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5.0 out of 5 stars
For Real Film Fans, May 12, 2006
This review is from: Bogart & Bacall Collection (The Big Sleep / Dark Passage / Key Largo / To Have and Have Not / Bacall on Bogart) [VHS] (VHS Tape)
This terrific set of films featuring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall is sheer heaven for classic film fans. Each film is fabulous by itself, and watched together over a short period of time will really give one a sense of why so many people love Bogie and Bacall. It is also an excellent example of two great directors in their prime. Howard Hawks, who has never fully received the credit he deserves for the many film masterpieces for which he was responsible, helmed two of these films, and John Huston directed another. This boxed set includes both the first and last of the couple's films together.
While Dark Passage is perhaps a level below the other three, there is a terrific ending which makes up for some slow spots. Having it included here makes the cycle of films the two made together complete. Lesser Bogie and Bacall is still better than most anything else out there. Dark Passage is a good film for fans as entertainment, but the other three are true film classics.
First, we have Hawks' The Big Sleep. It is one of the most unique adaptations of a detective novel ever brought to the screen. Watching this film is one of the true joys of being a film buff. This is extraordinary entertainment that grabs your attention quickly and keeps it until the final shot. It is exciting and engaging, and a favorite of all detective film fans.
Director Howard Hawks turned Raymond Chandler's most popular story into an absolutely mesmerizing celluloid masterpiece. Chandler's complex novel was adapted for the screen by William Faulkner. We may never know for sure who committed one of the murders in this blurry crime noir, but like all Hawks' films, it is so incredibly entertaining we really don't care. It is full of sharp dialog and so many dreamy images, there is a surreal feel to what's going on.
The story itself moves at a terrific clip, and there is so much going on you might get lost if you blink. Humphry Bogart is Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe, and from the moment he arrives to talk to General Sternwood and gets mixed up with his daughters this is a film classic. One would think with a young and sultry Bacall getting tangled up with Bogart in their first film together, they would be everything in this film; they are not, however, as Martha Vickers gives a performance that has you thinking about her in every scene, even when she is offscreen. She steals every scene she is in and is one of the most memorable dolls in noir history.
Bacall portrays the General's sultry older daughter, Vivian, but it is the sexy and thumb sucking younger daughter Carmen (Martha Vickers) whom Marlowe meets first. She leaves an immediate impression on both the viewer and Marlowe. Explaining his meeting her to the General, Bogart quips, "Yeah, we met. She tried to sit in my lap and I was standing up." The very sick Sternwood wants Marlowe to look into a little matter involving blackmail and his two daughters.
Marlowe follows the trail of gambling debts, and finds one body after another in his attempt to extricate the daughters from the mess. Marlowe and Vivian have a spark that gives him incentive to get the job done, but he may not be able to head off the rollercoaster headed for the little kitten Carmen, who may turn out to have some very large claws. Dorothy Malone has a brief but sexy role as a clerk who shares more than a drink with Marlowe.
Bogart's Marlowe has his hands full trying to keep Carmen out of trouble, and the sparks flying between he and Carmen's big sister, is complicated by her involvement with some of the players for the other team. Trying to find a way to keep the fast rising body count from getting any higher, while keeping Vivian and her little sister Carmen in the clear, will take some dangerous turns for Marlowe.
Bacall has never been more beautiful or inviting than when she is slumped down in the seat of Bogart's car, just waiting for him to kiss her. You have to see this film to really appreciate it. No description could ever do it justice. You'll never see anything else like it in American cinema. A true noir classic, and one of Howard Hawks' masterpieces. A must see film for noir fans.
The same could be said of the second film in this collection directed by Howard Hawks, To Have and Have Not. The summer of 1940 in Martinique as people began to choose sides is the setting for another Howard Hawks masterpiece. William Faulkner again adapted a great writer, expanding a rather in story by Hemingway into another screen classic. Writing partner jules Furthman helped Hawks rework the story from Casablanca in To Have and Have Not. Grittier than Casablanca, and with a different ending, it actually outshines that film in many respects.
Bogart is Harry Morgan, trying to stay neutral about the local politics while he and his pal, Eddie (Walter Brennan), take tourists ocean fishing in the waters of Martinique. His other pal Frenchy (Marcel Dalio) wants him to use his boat to pick up a couple that will put him square in the middle of all that's going on both in Martinique and the rest of the world as the Germans make their move across the globe.
Morgan is fending off getting involved just fine until his latest fishing customer gets knocked off by accident before he can pay up. Complicating things further for Morgan is a newcomer named Marie Browning (Lauren Bacall) who sort of attaches herself to him from the moment they meet. She has come from Brazil by way of Trinidad and ends up in Martinique only because she doesn't have money to go any further. They seem a perfect fit despite all the sparring between them; a point driven home by her response to Eddie's question about bees. The viewer knows at that moment that she and Harry are a match made in Hollywood heaven.
Brennan is just terrific as Harry's old pal in constant need of a drink to keep the shakes at bay. He thinks he's looking after Harry when in fact it's Harry who's looking after him. The trademark male world of Howard Hawks is much in evidence here, as Bogart's autonomy begins to crack only when he finds his match in Bacall. Like many of Hawks' characters, Morgan lives by his own code and his own rules, and only breaks them out of loyalty to someone else. Another Hawks trademark of the sizing up of people from the inside out is also much in evidence here. Bogart and Bacall never even speak the other's name in this film; she calling him Steve and he calling her Slim throughout the entire film.
When Harry finally agrees to pick up Frenchy's pals in the Resistance to earn enough money to get Slim home, he gets more than he bargained for in more ways than one. It convinces Slim to stay on because she now knows for sure that Steve is the right guy. She gets a job singing for the piano player at the Hotel Martinique, Cricket (Hoagy Charmichael). And after a patrol boat takes a potshot at one of his passengers, his very beautiful wife begins to warm up to Harry in a big hurry, causing a bit of jealousy on Slim's part. Doloros Moran is very nice and quite pretty as that wife, Hellene de Bursac.
There are a ton of great exchanges between Bacall and Bogart here, the most famous being the "just whistle" scene. There are many others equally as good, however, including an exchange about strings that has Bacall walking around Bogart, and a great line from Bacall about walking home if it weren't for all that water. It is this latter exchange, and one other about Slim's lack of a reaction when being slapped that Hawks uses to highlight the personal baggage both Harry and Marie are bringing to the table.
A young Bacall looks gorgeous in gowns by Milo Anderson, and Sid Hickox's photography gives the film the feel of a tiny island with palm trees lining the streets. Bogart's Harry will eventually engage in the fight when he decides he likes the people on one side and doesn't like the people on the other. It is very much both a Hawks and Bogart type moment, the personal moral code of the anti-hero coming fully into play.
This is a fun film with great characters, lots of atmosphere, and an ending the polar opposite of Casablanca. The song "How Little We Know" from Hoagy Charmichael and Johnny Mercer never amounted to much compared to the more famous "As Time Goes By" from Casablanca, but works nicely with the mood Hawks created for his second film with Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. If you're looking for a big dose of Bogie and Bacall, and want the kind of ending Casablanca didn't have, then To Have and Have Not is a sure bet to please you. A fine film and a true screen classic.
Last but by no means least is the somber, Key Largo. John Huston crafted this very fine film with the underlying theme of isolation from a play by Maxwell Anderson. The backdrop of a gangster taking over a hotel in the Florida Keys is filled with inner emotional depth rather than a lot of action, making this the most mature and realistic of romances Bogart and Bacall would have on screen.
Major Frank McCloud (Bogart) shows up at the Largo hotel in the Keys to see his war buddy's father and widow and give them some news about how George died a hero. McCloud himself is disillusioned from trying to save the world and has been drifting since the war in both a personal and literal sense.
Nora (Bacall) had been drifting before she met George and begins to feel this same connection to Frank as they talk about their lives since the war. There is a maturity here as Huston shows a deeper aspect to caring about someone instead of the fireworks of physical attraction. The themes of loneliness and isolation run through every aspect of this film.
Frank once again must decide whether to save the world when the Largo is taken over by fallen...
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