Tagged: Humphrey Bogart
In a Lonely Place: Bogie’s Twill Sports Coat and Turtleneck
Humphrey Bogart as Dix Steele in In a Lonely Place (1950)
Vitals
Humphrey Bogart as Dixon “Dix” Steele, frustrated screenwriter
Los Angeles, Fall 1949
Film: In a Lonely Place
Release Date: May 17, 1950
Director: Nicholas Ray
Costume Designer: Jean Louis (credited for gowns only)
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Today’s post wraps up #Noirvember on what would have been the 100th birthday of silver screen icon Gloria Grahame. Born November 28, 1923, Grahame’s film noir credits include Crossfire (1947) and The Big Heat (1953), though my favorite is In a Lonely Place (1950), directed by her then-husband Nicholas Ray and starring Humphrey Bogart.
Some of Bogie’s friends and acquaintances have described the character of cynical screenwriter Dixon Steele to be the closest that the actor ever came to projecting his true charismatic yet insecure persona onto the screen. Continue reading
Humphrey Bogart in The Desperate Hours
Humphrey Bogart in The Desperate Hours (1955)
Vitals
Humphrey Bogart as Glenn Griffin, menacing fugitive
Indianapolis, Fall 1955
Film: The Desperate Hours
Release Date: October 5, 1955
Director: William Wyler
Costume Designer: Edith Head
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Noirvember continues with The Desperate Hours, a 1955 drama that was Humphrey Bogart’s penultimate silver screen performance. Bogie remains significantly associated with film noir, thanks to genre-defining movies like High Sierra (1941), The Maltese Falcon (1941), The Big Sleep (1946), Key Largo (1948), and In a Lonely Place (1950).
The New York-born actor rose to prominence playing villains, perhaps most notably his breakthrough role of snarling Dillinger-esque gangster Duke Mantee in the stage and screen productions of The Petrified Forest. As exemplified by his masterful but hardly glamorous performance in movies like The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948), Bogart never let his popularity get in the way of darker roles—even after winning the Academy Award for Best Actor for The African Queen (1951).
Adapted by Joseph Hayes from his own novel and play of the same name (itself loosely based on true events), The Desperate Hours cast Bogart as the dangerous Glenn Griffin, the leader of a trio of three escaped convicts who seek refuge by forcing their way into the suburban Indiana home of Daniel (Frederic March) and Ellie Hilliard (Martha Scott). Continue reading
Humphrey Bogart in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
Humphrey Bogart as Fred C. Dobbs in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)
Vitals
Humphrey Bogart as Fred C. Dobbs, desperate drifter-turned-treasure hunter
Mexico, Spring to Summer 1925
Film: The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
Release Date: January 6, 1948
Director: John Huston
Wardrobe: Robert O’Dell & Ted Schultz (uncredited)
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
On the 65th anniversary of when Humphrey Bogart died on January 14, 1957, I wanted to visit one of his most lasting—if not exactly best-dressed—roles.
“Wait until you see me in my next picture,” Bogie had proclaimed to a New York Post critic outside 21 one night. “I play the worst shit you ever saw!” Indeed, unlike his previous protagonists like Sam Spade, Rick Blaine, and Philip Marlowe, who were primarily heroes marred by a cynical streak, there are few redeeming factors to Fred C. Dobbs, the panhandling prospector whose treacherous greed leads him well past the point of no return. Continue reading
Humphrey Bogart in The Maltese Falcon
Humphrey Bogart as Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon (1941)
Vitals
Humphrey Bogart as Sam Spade, smooth private detective and “a chap worth knowing”
San Francisco, Spring 1941
Film: The Maltese Falcon
Release Date: October 3, 1941
Director: John Huston
Costume Designer: Orry-Kelly (credited for gowns)
Background
Now considered a seminal film noir, The Maltese Falcon celebrated its 80th anniversary last month. Dashiell Hammett’s excellent 1930 detective novel had already been adapted twice for the screen—once as a “lewd” pre-Code thriller and recycled as a zanier mid-’30s vehicle for Bette Davis—before Warner Bros. finally got it right.
The Maltese Falcon was the directorial debut for John Huston, who had faithfully adapted Hammett’s source material for his sharp script and demonstrated his sense of methodical efficiency, resulting in a masterpiece that benefited from the formula of director of photography Arthur Edelson’s low-key cinematography and a perfect cast led by Humphrey Bogart as the wisecracking gumshoe who “don’t mind a reasonable amount of trouble.” Continue reading
Humphrey Bogart in The Petrified Forest
Humphrey Bogart as Duke Mantee in The Petrified Forest (1936)
Vitals
Humphrey Bogart as “Duke” Mantee, violent desperado and “the last great apostle of rugged individualism”
Black Mesa, Arizona, January 1936
Film: The Petrified Forest
Release Date: February 6, 1936
Director: Archie Mayo
Costume Designer: Orry-Kelly (uncredited)
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
This is Duke Mantee, the world-famous killer, and he’s hungry…
Indeed, Humphrey Bogart was hungry. The 36-year-old actor had spent more than a dozen years honing his craft on the stage and had spent the last five going nowhere as a $750-a-week bit player for the Fox Film Corporation.
It wasn’t until a decade after his debut that Hollywood would start opening the front door for the New York-born actor, starring in Raoul Walsh’s crime flick High Sierra as a tough bank robber clearly modeled after real-life outlaw John Dillinger. It’s only fitting that this character be Bogie’s shot at the big time that he should have earned years earlier as yet another Dillinger surrogate, Duke Mantee.
Humphrey Bogart in High Sierra
Humphrey Bogart as Roy Earle in High Sierra (1941)
Vitals
Humphrey Bogart as Roy “Mad Dog” Earle, professional armed robber on parole
Sierra Nevada Mountains, California, Spring 1940
Film: High Sierra
Release Date: January 21, 1941
Director: Raoul Walsh
Wardrobe Credit: Leah Rhodes
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Tomorrow marks the 80th anniversary of the release of High Sierra, arguably the movie that launched Humphrey Bogart from a Warner Bros. background player in the ’30s to superstardom in the ’40s. A violent criminal with an earnest streak, Roy Earle was the ideal role for Bogie to transition from the secondary sniveling bastard in movies like The Petrified Forest and The Roaring Twenties to the tilted-hat heroes we love in The Maltese Falcon, Casablanca, and more.
Humphrey Bogart in Key Largo
Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall on the set of Key Largo (1948)
Vitals
Humphrey Bogart as Frank McCloud, taciturn war veteran and former newspaperman
Key Largo, Florida, Summer 1948
Film: Key Largo
Release Date: July 16, 1948
Director: John Huston
Wardrobe Credit: Leah Rhodes
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Released today in 1948, John Huston’s moody noir Key Largo marked the fourth and final of Bogie and Bacall’s on-screen collaborations, closing out their celluloid romance the way it began in To Have and Have Not (1944) with a talent-packed cast (including Dan Seymour as a heavy heavy) in a tropical locale shrouded in shadows, storms, and gunplay. The claustrophobia of our characters’ forced isolation against the looming summer storm outside and the raging tension inside made it particularly impactful viewing during months in lockdown.
In a Lonely Place: Bogie’s Dark Suit and Bow Tie
Humphrey Bogart as Dixon “Dix” Steele in In a Lonely Place (1950)
Vitals
Humphrey Bogart as Dixon “Dix” Steele, frustrated screenwriter who’s “been out of circulation too long”
Los Angeles, Summer 1949
Film: In a Lonely Place
Release Date: May 17, 1950
Director: Nicholas Ray
Costume Designer: Jean Louis (credited for gowns only)
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
As #Noirvember continues, we shift our sartorial focus to a seminal figure in the development and enduring popularity of film noir: Humphrey Bogart. In movies like The Maltese Falcon (1941) and The Big Sleep (1946), Bogie cemented the wisecracking private eye persona often driving the heart of this subgenre, but he did not play a detective in the suspenseful thriller considered to be among his best, In a Lonely Place.
This 1950 noir co-starred Gloria Grahame and directed by Nicholas Ray, her husband at the time, though both Bogie and screenwriter Edmund North had envisioned the then-Mrs. Bogart, Lauren Bacall, to take the role of the “sultry and smooth… striking-looking girl with high cheek bones and tawny hair” as the character of Laurel Gray was described in the North’s screenplay. While Warner Brothers refused to lend Bacall to Bogart’s Santana Productions, Bogie was able to keep the leading role to deliver one of the most explosive and authentic performances of his prolific career.
Bogart’s Nautical Blazer and Cap in To Have and Have Not
Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall in To Have and Have Not (1944)
Vitals
Humphrey Bogart as Harry Morgan, cynical fishing boat captain
Fort-de-France, Martinique, Summer 1940
Film: To Have and Have Not
Release Date: October 11, 1944
Director: Howard Hawks
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Today is the 75th anniversary of the release of To Have and Have Not, the romantic adventure directed by Howard Hawks and adapted from Ernest Hemingway’s novel that staged the first meeting of iconic classic Hollywood couple Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall.
The Barefoot Contessa: Bogie’s Olive Suit and Bow Tie
Humphrey Bogart as Harry Dawes in an MGM studio portrait for The Barefoot Contessa (1954)
Vitals
Humphrey Bogart as Harry Dawes, Hollywood director and screenwriter
Madrid, Spring 1951
Film: The Barefoot Contessa
Release Date: September 29, 1954
Director: Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Costume Designer: Rosi Gori (uncredited)
Background
August 28 is National Bow Tie Day, believe it or not, so today’s post commemorates one of the most badass bow tie wearers of classic Hollywood, Humphrey Bogart.