway - Lauren Bacall, in her autobiography, talked a lot about Bogarts and Huston's working relationship. John Huston was, as Bacall said, "a genius, and I don't use that term lightly". But his "genius" came with all of the baggage: not wanting to be pinned down, absolutely rootless - had no sense of place or home - didn't care if he went over on a film - because he had no one to come home to (or - if he did, wife, kids, whatever - he didn't care). Humphrey Bogart was just the opposite. He was a homebody, especially after he married Bacall and had kids. He didn't care about traveling, he didn't think Africa was "fascinating", he had no curiosity about it, nothing - he just wanted to do the damn movie, and then go home to his kids, and his yacht.

So Huston and Bogart often clashed - but they also kept each other on their toes.

Bogart said that Huston pushed actors to "go beyond themselves" - that he always found himself taking bigger risks, when Huston was at the helm. He loved working with a director who pushed him.

And Huston, a precursor to Coppola I suppose, and Michael Cimino, and other flamboyant extravagant directors, would never finish a movie, EVER, if someone didn't keep him on track. Bogart was usually that person. He would keep Huston on schedule. "Okay, let's finish up with this scene today - we've definitely gotten what we need ... Let's move on."

Bogart loved acting. But he loved hanging out at home, too. He wouldn't want to stay on location for 18 months. He was a professional, and loved his home-life.

Before filming began for Sierra Madre, Bogart had entered his beloved yacht "The Santana" into some kind of big yacht race, in Honolulu. "The Santana" was his greatest passion in life, besides his passion for Bacall and for acting. He got a professional crew, he was so excited, he blocked out the time ... it was something to look forward to, immediately following the filming.

Huston, though, showed no compunction for staying on schedule.

Bogart had made it perfectly clear: "I have a yacht race on such and such a date - You have to be finished with me by then."

Huston: "Oh, of course, of course."

Filming crept by, they were further and further behind schedule, and Bogart was getting more and more anxious.

"John - you promised. I have to be in Honolulu by such-and-such."

Huston kept putting him off: "You will be! You will be!"

Bogart finally exploded - when he realized that no way on EARTH would this film come in on schedule. "You BASTARD - YOU PROMISED - YOU'VE BEEN DICKING AROUND IN THIS DESERT LONG ENOUGH..."

Needless to say, Bogart missed his race.

But his friendship with Huston survived. Bacall asked Huston to give the eulogy at Bogart's funeral.

And under Huston's direction, Bogart gave some of his most memorable performances.

Obsession Central: Treasure of the Sierra Madre

So like I said: I've been very very sick for the past 3 days. Bed-ridden kind of sick. My rib-cage actually hurts.

One advantage of illness, is that you can watch 3 movies a day, while lolling about in your pajamas, and feel very little guilt. I mean, I do that normally, but when I'm sick, I feel even less guilt.

This weekend, I watched "Treasure of the Sierra Madre" - which, no doubt, is a great great favorite with many people out there.

What a fantastic movie - quite ahead of its time, I think. Ahead of its time because of the darkness of the story, its ambiguities, its lack of redemption at the end ... the pointlessness of it all - the nihilism ... and then the roaring laughter as they realize that all their gold has blown away ...

I loved it. The acting is so good, all around, that you want to eat it up with a big spoon. YUM.

Roger Ebert puts this film on the Best Movies Ever Made list. Most other reviewers do as well, and it is in the Top 100 Films Ever Made, chosen by the AFI.

I loved Roger Ebert's words on the movie. Here is the review in total, for those who are interested.

The excerpts I like, though:

It tells this story with gusto and Huston's love of male camaraderie, and it occasionally breaks into laughter -- some funny, some bitterly ironic. It happens on a sun-blasted high chaparral landscape, usually desolate, except for the three gold prospectors, although gangs of bandits and villages of Indians materialize when required. At the end, it has Bogart in a delirious mad scene that falls somewhere between "King Lear" and "Greed."

Bogart plays Fred C. Dobbs, one of the movie characters everybody can name.

So true, huh?

The descent of his character into paranoia is, again, indicative of his greatness and also his lack of ego as an actor. He did not care about appearances. He cared about truth. Dobbs is a scary guy. A tragic guy.

And then - Ebert talks about Walter Huston - My God, who can ever forget Walter Huston's performance?? Wasn't he magnificent? It's deceptively simple, what he does. I watched his acting like a hawk, because the performance is now considered a classic performance, one of the great examples of movie-acting ... I feel like I could see the movie 20 times and still not get to the bottom of what makes Huston's acting so fantastic.

Ebert tries to analyze it too:

The performance is a masterpiece by Walter Huston, John's father, and won an Academy Award ... Listen to the way the senior Huston talks, rapid-fire, without pause, as if he's briefing them on an old tale and doesn't have time to waste on nuance. He does a famous dance when he finally finds gold, playing the stereotype of a grizzled prospector, but see how his eyes are sometimes quiet even when he's playing the fool; he reads every situation, knows his options, tries to slow Dobbs' meltdown.

That's part of it. He does "play the fool". It is like Huston is The Fool to Bogart's King Lear. And yet - of course - in this picture, as in Shakespeare, the Fool is always the wisest character of them all.

But Ebert ends his review with a discussion of the Dobbs character, as so fearlessly created by Humphrey Bogart:

I've seen "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre" many times, but watching it again today on a new DVD, I found myself gripped as always by Bogart's closing scenes. The movie has never really been about gold but about character, and Bogart fearlessly makes Fred C. Dobbs into a pathetic, frightened, selfish man -- so sick we would be tempted to pity him, if he were not so undeserving of pity. The other two characters get more or less what they deserve at the end of the film, but with less satisfaction for the audience. After Howard is taken in by an Indian tribe, there is a gratuitous shot, where a young maiden pats his whiskers and he all but winks directly at the camera; this shot, and the idyllic village life surrounding it, belong in a lesser movie.

As the stories of Howard and Curtin evaporate into convention, however, Fred C. Dobbs somehow moves to a higher level of tragedy. Hearing things in the night, desperate for a drink of water, staggering under the desert sun with the gold he valued so much, Dobbs is the tragic hero brought down precisely by his flaws. There is a pitiless stark realism in these scenes that brings the movie to honesty and truth. Leading up to them is a down-market Shakespearean soliloquy when Dobbs thinks he is a murderer and says, "Conscience. What a thing! If you believe you got a conscience, it'll pester you to death. But if you don't believe you got one, what could it do to ya?" He finds out.

When Dobbs, after begging for money in the streets at the beginning of the film, uses the coins to get a shave and a haircut - there is a close-up of him, as he asks John Huston (the man in the white suit, also the director of the film - making a brief cameo) for money. He wants to go buy a whore, and so he has gotten himself gussied up.

But his hair is so thin, his face is so tragic and serious - he has his thin hair combed over to one side, sleeked, he is in his 50s, his face has all these lines, he has that weird almost buck-toothed mouth - and it is an unforgiving closeup, as he asks for money again.

He looks so pathetic. So ... old and unattractive.

Granted: Bogart wasn't your typical Good-looking Movie Star Guy. But still - this is the most unattractive and pathetic you will ever see him. Bogart rarely played pathetic guys, guys your heart aches for even though you would not want to spend one minute in their presence ...

It's a brave performance - completely successful - and yes, it is tragic in its scope.

Trivia about the film:

Humphrey Bogart and John Huston worked many times together - pretty much always to very very famous results.

Maltese Falcon - which has to be one of the most impressive directorial debuts in motion picture history. Bogart, already a star, agreed to do the film - after George Raft turned it down, not wanting to trust his career to an unknown director.

African Queen - Jesus. What a film!

Key Largo - another great and atmospheric movie. I'll post about it later. Watched it from my sick-bed this weekend.

So anyway - Lauren Bacall, in her autobiography, talked a lot about Bogarts and Huston's working relationship. John Huston was, as Bacall said, "a genius, and I don't use that term lightly". But his "genius" came with all of the baggage: not wanting to be pinned down, absolutely rootless - had no sense of place or home - didn't care if he went over on a film - because he had no one to come home to (or - if he did, wife, kids, whatever - he didn't care). Humphrey Bogart was just the opposite. He was a homebody, especially after he married Bacall and had kids. He didn't care about traveling, he didn't think Africa was "fascinating", he had no curiosity about it, nothing - he just wanted to do the damn movie, and then go home to his kids, and his yacht.

So Huston and Bogart often clashed - but they also kept each other on their toes.

Bogart said that Huston pushed actors to "go beyond themselves" - that he always found himself taking bigger risks, when Huston was at the helm. He loved working with a director who pushed him.

And Huston, a precursor to Coppola I suppose, and Michael Cimino, and other flamboyant extravagant directors, would never finish a movie, EVER, if someone didn't keep him on track. Bogart was usually that person. He would keep Huston on schedule. "Okay, let's finish up with this scene today - we've definitely gotten what we need ... Let's move on."

Bogart loved acting. But he loved hanging out at home, too. He wouldn't want to stay on location for 18 months. He was a professional, and loved his home-life.

Before filming began for Sierra Madre, Bogart had entered his beloved yacht "The Santana" into some kind of big yacht race, in Honolulu. "The Santana" was his greatest passion in life, besides his passion for Bacall and for acting. He got a professional crew, he was so excited, he blocked out the time ... it was something to look forward to, immediately following the filming.

Huston, though, showed no compunction for staying on schedule.

Bogart had made it perfectly clear: "I have a yacht race on such and such a date - You have to be finished with me by then."

Huston: "Oh, of course, of course."

Filming crept by, they were further and further behind schedule, and Bogart was getting more and more anxious.

"John - you promised. I have to be in Honolulu by such-and-such."

Huston kept putting him off: "You will be! You will be!"

Bogart finally exploded - when he realized that no way on EARTH would this film come in on schedule. "You BASTARD - YOU PROMISED - YOU'VE BEEN DICKING AROUND IN THIS DESERT LONG ENOUGH..."

Needless to say, Bogart missed his race.

But his friendship with Huston survived. Bacall asked Huston to give the eulogy at Bogart's funeral.

And under Huston's direction, Bogart gave some of his most memorable performances.

Obsession Central: Bogart

Watched a very strange movie last night: Dark Passage. Anyone seen it? It doesn't quite work, for some reason. The ending, which should be the most romantic exciting thing in the world, was a bit flat. But there are definitely wonderful moments.

The movie left me a bit blue, truth be told.

Obsession Central: Casablanca

Humphrey Bogart said:

"Of course, I did nothing in Casablanca that I hadn't done in twenty movies before that, and suddenly they discover I'm sexy. Any time that Ingrid Bergman looks at a man, he has sex appeal."

Obsession Central: Casablanca

Ingrid Bergman desperately wanted to get out of making the film. So did Humphrey Bogart. Nobody knew that Casablanca was going to end up spanning decades and lasting ... At the time, it was just another movie, being churned out by the studio. No big deal, nothing special.

This one had some special problems, though.

Bogart was primarily concerned with the fact that the script, when they began shooting, had no ending. Bergman was concerned about that, too - and with good reason. Without knowing the ending, and who she is supposed to end up with ... how was she supposed to play her scenes? Did she love Rick? Or was she just using him for the Letters of Transit? Did she love Victor? Blah blah ... Of course, the very ambiguity of the whole thing, and Ingrid Bergman not knowing the ending herself is - I think - one of the reasons why the film is so perfect, and still so cherished. None of us know the ending of our own stories. Half of us are running around, thinking we're in love with one, and then we realize: Oh wait, no, I don't love him ... I love him ... How many of us are absolutely clear at all times? (And if you are absolutely clear in your conviction at all times, you would make a terrible fictional character, boring and predictable. In my opinion, the character of Victor doesn't withstand the test of time as well as Ilse and Rick do - because of that absolute black and white clarity at all times.) Ambiguity, mystery, and CONFLICT, above all, is what we remember, and what an audienc relates to. It can't have been a pleasant experience for Bergman, since she was such a specific actress - but I think not knowing the end adds to the mystery of her performance. We never know if we should trust her or not.

But the other reason why Bergman didn't want to do the film, is that she was convinced she was miscast.

She and Bogart had lunch together before they started shooting - and Geraldine Fitzgerald (a wonderful actress, also under contract at Warner Brothers - anyone ever see the great film "The Pawnbroker", with Rod Steiger? She's in that) sat with them.

Fitzgerald describes Bogart's concern and anxiety about the lack of an ending.

And Bergman kept saying, "I am miscast. Why doesn't anyone care that I am so miscast? The script says: 'We have never had a woman so beautiful come to Casablanca'. But I look like a milkmaid. No one will ever believe it."

I kind of love her for that. "I look like a milkmaid."

Obsession Central: Lauren Bacall

When Lauren Bacall was 17, she modeled for a season for the designers on 7th Avenue. By her own admission, she was not very good at it. Here is what she said, when she came to do a seminar at my school:

"I was flat-chested and very skinny. The clothes of that time just didn't look good on me."

If you think of how female body-types go in and out of fashion, you can see that she is quite right, as gorgeous as she is. Her body-type is actually "in" now. But the clothes didn't hang right on her shoulders, she had slim hips, etc. Not at all right for the time.

However - she happened to meet a man during this time who arranged an introduction with Diana Vreeland, legendary fashion editor of Harper's Bazaar at the time.

(Bogie and Bacall freaks will know this story by heart, I realize. If I skip anything essential, please let me know...But I am just telling the story as she told it to us.)

Diana Vreeland, who was a bit of a visionary, actually - saw something in the teenage "Betty". Now it is obvious that Vreeland saw what it was in her that would captivate an audience. She saw the "star" - the star that was already there.

So Vreeland put Betty Bacall on the cover of Harper's Bazaar. I have been Googling like an insane person to try to find the image - because it's amazing. But I can't find it. (I know that by stating that it is like sprinkling blood in front of a vampire ... Now it will be a race to see who finds me the image first...) [Update: FOUND IT.]

I believe the photo was taken in 1941 or 1942 - and she was standing in front of a huge Red Cross. It is an arresting image. She has a flat blank face, she stares straight at the camera - there is nothing coy about her. Her skin is pale, her lips are bright red. Again: she doesn't quite look like what models looked like in that time period. She looks like what models look like now. There is a very clear identity on her face - you can see her personality - which models didn't quite have at that time. Think of the runway models now - how they stalk right at you - with this flat blank "Yeah, this is who I am" stare. That was what Bacall looked like on that cover.

The Harper's Bazaar cover was, as Bacall described it to us, "the twist of fate that changed my life forever".

Slim Hawks, wife of the famous film director Howard Hawks (who directed "Bringing Up Baby" with Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn - one of my favorite movies of all time - and which was the basis for another one of my favorite movies of all time - "What's Up Doc?") saw the photo of Betty Bacall and showed it to her husband.

"What do you think of her? Do you think you could do something with her?"

He was relatively unimpressed (or so he said) - but the picture made enough of an impression on him to ask her to come out to Hollywood for a screen test.

Just a general test. In those days, they just put actors under contracts. You were under contract to one studio - yes, they could loan you out to other studios - but the studios controlled actors lives. There's a story in the book I just read (The Making of Casablanca) that describes Bogart pleading with Jack Warner to let him have two weeks off in between films. Warner told him, "No way. We need to start on such and such a date." Imagine a studio-head treating Tom Cruise that way!! Bogart was the biggest star of his day and he had to beg for a vacation!

So anyway. Betty Bacall came out and did her screen test.

Howard Hawks became a bit obsessed with Betty. Not in a creepy way. But he (according to Bacall) had a fantasy about women, and a fantasy about how they should be on screen.

Bacall went into this in a major way when she came and talked at my school.

This is a paraphrase of what she said:

"Hawks had an ideal in his head, of what women should be. He knew that when you are playing a dramatic scene, it is customary that your voice rises. He didn't want that. He always wanted, no matter how dramatic the circumstances were, that my voice should stay in the lower register. He felt that women - in scenes with men - should not behave like women, but they should behave more like men. And answer back. Be completely equal to the man. Which was, of course, unheard of at the time. And he came to see me as the epitome of that fantasy. He wanted me to be the mystery woman, the girl who could not be pegged."

Someone asked Bacall:

"So he wanted someone who could be as tough as Bogie?"

Bacall immediately corrected the assumption:

"Not tough. Not tough. Insolent. He wanted me to give as good as I got."

I love that.

Hawks immediately put Betty Bacall under contract. It was just a matter of time before he found the right material for this strange skinny insolent teenage girl. That film, of course, was "To Have and Have Not".

But before that came along - Hawks was very careful about her. He wanted her to maintain a sense of mystery and power. She was not just another starlet. He wanted to orchestrate her career- which he ended up doing - brilliantly.

Here is how Bacall described one of her conversations with Hawks (I love this!!! It epitomizes, beautifully, how so often we do not know what is best for us ... It is only in retrospect that we understand). Bacall said to us:

"Hawks said to me, 'I have a feeling that you would be great in a movie with either Cary Grant ... or Humphrey Bogart.' And I thought to myself, 'Ooooooh, Cary Grant! That sounds like a good idea!!"

We all roared. Because, of course, Hawks ended up casting her in "To Have and Have Not" with Bogie - and the rest is history.

One last thing about Bacall:

When she came to my school, she said to us that she had spent the majority of her life "quaking in fear". Hard to imagine, but true. At every step along the way, she had huge obstacles to overcome - of fear, shyness, self-confidence problems ... She was terrified to meet Diana Vreeland. She was terrified to meet Howard Hawks. She was terrified of what would happen to her after Bogie died. She was terrified to star in "Applause" on Broadway – the musical version of All About Eve (she ended up winning the first of two Tonys by the way)

Her fear, at times, was so great that her head would actually shake back and forth a bit, in a slight tremor.

The only way Bacall found to stop this tremor - was to lower her chin. Keep her chin low. No matter what. This became known as "her look". Her signature look of insolence and strength of character.

But it all originally was just a solution to stop her fearful shaking head.

Beautiful. True courage.

Obsession Central: The Caine Mutiny

Thanks to Bill McCabe - for sending me his copy of The Caine Mutiny - which I watched a couple nights ago.

I actually don't think I've ever seen the film in its entirety. But the main character - Capt. Queeg - is, through osmosis, emblazoned in my mind, my psyche, anyway. Rolling the silver balls around in his hand, paranoid, insane, under cross-examination. The scene is referenced often, and for good reason.

The movie has one problem: LOSE THE LOVE STORY. It was a big yawn - I'm sure it was the typical movie-makers ploy of any plot dominated by men. They feared that women wouldn't see it, without a little bit of nookie goin' on.

Actually, come to think of it, that was probably why I never saw the film before. Because of the highly reasonable (snicker) and not-thought-out gut-level response of: "Where are all the girls??"

This is why it took me 15 years to get around to really reading "Moby Dick". Which is a shame.

The Caine Mutiny would have been much better if they had cut the girl out!!

But that opinion aside:

What I REALLY need to talk about is Bogie. Surprise surprise.

The famous cross-examination scene is rightly famous. What you see is a man disintegrating under pressure. The facade of his reasoning cracks, and Bogie lets you see the chaos and paranoia inside. I re-wound it again and again, watching it like a lunatic, asking myself the question: "How ...how does he do it?"

The disintegration takes place in one take. Which is (in my wee opinion) the mark of a true actor. A lesser actor would not be able to pull such a feat off, in continuum. The director would need to call "Cut" - and give the actor a second to get to the NEXT phase of the disintegration - and then "Cut" again ... But a real actor could actually go through the disintegration - could actually let the camera reveal the crack-up.

This is what he does.

It's brilliant. It's masterful. It took my breath away.

At first, he is cool, reasonable, logical. He has all the answers. 5 minutes later, we see that that quality of his ("having all the answers") is the very thing that makes him paranoid and insane. But Bogie doesn't tip his hand too early. He holds his cards close to his chest. Which is why I think his work is still so revered today, and will continue to be so. He holds back. He doesn't show all. People who show all are boring - and also - their work has a tendency to not withstand the test of time.

It is when Jose Ferrer (the great prosecutor - great acting job, there) brings up the infamous "missing strawberries" that Queeg's veneer cracks.

But again - it's subtle. Bogie would never chew the scenery. He had too much humility.

The second the strawberries come up, he puts his hand in his pocket, reaching for his security blanket - the little rolling silver balls. But again - he's not doing it as a "bit", or as a wink to the audience, like: "Heh heh, watch me go craaaazy now!!" He does it, because it is what the character would do in that moment. But the second they come out, you know the jig is up.

And he starts to ramble on ... about the grave problem of "pilfering food" on a warship ... all the while, you can hear the nutso "click-click-click-click" of the rolling balls as he talks.

Watch the scene again.

Watch how Bogie pauses - very slightly - before and after the words "geometric logic" ... It is there where you can see the genius of the man.

Queeg is rambling on and on about the conspiracy of the ship to make him look like a fool, and he defends his behavior, in terms of the missing strawberries ... and in the middle of it ... he says that he "proved" with "geometric logic" that such-and-such occurred ... but there's a pause before and after. He is trying to think of the right words, he is trying to show how smart he is ... so he thinks for a teeny bit ... and then sputters out "geometric logic" - Bogie makes it look as though it is coming from off the top of his head, even though you know that they began as lines on the page. The way he does it is SCARY.

Here's the exact wording of the speech:

Ahh, but the strawberries that's... that's where I had them. They laughed at me and made jokes but I proved beyond the shadow of a doubt and with... geometric logic... that a duplicate key to the wardroom icebox DID exist, and I'd have produced that key if they hadn't of pulled the Caine out of action. I, I, I know now they were only trying to protect some fellow officers...

Madness is frightening, in all its forms ... and that "geometric logic" is terrifying.

By the end of the speech it is as though Queeg, suddenly, hears himself ... and realizes how long he has been speaking ... (all with the scary click-click-click of the rolling balls, an accompaniment to the scene) ... and, with this ... unbelievably touching look on his face - he subsides.

"Touching". That is not the right word at all.

It's more like "tragic".

I can't pin it down. Queeg hears himself, for the first time, as other people hear him. He is saddened, frightened ... he will lose much ... He knows he has just lost.

In that second, a slight shadow, from outside the window, darkens his brow. It's subtle, not a big moment, not a big "HERE IS THE SUBTEXT" moment. But it is there, and it says it all.

A shadow on this man's brain.

An absolutely great piece of acting. Truly masterful.

Oh, and one last thing: In a weird way, I felt very very sorry for Captain Queeg. I really did. I don't know if I have ever felt sorry for a Humphrey Bogart character before - even in Casablanca when he is so tormented - but I felt bad for Queeg.

Obsession Central

I am now devouring a book called The Making of Casablanca. I will be sharing some anecdotes with you ... because I know many of you are fans.

Michael Curtiz, the director, was apparently a demanding terrifying (and also highly talented, obviously) son-of-a-bitch who hated actors and who, according to his stepson, "spoke five languages, and all of them badly."

Ha!!!

Anyway, Curtiz was shooting one scene where Claude Rains enters the cafe. Curtiz was only kind and deferential to Bergman during the shoot, everyone else cowered in fear, or hid in their dressing rooms. Bogie drank and played chess by mail with a correspondent in Brooklyn in his dressing room - Bogie also was hiding from his terrifying 3rd wife, a drunkard, who used to beat the crap out of him. Smack him across the face in a drunken rage, etc. Bogie was standing around on the set, and one of the crew members said to another crew member: "Hey, wanna see me make Bogie jump?" Not believing anything could ruffle Bogie, the other crew member said "Sure." So original crew member walked over and said, "Hey, Bogie, your wife's here." And Bogie would jump, startled, looking around anxiously.

Thank God he dumped THAT broad!

More of that obsessive nonsense will be forthcoming as I go through the book.

So the scene was a simple scene: All Claude Rains had to do was walk into the cafe.

He did it.

Curtiz asked him to do it with more energy.

Claude Rains entered the cafe again, with "more energy".

Curtiz still wasn't pleased, and said, "Please. Do it again. More energy."

Claude Rains tried it again, tried it with more energy.

Curtiz, now visibly annoyed, said, "Do it again. More energy this time."

Claude Rains gave it another go.

Curtiz shook his head. "Again. More energy, dammit, more energy!!"

Claude Rains, now nearing the end of his rope, tried his entrance one more time, putting ALL of his energy into the entrance.

Curtiz growled, "Nope. Do it again. More energy."

Completely fed up with being unable to please Curtiz, Rains "did it again" - only this time, he rode into the cafe on a bicycle.

Obsession Central

Watched "The Big Sleep" last night.

Holy crap.

SO GOOD. So SEXY. It's amazing what they were able to slip past the censors. It's quite bold - actually bolder than films today, where everybody runs around naked, and nobody thinks anything of it.

Consider the scene when Bogart goes into the antique book shop ...and asks the shop girl questions about the storeowner across the street. Whom he is investigating.

It's a genius scene.

He and the shopgirl end up talking about rare books, but all along there is this crazy chemistry going on - He tells her to take off her glasses. When she does, he looks at her, and drawls, "Hellooo."... He takes a flask out of his pocket, she takes down two paper cups, grins at him in this insouciant way, walks over to the main door, pulls down the blind, and turns the sign to "Closed".

Fade out. No kiss. No nothing.

The next scene - it is an hour later (Bogart was waiting for the store owner across the street to return) - and Bogart leaves the antique book shop, saying something tender and cynical to her, "Sugar, thanks for the information..." The event is not judged. She is obviously a good person, a nice person. She's not a slut, a devil-character. She's a shop-girl with glasses. She is not judged. And neither is he. It's quite amazing, actually.

I thought: "Jesus. They just slept together. It is so OBVIOUS. They are strangers, they have a drink, they have an afternoon quickie - and nobody gets killed or pilloried or tarred and feathered for it..."

There are many examples like that in the film.

Lauren Bacall has this long fantastic speech about horse-racing, (Michael??) - she and Bogart are talking about how they love to go to horse races.

But that is NOT what they are talking about.

They are feeling each other out, they are trying to figure out if they should "bet" on each other. But nothing overt is said. It's so sexy. And it's from a Raymond Chandler story - so the dialogue is superb.

She says she likes to watch the races to see who takes the lead first ... but sometimes the best horse is the one who "comes from behind..."

Er ... what?

He laughs, too, when she says that. He laughs at the analogy. There is no coyness. They know what they're talking about.

I loved how, in the first scene, when Bogart comes to meet Mr. Sternwood - who wants to hire him to investigate his own daughter, among other things - but anyway, Mr. Sternwood is dying, and has built a sweltering greenhouse in the back, where he sits all day in a wheelchair. The heat helps him.

Bogart comes into that environment - and as the scene progresses - you can watch Bogart get hotter and hotter. It's so subtle - and Bogart would have been completely in charge of the progression of that. No director will ever remind you: "Now remember - it's hot!!" Bogart would have known that, instinctively. You can watch his discomfort grow. And when he exited the scene - there were huge sweat stains on the back of his shirt.

The film was done in 1946 ... and not often were stars, in those days, supposed to look un-shaven, sweaty, disheveled, what have you.

But this was Warner Brothers, first of all - a studio known for making gritty dark pictures. So maybe that was part of it.

I noticed the sweat stain immediately. In fact, I looked for it. It's the kind of stuff actors notice. I also noticed that he is then called in to meet with the Lauren Bacall character - and the sweat stain is still there, through the scene.

This is a very rare dose of reality, and human-ness - for the pictures of those times - and for a star of such magnitude as Bogart. It helps the movie. It keeps it grounded.

And then there's a sexy sexy moment when Bogart gives Lauren Bacall permission to scratch her knee. It's so good. I re-wound it 3 times. She sits on his desk, and I noticed, the first time through, her hand ... kind of idly circling on her knee ... it didn't call attention to itself, but I did notice it.

They continue to converse. She continues to gently circle her hand on her knee.

Finally, he says, in this bemused way (without ever having looked directly at her hand or her knee), "Go ahead. You can scratch it."

She freezes, embarrassed. And then, quickly, she pulls up the hem of her skirt, quickly and furiously scratches her thigh, pulls the skirt back down, and continues on with the scene.

It's a beautiful moment, beautifully realized.

Anyway. Great film. So much fun.

Obsession Central

Forgive me. The storm will pass. Someday. But in the meantime:

Some random facts about my latest obsession, collated from IMDB.

There is some dispute as to how Bogey's lip injury occurred. Another story of how Bogart got his trademark lisp: Bogart was a young guard for the Navy, and when a prisoner he was escorting attempted to escape, he hit Bogart in the face with his shackles. Bogart, fearing that he would lose his position and be severely punished for letting a prisoner escape, chased down the prisoner and brought him successfully to the Portsmouth Naval Prison. However because the surgeon who stitched up his face did not do a very good job, Bogart was left with his trademark lisp. Another version has it that he caught a large wood splinter in his lip at the age of twelve, but the combat story is more exciting.

This one cracked me up:

German dubbers translated his famous quote "Here's looking at you, kid" as "Ich schau' dir in die Augen, Kleines." which means "I look into your eyes, little one".

Doesn't quite have the same resonance, huh? Reminds me of the purposefully bad subtitles in Kill Bill. Hysterical.

The following trivia tidbit made my heart crack:

Played chess by mail with GIs during WWII.

And this:

His coffin contains a small, gold whistle, put there by his wife, Lauren Bacall.

Anyone who's seen "To Have and Have Not" will know what that whistle signifies. Damn.

And of course:

Ranked #1 on the American Film Institute's list of the greatest screen actors.

Lauren Bacall had this to say about being widowed, and grieving his death:

"Bogie himself said that dead is dead and life is for the living and you've got to move on - and if you don't, it's self-indulgent and does the dead no good. He said it dishonoured them because if they gave you so little care for your own life, then they didn't leave you with very much."

She came and did a seminar at my school, and talked a lot about what he taught her. I have it on tape ... I will have to dig it up from somewhere.

Why? BECAUSE I AM OBSESSED.

Bogie had this to say about Lauren Bacall:

"She's a real Joe. You'll fall in love with her like everybody else."

And of course, he and his wife openly and actively protested the harassment of Hollywood by the HUAC. Bogie had this to say about what they were doing to his colleagues:

"They'll nail anyone who ever scratched his ass during the National Anthem."

I love the following quote, it's so realistic:

"I came out here with one suit and everybody said I looked like a bum. Twenty years later Marlon Brando came out with only a sweatshirt and the town drooled over him. That shows how much Hollywood has progressed."

And apparently, these were Bogie's last words:

"I should never have switched from scotch to martinis."

Ruminations on Humphrey Bogart and the healthiness of celebrity crushes

I admit it. I'm having a little bit of a problem.

I am getting obsessed with Humphrey Bogart. The love is gone, folks. The obsession blossoms. I can feel it growing. Like some beautiful poisonous plant, expanding exponentially.

This is a very familiar sensation to me, as I have had INTENSE celebrity crushes since the first achey twinges of puberty.

And maybe because I have a little bit of a complex about being "too much" for whatever guy I've been involved with (and I'm not delusional, by the way - More than one man has said to me, point