BOGART

Discussion of the actors, directors and film-makers who 'made it all happen'
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MissGoddess
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BOGART

Post by MissGoddess »

I did a quick search, and only found a birthday thread on Bogart so I thought I'd just post this here.

Watching an early film, one of the first in which the now 30+ year-old Bogie got to play the lead, I was really struck by how much he changed and developed as an actor---and as a man---in less than a decade. He's almost a symbol for American men who went to war as boys and came home men, even though Bogart was too old for service in WWII. Maybe his stretch with the hard drinking Mayo Methot and his own alcoholism had much to do with this rapid change, along with increasingly fiercer battles with studio head Jack Warner when his confidence grew. Something had to recover that promising breakthrough in The Petrified Forest, but in the mean time Bogie did some curious films, to say the least.

The early movie I refered to is Love Affair (1932), directed by Thornton Freeman, and which I got to see for the first time this weekend thanks to a friend's generosity with his DVR. :) Freeman's only other films I've seen are the 1935 Brewster's Millions and probably his most famous one, Flying Down to Rio, which put Astaire and Rogers on the map.

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This isn't the classic love affair twice served by the brilliant Leo McCarey, and certainly not the best indication that Humphrey Bogart would one day become a romantic icon. He's still very light on his feet at this point, palpably wet behind the years and looks so slight that I didn't think he needed a plane to fly away. But he plays a airline engineer who falls in love with a somewhat jaded heiress (British born Dorothy Mackaill). Mackaill reminds me a lot of Claire Trevor in her demeanor, suggestive of a woman whose fires are kind of banked, just waiting, but not hoping anymore, for someone to come and light up her belief in life and love again. Her character's situation in life is not too clear beyond showing her living well and high, throwing her money and weight around and putting on a show of thrill seeking while at the same time seeming detached, as though her heart wasn't in it. She seems somehow older than Bogie and infinitely wiser (she was in reality just a few years younger than him).

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Humphrey Bogart and Dorothy Mackaill in Love Affair (1932). I presume that's director Thornton by the camera.

Things start out rocky because she's got the world by the tail and he's just starting out, an engineer with an idea for a motor that, like John Galt's, will power the world. She picked him up at Gilligan's flight school, and took him home after a rather silly three hour tour up in the air. When they get to her apartment its filled with swells, moochers, her sugar daddy and Kibbee, her sweet, befuddled manservant (Halliwell Hobbes). When Dorothy procedes to put Kibbee up on the auction block, Bogie thinks its time to make his exit from this bunch of monkeys.

She finds out where Bogie lives and confronts him about bailing on her party, but not much is made of that potentional conflict of class or values. Instead, looking so frail without his shirt on, Bogie stammers some excuse and is soon bubbling ( ! ) with excitement as he shows her his model engine.

It later turns out she wants to finance his dream with her now-and-then fiance's money (Hale Hamilton as "Bruce Hardy" who has, without her knowledge, been her over-draft protection after she's written one too many blank checks), but Bogie won't have that...though he will have Dorothy, that night, and this makes his character seem unable to make up his own mind.

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Bogie's "Jim Leonard" is, like a few of his early, non-gangster characters, a bit wishy-washy, even naive. Like a rabbit among the foxes, even his kid sister seems to be more cynical and scheming than he can grasp. Not only did his girlfriend slip one by him by starting-up his motor company with the money of another man, but his gold-digging baby sister (Astrid Allwyn) is the mistress of this same Hale and hearty Hardy! Funny stuff. I guess Bogart didn't learn his lesson because another girl would give him a "kick in the stomach" nine years later, at a train station in Paris. But by then he'd grown a spikey, care-worn shell and developed a cynical weight on screen that left you unprepared for anyone pulling the wool over him. Love Affair is a curiosity any fan of Bogie should see at least once if only to appreciate how far he came from this rather touchingly callow young man in 1932.

Love Affair is on DVD as part of Bogart's Columbia Pictures Collection.





"There's only one thing that can kill the movies, and that's education."
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moira finnie
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Re: BOGART

Post by moira finnie »

Excellent post about this early Bogie appearance in this Columbia film, Miss G., which I've only seen once when TCM ran it a few years ago, though I do remember how ingenuous his character seemed contrasted with Dorothy Mackaill's salty aviatrix. There was one line that he spoke that made me smile: "All that flaming youth stuff gives me a pain in the neck." He seems chagrined by her pre-code easiness and her reluctance to formalize any bond between them but was convincingly naive and vulnerable throughout the film.

I agree about the profound change that the actor's mien underwent between his early work, his subsequent years as the house weasel at Warner Brothers in so many gangster flicks, and the later, hard-boiled romantic he became as a star. Another early movie, Up the River (1930) also conveyed this youthful gentleness and lightweight quality, albeit in a prison movie crafted by John Ford featuring Spencer Tracy as well. This latter movie was one of the first I'd ever seen that made it seem more credible that Bogart had been the classic example of a Broadway juvenile who bounded on stage with a racket in hand asking "Tennis, anyone?"

I think that the last transitional movie I've seen that still had some "wet behind the ears" quality blending his naivete with oversensitivity was one of his early best--Black Legion (1937), about a blue collar guy who gets sucked into and destroyed by a Klan-type organization. Humphrey Bogart was outstanding in his performance as the self-pitying, anxious guy who is derailed by the choices he makes. The actor is so brave in his ability to take this character to his dramatically logical conclusion, it might belong near In a Lonely Place and The Caine Mutiny for the psychological honesty it displayed (but maybe it's just me). No wonder he was so upset that Warner's failed to give him better work after this movie. Already involved with Mayo Methot and negotiating a quasi-friendly divorce from Mary Philips, the actor must have been under a ton of emotional pressure while playing in this film. As you probably know, Louise Brooks shared your point of view about the possible impact that Methot and Warner Brothers had on the actor. You can see her comments in this excerpt from her memoir, "Lulu in Hollywood":

Humphrey & Bogart by Louise Brooks
Avatar: Frank McHugh (1898-1981)

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mongoII
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Re: BOGART

Post by mongoII »

Moira, thanks for the except from the Brooks book. It is a fascinating chapter which explains the man and the actor that Bogart was. No doubt that he died much too young.
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Re: BOGART

Post by MissGoddess »

Moira, I thought the same thing about him in Up the River. In fact, that may be the movie in which I first saw him in such a light (and the "tennis anyone?" line is exactly what always stuck in my mind, lol). It was so incongruous to me when I first started watching movies. I couldn't believe anyone could change so much. Sinatra had a similar transformation (physically).
"There's only one thing that can kill the movies, and that's education."
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knitwit45
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Re: BOGART

Post by knitwit45 »

wow, what a fascinating read. Lulu was quite the raconteur, wasn't she? Now I have to get the book. Thanks for sharing, Moira.
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intothenitrate
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Re: BOGART

Post by intothenitrate »

Thanks for the link to Brooks' article. Her writing reminds of some of the editorials of George Orwell: You aren't quite sure of the factual veracity of her claims, but you don't half care because she presents them so engagingly.
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Jezebel38
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Re: BOGART

Post by Jezebel38 »

Found this clip from a tribute to Lauren Bacall - includes interviews with Leslie and Stephen Bogart and Sam Robards. I found it interesting as I've never seen Leslie Bogart before.

[youtube][/youtube]
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Re: BOGART

Post by CineMaven »

Enjoyed the YouTube tribute to Lauren Bacall, Jezebel. I liked seeing her children speak about her. Bogart...such a giant, he overshadowed her. And perhaps she wasn't in the class of actress like an Olivia deHavilland et al. But she held her own in her own way. No doubting she had a presence in her first film. Broadway was probably where she could really shine, though I've liked the persona she cut for herself in films. Thanx for posting it.

Good idea for a thread, Miss G. Guess this kind of gives one of our tried and true icons of the movies, a bit of a new lease on life; to see him young, still wet behind the ears, learning and growing his way towards the giant he was to become. They, ALL of them, were young once; had a chance...gives us a chance to watch them learn and grow; to watch them becoming who'll they'll become. It's kind of nice to see The Beginning.
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Re: BOGART

Post by charliechaplinfan »

I watched Love Affair only a few days ago, courtesy I expect of the same kind friend. I have seen Bogie in other early thirties films but far down the cast list, Love Affair is interesting because there isn't much there on first acquaintance that makes him stand out, he reminded me of the first few movies Cary Grant was in before he found his feet, specifically the ones with Mae West where he's just her straight man, there's the start of something with Cary but it's not definded and it's the same in Love Affair with Bogart. A few years later he comes back and with a little faltering finds his footing and never misses his mark. I've read Louise's comments on Mayo and Warner's, something changed, was it a desperation that it was make or break? When watching the movies when his persona is defined I seem to always have forgot just how good he is at what he does.

I like Lauren Bacall, she's a good actress in her own right but how to top To Have and Have Not and The Big Sleep I'm not sure it's possible but she is a consistent and my eyes are always drawn to her when she's on the screen.
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Re: BOGART

Post by GaryCooper »

Movies are written in sand: applauded today, forgotten tomorrow.
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GaryCooper
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Re: BOGART

Post by GaryCooper »

Movies are written in sand: applauded today, forgotten tomorrow.
D. W. Griffith
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Re: BOGART

Post by GaryCooper »

Movies are written in sand: applauded today, forgotten tomorrow.
D. W. Griffith
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Re: BOGART

Post by GaryCooper »


May 21, 1945

Nothing like having a younger woman Mr. Bogart. Bingo.

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Movies are written in sand: applauded today, forgotten tomorrow.
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Re: BOGART

Post by Detective Jim McLeod »

My favorite Bogart performances in chronological order, probably not the ones most would expect. For some reason I preferred him in bad guy roles.

1. Dead End (1937)
2. The Roaring Twenties (1939)
3. The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre (198)
4. The Caine Mutiny (1954)
5. The Desperate Hours (1955)
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