Humphrey Bogart

Humphrey Bogart

(c) Copyright (2015) by Kathleen Spaltro 

All Rights Reserved

Humphrey Bogart's film career misfired for several years, and these undistinguished performances during the Thirties gave no clue that Bogart would eventually develop into one of the greatest film stars as well as a notable actor.  After a false start and failure in Hollywood in the early Thirties, Bogart returned to California to re-enact his stage role as the villain Duke Mantee in "The Petrified Forest" (1934).  He went on to play other gangsters, to give acting support to higher-billed Warner Brothers stars like Bette Davis, and to portray good guys like the reforming prosecutor in "Marked Woman" (1937).  But, whether gangster or good guy, Bogart as a film actor was a Johnny-One Note.  His seemingly limited range had limited impact.

All that changed with his casting as Roy Earle in "High Sierra" (1941).  Although Earle is a gangster, he is a sympathetic gangster, with a blend of good and evil that would characterize Bogart's signature roles throughout the Forties.  As Roy Earle, as Sam Spade in "The Maltese Falcon" (1941), as Rick Blaine in "Casablanca" (1942), as Harry Morgan in "To Have and Have Not" (1944), as Philip Marlowe in "The Big Sleep" (1946), and as Frank McCloud in "Key Largo" (1948)—Bogart mixes cynical, callous wariness with a latent idealism and a newfound courage that leads to commitment, whether to a woman, a principle, or a cause.

All of these Bogart characters feel deeply disenchanted by their deeply corrupt world—whether the corruption be organized crime, paid-off police or government officials, Nazism and French collaboration, or the betrayal of wartime sacrifices by political expediency.  All of these characters guard fiercely against their own basic decency, but they give in to it by film's end—expressing love to a faithful woman, breaking up a criminal gang, fighting fascism, or defending the defenceless. 

Although corrupted by cynicism, the Bogart character redeems himself through renewed commitment and sacrifice, even of his own life.  Once the actor had portrayed one such character, he portrayed that character repeatedly, even though the settings and circumstances differed from role to role.  He was no longer a Johnny-One Note because his characterizations now blended corruption with integrity instead of isolating the qualities in separate characters.

Two moments in these Forties films stand out for me.  In "The Big Sleep," Marlowe overhears a small-time crook played by Elisha Cook, Jr. endure poisoning rather than betray the whereabouts of his endangered girlfriend.  The cynical Marlowe feels very moved and impressed by Harry Jones's sacrifice.  And, in "Key Largo," the war-wearied, disillusioned veteran Major McCloud wonders if the sacrifices made by his men in Italy meant anything, yet McCloud himself challenges to the death the bullying gangster portrayed by Edward G. Robinson, Johnny Rocco.

These roles distilled the essence of the Bogart character.  The actor departed from the Bogart character in several later films.  In some of these, he failed:  in "Sabrina" (1954) and in the, for me, unwatchable "Beat the Devil" (1953), about which Bogart comfortingly explained, "Only phonies like it."  In some of these, he successfully stretched his range:  "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre" (1948), "In a Lonely Place" (1950), and "The Caine Mutiny" (1954).  And, of course, Bogart played Charlie Allnut to Katharine Hepburn's Rosie Sayer in the beloved "The African Queen" (1951). 

 

I realized when my future husband and I were still dating that "The African Queen" is our movie, all about John, the river rat, and me, the uptight missionary.  Every time we watch it, we look at each other very significantly during certain scenes.  Bogart himself commented, "We loved those two silly people on that boat."

first published in The Woodstock Independent