The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)

In the 1920s, Fred Dobbs (Humphrey Bogart) is an American living a hand to mouth existence in Tampico.  When he spots an American, he regularly begs "will you stake a fellow American to a meal?"  He soon teams with Curtin (Tim Holt) and the pair get a job working at an oil derrick.  After a month of labor, the foreman stiffs them.  While staying the night at a hostel, the pair meet Howard (Walter Huston).  Howard is an old prospector who talks of gold in the mountains.  Pooling their resources, the trio dare to trek into the Sierra Madre range to dig for gold.  Just when Dobbs and Curtin are on the brink of surrender, Howard finds a gold vein to pursue.  The more gold they extract, the more they become suspicious of each other.  Each hides his portion of the gold lest the others steal it.  This tense situation grows worse when Cody (Bruce Bennett) arrives.  He too is looking for gold and has guessed that the trio are working on a successful vein.  On top of that, bandits have spotted them and come to acquire the rifles that the men have.  This sees the movie's most famous quote:

"Badges?  We ain't got no badges.  We don't need no badges.  I don't have to show you any stinking badges."

Classic!

Here is a movie that explores limits of friendship and the risks of sudden wealth.  Men who had been willing to share what little they had when poor became less generous as their wealth grew.  Motvies are questioned and distrust fills the air.  An outstanding film that earned Oscars for both John Huston as director and his father Walter Huston for best supporting actor.  Highly recommended.

Key Largo (1948)

Frank McCloud (Humprey Bogart) is on a bus to the Florida Keys.  The bus is stopped by the police, who announce they are looking for a pair of Seminole Indians who escaped from jail.  Frank gets off the bus at Hotel Largo and asks for Mr. Temple.  The men who are there prove to be particularly unwelcoming and announce that the hotel is closed for the season.  Frank persists and is finally told that Mr. Temple is out on the pier.  Turns out that Frank was a Major in WWII and the commanding officer of George Temple.  James Temple (Lionel Barrymore) is George's father and Nora (Lauren Bacall) is his widow.  Frank tells stories about George during the Italian campaign where he died.  Then warnings of a hurricane arise.  The unwelcoming guests prove to be mobsters, led by the notorious Johnny Rocco (Edward G. Robinson).  They had come in from Cuba by boat in order to do a deal with another mobster who was to come down from Miami; the hurricane has complicated matters.  Tension is high and emotions flare as the police are still looking for the escapees.

The story is great, the characters are well-developed and are giving opportunities to shine.  Rocco's goons are each unique and are all given lines.  These aren't nameless thugs like the men who surround a James Bond villain.  Robinson is in top form as the exiled mob boss.  He's a killer but he's also not stupid.  He plays his hand well, but fails to account for Frank McCloud.  Bogart gives a strong performance as a conflicted man.  Sure, Rocco's a bad man but this isn't his fight.  He had his fill in Italy.  Some view him as a coward for his reticence to fight Rocco.  The standout is clearly Claire Trevor, who won an Oscar for her role as Gaye Dawn, Rocco's girlfriend.  With Rocco having been in Cuba for some time, their reunion is not what she had hoped.

This is the last of the Bogie & Bacall movies and a definite must see for any fan.  Great popcorn fun and highly recommended.

Dark Passage (1947)

Vincent Parry (Humphrey Bogart) has just escaped prison; he was incarcerated for murdering his wife.  He is on the side of the road and must risk getting a lift.  He waves down a car.  The driver is a talker and becomes increasingly suspicious of his passenger.  The radio report decides the issue.  Parry pummels the driver and steals his clothes.  Before he can abscond with the man's car, Irene Jansen (Lauren Bacall) stops in her station wagon and urges Vincent to hide under the tarp in the back.  Soon, they are back at her apartment in San Francisco and he is baffled why she has helped him.  She had attended the trial and thought he was innocent.  Thanks to some fortunate breaks, Vincent meets a plastic surgeon who offers to change his looks.  After the surgery, Parry recuperates at Irene's apartment.  Once the bandages are off, it's time to find out who really killed his wife.

The movie is awkward and the story doesn't flow well.  First, Bogart doesn't "appear" for the first half.  Either the scene is filmed from his point of view or his face is hidden in shadows.  After the surgery, he is now in view, but his face is concealed by bandages.  Next, there are the convenient and inconvenient meetings.  That Parry finds the one cabby in all of San Francisco who has a plastic surgeon friend is just a bit hard to swallow.  As far as suspects for his wife's murderer, there aren't many available from the characters we meet.  Clifton Young is quite good as the blackmailer.  Agnes Moorehead, whom I had only ever seen as Endora, Samantha's obnoxious mother on Bewitched, plays an annoying busybody who is determined to make sure everyone else is as unhappy as she is.  It is a wonder any of the characters were on speaking terms with her.  The level of paranoia is high.  That Vincent thinks he is going to be arrested any moment is fine, but that a random police officer busts his chops over a stupid comment about the races was a bit much.  That Irene sympathized with his plight was fine but falling for him was rushed.  Maybe she had a crush on him since the trial, so she was primed to fall for him.  Meh.

This is the weakest of the Bogart & Bacall movies.

The Big Sleep (1946)

Phillip Marlowe (Humphrey Bogart) arrives at the Sternwood Estate and is met by Camilla Sternwood.  She thinks he's cute but short.  She hits on him.  Though amused, he declines and meets with General Sternwood.  It happens that Sternwood has received a large bill attributed to Camilla.  He'd like Marlowe to deal with it.  Marlowe agrees.  On the way out the door, he is summoned to meet Sternwood's other daughter, Vivian Rutledge (Lauren Bacall).  She grills him to find out what her father wants him to do and proposes that he is meant to find Sean Regan.  While digging into Camilla's troubles - which becomes littered with corpses - Marlowe continual gets questions about Sean Regan.  The rumor is that he ran away with a casino owner's wife.  Why do all roads lead to Sean Regan?

Though the plot is generally inscrutable, the repartee is awesome.  The banter between Bogart and basically everyone is a joy to watch.  That every woman he meets is immediately in love with him is hilarious.  Again, the dialogue is terrific and his sharp replies and keen observations show real talent from the screenwriter.  As with To Have and Have Not, this was directed by Howard Hawks and had William Faulkner among the screenwriters.

Of the three versions of Marlowe I have watched, this is by far the best.  Robert Mitchum was too old and the setting wrong in the 1978 version of The Big Sleep.  Of course, that one was more willing to expose the dark features of the story that are left to the imagination here.  Elliot Gould was horrendous in the astonishingly bad The Long Goodbye.  Liam Neeson will take on the role later this year in Marlowe; I doubt he can match Bogart, but I'll be interested to see.

Highly recommended.

To Have and Have Not (1944)

Harry Morgan (Humphrey Bogart) arrives at the harbor in Martinique to take Mr. Johnson on a fishing trip.  That Martinique is now controlled by Vichy France creates some bureaucratic hassles for an expat American like Morgan.  He has a perpetually drunken mate, Eddy (Walter Brennan), who talks incessantly.  During the trip, Mr. Johnson fails to catch a marlin and even loses the rod and reel.  Worse, he skips out on paying Morgan, leaving him in the lurch.  Though he had declined an offer to smuggle French Resistance onto Martinique, he now must in order to survive.  The Vichy French Gestapo are soon sniffing for fugitives, paying particular attention to Morgan.  On top of this, a woman has arrived in Martinique, Marie Browning (Lauren Bacall).  Sparks fly from the first meeting of Harry and Marie, though they never use those names.  She calls him 'Steve' and he calls her 'Slim.'  Their flirty banter is far more interesting than the Casablanca knock-off storyline.

"You know how to whistle, don't you, Steve?  Just put your lips together and... blow."

Though based on a novel by Ernest Hemingway, it was reworked to have a happy ending and a laudable hero.  William Faulkner wrote the screen play.  Howard Hawks directed.  This movie was where Bogart - then 44 - and Bacall - only 18 - met.  Within three weeks, they were having an affair.  By the following year, Bogart had divorced his third wife and married Bacall.  They remained married until his death at 57.

Here is a bland story that has some terrific acting and some lively dialogue.  It even includes Hoagy Carmichael who, strangely enough, is how Ian Fleming pictured James Bond.  Unexpected.

Good popcorn fun!

Sahara (1943)

On a battlefield near Tobruk, Lybia, the radio operator of a tank gets word to retreat.  He calls out to Sergeant Gunn (Humphrey Bogart) to let him know.  Gunn and Waco are scavenging parts from the wreckage of another tank to make repairs on theirs.  While the artillery is still exploding about them, they make hasty repairs before driving south into the Sahara.  They come upon the ruins of a field hospital and recruit a variety of British soldiers from a variety of backgrounds.  Gunn is willing to take them along, though he will be in charge if they do come.  They agree.  Yet further along, they spot two men trekking through the desert.  There is Sgt. Tambul, a Sudanese soldier, and Giuseppe, an Italian prisoner.  Tambul knows the country and will be a useful resource for finding much needed water.  Giuseppe is just a liability and best left in the desert.  Or not?

There are a series of adversities to overcome as the tank crew and passengers try to rejoin the British Army.  Through this, each soldier has an opportunity to develop.  Jimmy the radio operator is from New York, Waco is from Texas, Sgt. Joe Gunn is from the US Army.  Captain Halliday hails from Ireland and has the most compassion of the soldiers, not surprising considering his profession.  Stegman hails from a dorp (village) in South Africa.  Clarkson (a very young Lloyd Bridges) has a girl named Katie back home. Williams is widely-read, not because he is well-educated but because he sets type for books; he is called professor.  Tambul is a Muslim but only has one wife.

The movie culminates in a battle over an oasis between the small band of Allied soldiers and a battalion of Germans.  Gunn says it's a hundred to one shot that any of them survive but it is their duty to slow the Germans down, delay them while the Allies regroup.  It is an intense battle.  However, this was one of my few qualms with the movie.  Why did the Germans attack from only one direction?  Had they encircled the oasis, it would have been no fight at all.  There was nothing to keep them from launching flanking attacks and certainly not enough defenders to do anything about it.

Excellent movie and definitely recommended.  Great popcorn fun.

Beat the Devil (1953)

In a coastal city in Italy, Peterson (Robert Morley) and his confederates wait for the SS Nyanga to set sail to Africa.  They have grand plans to acquire uranium-rich property and become millionaires.  Of course, not all is on the up and up.  Ex-pat Billy Dannreuther (Humphrey Bogart) is the formerly wealthy man with contacts in Africa, but he is now a pauper.  Billy's wife, Maria (Gina Lollobrigida), is an anglophile who wants nothing more than to find a refined British man with a well-manicured lawn.  As it happens, Harry Chelm (Edward Underdown) appears to be just such a British fellow.  Harry's wife, Gwendolen (Jennifer Jones), is smitten with Billy, proclaiming her love for him soon after they meet.  She is flighty and prone to exaggeration about her husband and most everything else.  Will Billy and Harry swap wives?  Will Peterson have Major Jack Ross kill either Billy or Harry to protect his plans?  Will the captain of the SS Nyanga remain sober long enough to set sail?

A peculiar comedy that more often gets its laughs by the crazy events than any humorous lines.  The most outrageous bit was when the stalled car got away from those pushing it and plummeted off a cliff and into the sea.  Truman Capote was on hand for the screenplay while John Huston directed.  The cast also includes Peter Lorre as one of Peterson's associates and Bernard Lee, the future M of the James Bond series, as Inspector Jack Clayton of Scottland Yard.

Robert Morley is particularly good as the oafish and yet often menacing villain.  He is outwardly genial but there is always the undercurrent of threat.  This mixes quite humorously with how all his plans go awry.  He is hapless.  Peter Lorre is Peter Lorre, though a bit less threatening.  As Morley's lieutenant, he plays messenger while Ivor Barnard's Jack Ross is the big threat.  That too is kind of funny since Bogart towers over him, and Bogart was not a tall man.

It certainly has its moments, but the pacing is uneven and the overall story unsatisfying.

In a Lonely Place (1950)

Dixon "Dix" Steele (Humphrey Bogart) hasn't written a hit script since before the war.  While out to meet his usual crew of drinking buddies, he is asked to adapt a novel.  Not interested in reading the book, he invites Mildred, the hat check girl, to his home so she can tell him the plot; she had just finished the book while he was at the bar.  Shortly after midnight she leaves.  At 5 AM, Dix hears knocking on his door and it is his old pal, Brub Nicolai.  Brub was a soldier under his command during the war and is now a police detective.  At the police station, Dix is told that Mildred was found dead and he's the last person with her.  Also, Dixon has a violent history, including a scuffle he had at the bar last night before taking Mildred home.  His disinterested attitude about her death alarm the detectives.  It looks bad.  However, his neighbor had seen him.  Soon, Laurel Gray (Gloria Grahame) arrives at the station and provides an alibi, stating that she saw Mildred leave alone at 12:30 AM.  Dix finds he is attracted to Laurel and it was not by chance that she had noted the departure of the girl.  Soon, they are a couple and he is adapting the script in a flood of productivity that thrills his agent.  However, his violent outbursts and the continuing murder investigation begin to give Laurel doubts.  Can the relationship survive the strain?

The growing tension is done quite well.  From the initial infatuation to the slow creep of doubts.  Laurel's suspicions trigger angry outburst from Dix that further increase Laurel's distrust.  Once it starts, it's a vicious cycle and played to perfection by Bogart and Grahame.  Made the same year as Sunset Blvd., a movie about another troubled screenwriter.

Recommended.