WARNING: This Article May Contain Spoilers
Born: 25th December 1899
Died: 14th January 1957 (age 57)
Humphrey DeForest Bogart was born on Christmas Day 1899 to Belmont Bogart and Maud Humphrey. Paternally he was descended from the first female European Christian child born in New Netherland (now New York and New Jersey) and maternally he descended from Mayflower passenger John Humphrey. His father was a surgeon and his mother was an illustrator, who later became an art director of a fashion magazine, she was also a suffragette. Humphrey and his two sisters were raised in a very formal way with little affection shown to any of them. He attended a private school before going to a prestigious prep school and then he attended a boarding school which he was subsequently expelled from. After upsetting his parents’ plans of him attending Yale he joined the U.S. Navy. At the age of 19 he left the Navy having reached the rank of Petty Officer 2nd Class. During World War II he tried to re-enlist but was rejected because of his age.
Bogart made his stage debut at the age of 22. He made his screen debut in 1928 a year before the theatre business was hit drastically by the Wall Street Crash of 1929.
Maybe because I associate the word mutiny with earlier times, and obviously my own naivety, I wasn’t expecting The Caine Mutiny to be set during World War II! Bogart’s Lt. Cmdr. Philip Francis Queeg is a bit of an odd fellow, with his constant grinding of his metal balls when he is unnerved and overzealous rule-keeping. There was one point, in a heightened moment, when they had a close up of his eyes that I thought he looked like a Thunderbird (no offence to Bogart’s acting just that his eyes shifted side to side like a Gerry Anderson puppet!) but it’s his final scene when he is being cross examined when he hits his best – the anxiety and pressure that he conveys is very heightened but it’s all in his eyes the emotion they alone convey is a testament to his acting. The second film on Humphrey’s list is probably the most popular film that film buffs ask if you’ve seen – and I can at last say “Yes, I’ve seen that”! It’s not that I was avoiding it it’s just I’d never had the opportunity to see it until now and wow what a good film. Not sure what category it should be put under as it has everything including some very famous film quotes. Bogart is Richard ‘Rick’ Blaine, a wheeler dealer of sorts which he plays with finesse the subtleties that he has for every scene, whether it be as a nightclub owner or lover. Bogart’s role of Harry ‘Steve’ Morgan in To Have and Have Not reminds me a bit of his role of Rick in Casablanca. In fact if this film had been made first (and obviously not made from Hemingway’s book of the same name) I would say that Morgan changed his name, moved to Casablanca to run a bar like his friend ‘Frenchy’ the characters are so close in their portrayal! What I like is that at first impression Morgan is just the captain of a fishing boat but he has so many layers! This is the sort of role that fits Bogart to a tee Morgan is tough yet sensitive – this is proved when he stops his friend from going with him when he knows he could be going into danger. All the relationships he has are different he’s a friend, a love interest and there’s a suggestion that he might, at times, do ‘illegal’ things to help himself and others out – every relationship he plays with such authenticity that he makes Morgan a complete character. As a side note this is the film where he met his future wife, Lauren Bacall, and includes the famous scene where she turns to Bogart and says “You know how to whistle, don’t you Steve? You just put your lips together, and blow” – this is another similarity that this has with Casablanca as that also has a famous scene with its “We’ll always have Paris”. The last thing I was expecting Bogart to be was a love interest, his rough look doesn’t lend to it but as Linus Larrabee in Sabrina it actually works. The on screen partnership between him and Audrey Hepburn makes it work as there is chemistry – even though Linus doesn’t know it! It’s a role that he works to his favour, Linus is a businessman married to his work, quite a few years older than Sabrina, and his only interest in her is to distract her from his brother but we see it coming even if he doesn’t and that’s what he makes work!
Never having really sat down and watched many of Bogart’s films before I was expecting more ‘gangster’ films so I definitely wasn’t expecting a film such as The Left Hand of God. Bogart plays ‘Father O’Shea’ who has a secret or as Beryl puts it “there seems to be so much in him that wasn’t intended to be a priest” yet priest or not Bogart plays him with so much conviction that although you sense that there is more to ‘Father O’Shea’ (I mean in his first scene he is carrying a gun and not many priests did that I’d of thought even in 1947) the sympathy and emotion he conveys to the people around him makes you start to question your own ideas – there is just something special about his performance.
Although I have not seen many of Humphrey Bogart’s films and have a tendency to feel he belongs in a gangster film (mainly because he looks the part) my favourite role of his has to be that of Charlie Allnut in The African Queen – the film has everything action, adventure and romance! At first you think he’s going to be a bit grouchy especially when he has to take Katharine Hepburn’s Rose down the river to safety but this is probably the best, and most organic, performance I have seen from Bogart (and this is the man that married one of his leading ladies!). Everything comes naturally to him even his reaction after the impromptu kiss the awkwardness that he conveys is beautiful. But I think his best part is when he is imitating the hippos and monkeys is hilarious and I wonder if it was in the original script or if he was caught doing it off camera and the director asked him to do it for a scene. It is no surprise that this was an Oscar winning performance from Bogart.
Humphrey Bogart was married four times. He met his first wife, Helen Menken, a year after his stage debut – they married four years later and divorced a year after that; his second marriage (a year later), to Mary Philips ended after ten years when she didn’t follow him to California as she had an established theatre career; a year after his second divorce, Bogart married Mayo Methot, an actress of stage and screen – their marriage ended after seven tempestuous years. Lauren Bacall became his fourth wife in 1945 and they had two children together.
Bogart died at the age of 57 of oesophageal cancer, he was buried with a gold whistle that he had once given to Bacall as a nod to their appearance together in To Have and Have Not – with reference to her famous line “You know how to whistle…” (they named their son Stephen as a nod to the same film). In 1997 the U.S. Postal Service honoured him with a stamp as part of their “Legends of Hollywood” series and in 2006 103rd Street between Broadway and West End Avenue in New York City was renamed Humphrey Bogart Place.
