Bogart: Life Comes in Flashes (2024) Movie Script

1
(CHURCH BELL TOLLS)
(CHURCH BELL TOLLS)
Funny. I never considered
myself particularly well liked.
I really never knew before
just how many friends
I did have.
Just as you can't cheat
your way through life,
you have to be yourself,
believe in yourself,
play your hunches.
I really can't understand
why actors
can't have human frailties
like other people,
why they can't make
the same mistakes,
guess wrong now and then.
Bogie's theory always was
when you're dead, that's it.
You've gotta press on,
because life is for the living.
My name is Humphrey Bogart,
in case there are those of you
in the audience
who are either too young
or too old to know who I am.
MAN: Bogie had those rugged,
masculine looks
that Americans
seem to identify with.
WOMAN: He was
a rugged individual.
MAN 2: He could trade ripostes
and dialogue.
And the nastier the better.
MAN 3: Bogie.
MAN 4: Bogie,
I just think he's great.
No matter what he does,
it comes out cool.
When people think
of my father, you think
of the film noir detective,
you think of "Casablanca,"
you think of Bogie and Bacall.
But it took him over 40 years
to find his feet
in his film career.
He'd lived a full life
before that point
with as many setbacks
as he had successes,
and he'd been married
three times
by the time he met my mother.
In every man's life,
there are pinpoints of time
that govern his destiny.
WORDS OF BOGART: I'm not at ease
with women, really.
I must obviously like
certain women.
I've certainly married
enough of them.
If you're not married or
in love, you're on the loose,
and that's not comfortable.
Love is the one emotion
which can relieve,
as much as is ever possible,
the awful essential loneliness
of us all.
MAN: I said to Bogie,
"Bogie, I need some help
with this girl."
She's brand-new. She's never
made a scene before.
And I'm going to try and make
her more insolent than you are.
And you have
the reputation of being
the most insolent man
on the screen."
He kind of laughed and he said,
"You've got a fat chance
of doing that."
"Well," I said,
"Bogie, I'm the director,
and every scene we play,
she's gonna leave you
with egg on your face
and walk out on you."
-Who was the girl, Steve?
-Who was what girl?
The one who left you with
such a high opinion of women.
She must have been quite a gal.
May I?
WORDS OF BOGART:
It seems so strange
that after 44 years
I should fall in love
when I thought
it could never happen again.
BACALL:
Well, when I first met Bogie,
he just said hello to me
and said,
"I saw your test. We'll have
a lot of fun together."
Ha! I don't think
he realized at the time
quite how things would turn out.
What'd you do that for?
I've been wondering
whether I'd like it.
-What's the decision?
-I don't know yet.
BACALL: I had seen him
in a couple of movies.
I saw him in "Casablanca."
He didn't thrill me at all.
Leslie Howard was the actor
that thrilled me.
WORDS OF BOGART:
She's wonderful.
She has a point of view.
Startles me sometimes.
I blink and realize
she's looking at things
with younger, clearer eyes.
She's smarter than me,
that's all.
The thing I was
most aware of growing up
was my father's
and mother's fame.
You can't get around it.
Being movie stars,
the golden age of Hollywood,
it couldn't get any better.
-How are you today?
-Better than last night.
I can agree on that.
BACALL: He said,
"If you want a real career,
then I'll do everything
I can for you,
but I won't marry you."
Because he'd been married
to three actresses
and they had all
followed their careers,
their careers came first.
And I promised him
that our marriage
would come first.
What do you think's fair?
I'll leave that to you.
INTERVIEWER:
I remember both of you
are natives of New York.
Do you miss
this big town very much?
-No.
-Yes.
Wait a minute.
(CHUCKLES)
Well, that's a nice, normal
family disagreement,
but, tell me, have you
sort of lost your appetite
for playing
before live audiences, Bogie?
Well, I have, Ed,
because I did an awful lot of it
when I was a kid.
I started in '21, and I thought
the world was my oyster,
and I came to Hollywood
and was a terrible flop here.
And then I went back to New York
and was in four big flops there.
And I swore if I ever got to
Hollywood again, I'd stay here.
WORDS OF BOGART: By 1921,
I was working in theater.
I sold tickets,
ran backstage, ran out front,
counted up the take,
and then ran back
to bring down the curtain.
I was stage managing
a pretty complicated show
with a lot of scene changes.
Helen Menken was the star.
Instead of staying
in her dressing room
while these things
were going on
and keeping out of the way,
she hung around,
slowing things up.
I told her
to go back to her room.
She pulled
the great star act on me.
I lost my temper.
And I guess I shouldn't have
done it, but I booted her.
She, in turn, belted me
and ran to her dressing room.
That, as a matter of fact,
was the first conversation
I had
with the girl
who became my first wife.
When Bogart met Helen Menken,
he was a nobody on Broadway.
She was one of the great stars.
She was the equivalent
of the rock star.
People would be waiting
at her hotel.
There would be
standing ovations.
You'd have to part the crowd
for her to go in.
People would be
grasping for her.
She would have been
every bit the diva today.
Helen really wanted to help
Bogart with his career.
WORDS OF BOGART:
I startled Broadway
by appearing in a play
called "Swifty"
as my first big acting job.
When I awoke the next morning,
Maud came in
with a couple of reviews,
she was Maud, never Mother,
including Alexander Woollcott's
estimate
of her son's performance.
"The young man who embodied
the aforementioned sprig
is what is..."
..."usually and mercifully
described as 'inadequate'."
So, you want to be
an actor, eh?
A lot of people
don't realize that you are
a native New Yorker.
-That's right.
-And your dad was a doctor?
My dad was a doctor, yes.
I was...
I was born in New York City.
-Bed number 21,
Sloane's Maternity Hospital.
-(LAUGHTER)
And I lived up on 103rd Street
in West End Avenue.
COMEDIAN: I can't get over this,
a guy so tough,
and he's got a name
like Humphrey DeForest Bogart.
And with a name
like Humphrey DeForest Bogart,
you gotta be tough.
(LAUGHTER)
WORDS OF BOGART:
When I was born,
the family was worth
a tremendous amount of money.
My father had
an excellent practice,
and Maud could make $50,000
a year as an illustrator.
She was essentially
a woman who loved work,
loved her work to the exclusion
of everything else.
She was totally incapable
of showing affection.
MAN: For Bogart,
it was troublesome growing up
because there was no hug,
there was no kiss,
there was no "I love you."
Maud Humphrey
was one of the most famous
illustrators in America,
and she was also
one of the most highly paid.
WORDS OF BOGART: In the decades
around the turn of the century,
"The Maud Humphrey Baby"
was perhaps the most celebrated
child in the world.
I understand there was a period
in American history
when you couldn't pick up
a goddamn magazine
without seeing my kisser in it.
When I was a kid,
it gave me kind of a complex.
I was always getting the razz
from friends.
Maud was well bred
and extremely proud of it.
She was known far and wide
as Lady Maud.
Beautiful, stately, fastidious.
She looked and acted the part.
Even in the country in summer,
Mother's tall, stiff-backed
hourglass figure
was decked out in a white duck
skirt and crisp white blouse.
If white startled people,
it was all right with her.
She'd been startling people
all her life.
DWYER BUZARD:
Maud was a suffragist.
She was very influenced
by her upbringing in Rochester,
and would have been influenced
by Susan B Anthony,
Frederick Douglass,
and other luminaries
who lived and visited here.
She was steeped in feminism
and civil rights.
WORDS OF BOGART:
We had a house in New York
and a country place
at Canandaigua Lake
in Upper New York.
I always lived near the water
and understood and liked boats.
My father gave me
a one-cylinder motorboat,
and I used to putt-putt
around the lake all day long,
exploring every watery inch
of it.
In the main,
I had pretty good manners,
but I hated the smugness
of people in authority.
I can't show my reverence
when I don't feel it.
Dad had a faint idea I'd become
the second surgeon
in the family,
but by the time
I'd left elementary school,
I guess the hope had faded.
"My dear Dr. Bogart,
count on me to do all I can
to get the young man
started right
when he reaches
Andover next week."
"My dear Dr. Bogart,
when a boy is willing
to shoulder the responsibility
for his shortcomings
and manfully admit that he
and not someone else
is to blame,
the chances
of a successful outcome
are immensely increased."
"My dear Dr. Bogart,
to my great regret,
I am forced to advise you
that Humphrey
has failed to meet
the terms of his probation,
and it has become necessary,
therefore,
for us to require
his withdrawal
from the school at this time."
WORDS OF BOGART:
The bastards threw me out.
You've had every chance
that could have been
given to you,
and you have failed.
Not only yourself,
but your parents.
We don't intend to support you
for the rest of your life.
You're on your own from now on.
WORDS OF BOGART: I didn't care
to face the old man,
so I joined the Navy.
The United States had just
entered the First World War,
and it seemed
a good opportunity for me
to cash in
on my fondness for water.
I was sorry that the war
didn't touch me mentally.
I was still no nearer
to an understanding
of what I wanted or what I was.
Because of his mother
being the breadwinner
in the house growing up,
he was very leery
about suddenly
sort of finding himself
in debt to a woman
for making his life better.
And at one point he said,
somewhat jokingly, to a friend,
he said,
"I can't marry that girl."
And his friend said to him,
"Well, if you don't,
you'll never get another part
on Broadway."
MENKEN: I've been so frightfully
occupied, you know.
I just hadn't found time
to marry.
Mr. Bogart called on the phone.
"You're not so busy now.
Do you think you might
find time to marry me
on Thursday afternoon?"
We took the fatal leap.
We were married in New York.
WOMAN: He was one of a vast crew
of juvenile actors.
He was playing
in silly comedies,
and we didn't think
very much of Bogie.
He just wasn't
anything very much.
And he was cursed with
a rather plain old shoe face.
There was nothing attractive
or romantic about him.
WORDS OF BOGART: I played
lots of juveniles on the stage.
I put jars full of pomade
in my hair, slicked it back,
and tried to look like
a 42nd Street version
of Rudolph Valentino.
I went to Chicago
in The Cradle Snatchers,
and a critic named Amy Leslie,
a lady critic,
wrote a review in which
she said that, as I remember it,
"Mr. Bogart has the grace
of a Valentino,
the charm of an E H Sothern,
and the dramatic appeal and
strength of a John Barrymore."
Hey, is this a good speakeasy?
The best in town.
New York in the 1920s
was an exciting place.
It was prohibition, which
outlawed legal alcohol sales
but then pushed people
to go into illegal speakeasies,
where they also
came into contact
with underground nightclub
scenes and also performers.
One thing that was changing
was the way gender
and sexuality would work,
and what that meant was that
there were big fights over it,
kind of like now.
"The Captive,"
it's a play pretty explicitly
about the love
between two women.
"The Captive" first opened
in Paris in March 1926.
It played all over Europe.
It broke attendance records.
So then it opened in Broadway.
It took a lot of courage
for me to play this part.
One does not feel quite
American in this sort of role.
Humphrey urged me to play it
because he thought
I could do it well.
I tried to make the audience
forget to be cynical,
but naturally I dreaded
the avalanche of criticism
it would bring.
HORAK: By the end
of the 19th century,
violets had become associated
with lesbianism.
"The Captive" introduced
this to the entire
reading American public.
WORDS OF BOGART:
Helen certainly did a lot
for the lesbians of America.
Women would send her
slave bracelets,
and, most ironic of all,
and probably
missing the point completely,
the deans of several
women's colleges wrote,
thanking her
for warning their students
about the dangers
of a reprehensible attachment.
HORAK: At the same time,
Mae West is doing a preview
of her new play
called "The Drag,"
which was advertised as a male
version of "The Captive."
MENKEN: The play
had been running undisturbed
for six months.
Then Miss Mae West
and her troupe
were hauled off to jail.
Ooh. Lovely tie.
HORAK: The district attorney
raided "The Captive,"
Mae West's play "Sex."
They arrested 40 producers,
stage managers and actors,
including Helen Menken.
And this makes front-page news
throughout the country.
MENKEN: And so
I was carted off to court,
and the show was closed.
WORDS OF BOGART:
Censorship is the number one
enemy of a free democracy,
and if America
is to continue to have
freedom of press and radio,
these insidious
enemies of freedom
must be
emphatically discouraged,
because these men will move on
to other means
of public expression.
HORAK: Bogart being married
to Menken at the time
witnessed
what she went through.
So I could imagine
that that would influence him
in his own stance against
censorship in the movies
that followed.
WORDS OF BOGART:
We quarreled over the
most inconsequential things.
What started out
just as a difference of opinion
would suddenly become
a battle royale.
MENKEN: I hated the idea
of coming to a divorce court.
I tried to make my marriage
the paramount interest
in my life,
although my career
was a success.
WORDS OF BOGART:
We agreed to call it a day.
How can you keep
a marriage together
when neither of you
sees the other?
We're through, see?
I'm not the guy for you.
I've had plenty of girls,
and I'll have plenty more.
WORDS OF BOGART: I'd had enough
women by the time I was 27
to know what I was looking for
in a wife
the next time I married.
I played it solo until
I met Mary Philips in 1928.
Mary was an actress too.
In one scene, I was delivering
a very dramatic speech.
Mary was supposed to walk away
from me saying nothing.
I noticed she was putting
a lot of that into her walk,
so much so that the audience
focused their attention
on her instead of me.
"You can't do that!"
I told her. "That's my scene."
There was an amused twinkle
in her eye.
WORDS OF PHILIPS:
"Suppose you try and stop me."
WORDS OF BOGART: Well,
I didn't try to stop her
because while I was talking,
I suddenly became very aware
that here was a girl
with whom I could easily
fall in love.
Humphrey and I were married
by a Justice of the Peace
in Hartford in April 1928.
He was a strangely
puritanical man
with very old-fashioned
virtues.
He had class as well as charm.
WORDS OF BOGART:
Mary was a mixture
of New England and Irish,
and she furnished just the sort
of balance wheel I needed.
(SHOUTING)
The Depression was here,
and I didn't escape.
The theater had gone to hell,
and so had my salary.
I rehearsed for shows
that folded
almost before
the first curtain had gone up.
-Beryl.
-All right.
Tell me
while you're getting dressed.
Beryl, I gotta have some money.
$100.
I can let you have 60 cents
of it. What's happened to Eddie?
What makes you think it's for
Eddie? Oh, well, what if it is?
-I've still got to have it.
-When are you gonna get wise
to yourself?
Can't you see it's just a matter
of time until that phony
pulls you down
into his own class?
I'm sick of hearing about men
that do the little things.
Give me a guy that does
a big thing once in a while,
like paying a month's rent.
WORDS OF BOGART: Mary stayed
working on Broadway,
and I was brought out
to Hollywood.
Talking pictures
had just come in,
and anybody from the stage
was jumped at.
MGM had hit a gold mine
with Clark Gable.
20th Century Fox needed a big,
rough answer to Gable.
That was me.
I wasn't handsome, but
they made me up the same way
they'd been doing the
good-looking boys for years.
False eyelashes, red lips
and all. I felt like a dummy.
I'm not ready yet
to settle down in the suburbs
and wear golf panties.
WORDS OF BOGART: Also,
I was very lonely for Mary.
-Well, say...
-Hey, you're in a hurry,
aren't you?
No, I've got lots of time.
-What's your name?
-What's your...
Marianne Madison. What's yours?
-Corliss. Val Corliss.
-Pleased to meet you.
How would you like to take
a little walk, Mr. Corliss?
There's nothing I'd rather do
than take a walk.
WORDS OF BOGART:
I was at Fox for one year,
during which I did
five pictures.
I wasn't surprised
Fox didn't renew my contract.
I'll be back.
That was when I packed it in
and made for Broadway again.
Oh, boy.
I was convinced then
I would never make it
in the movies.
Bogart was not too successful
in those pictures.
Indeed, he didn't make
any particular impression.
And he came back to Broadway
after about a year or two
working for Fox
and was beginning to become,
I have heard from friends
who knew him well at that time,
he was beginning to become
sort of a falling actor
and a rising drunk.
(LAUGHTER)
Hey, you! Some more beer!
This time it's on me, boys.
WORDS OF BOGART:
I sip about an ounce of booze
every hour, all day long.
I read that the liver can only
work off one ounce per hour,
so I don't go much beyond that.
I always liked stirring things
up, needling authority.
I guess I inherited it
from my parents.
They fought.
We kids would pull the covers
over our ears
to keep out
the sound of fighting.
Our home was kept together
for the sake of propriety.
What was curious about Maud and
Belmont is that both of them
were dependent on drugs
for their comfort.
Bogart Senior had had
a terrible accident.
He was in great pain.
WORDS OF BOGART: Most of
her life, Maud suffered
from migraine headaches.
When the pain began,
it lashed her so terribly
that her left eye closed
and the side of her face
flamed.
Then my father shot a quarter
of a grain of morphine into her
to keep her from going insane.
When I was 15,
my father made bad investments
and lost a good deal of money.
My mother
was the head illustrator
for "Delineator" magazine.
She saw instantly that
it was up to her to support us.
From that moment on,
I never saw her relax,
mentally or physically.
INTERVIEWER:
What were the shows you did
before you went to the coast?
-Oh, Lord...
-I remember Cradle Snatchers.
Let's see, Cradle Snatchers was
one, and Saturday's Children.
And It's a Wise Child, The Most
Immoral Lady, Meet The Wife.
I was very lucky, Ed.
I had seven smash hits in a row.
I was in them, although
I didn't have very big parts.
Wasn't it Bob Sherwood's play
Petrified Forest...
Yeah, that started me...
-Typed you as a rough guy?
-...going with this thing.
Yeah. It sent me out
to the movies.
WORDS OF BOGART:
When Warners decided to film
"The Petrified Forest,"
they had Edward G Robinson
in mind for the part.
Leslie Howard stuck out for me.
He said he wouldn't do the film
unless I was cast
as Duke Mantee, the killer.
-There's a picture
of Duke Mantee.
-Six killed?
Hmm.
-Did he do all that?
-Oh, yes. Yes, indeed.
Well, he doesn't look
very vicious, does he?
WORDS OF BOGART: I believe
that if I had not been given
the movie role of Duke Mantee,
I'd be out of the films
altogether.
Now, just behave yourself,
you two, and nobody'll get hurt.
WORDS OF BOGART: It marked
my deliverance from the ranks
of the sleek,
stiff-shirted smoothies
to which I had seemed
condemned for life.
Maybe we'll decide
to get buried here.
Well, you better
come with me, Duke.
I'm planning to be buried
in the Petrified Forest.
You know, I've been
evolving a theory about that
that would interest you.
It's the graveyard
of the civilization
that's shot from under us.
The world of outmoded ideas.
They're all so many dead stumps
in the desert.
That's where I belong.
And so do you, Duke.
You're the last great apostle
of rugged individualism.
Tell us, Duke, what kind
of a life have you had?
What do you think?
I spent most of my time
since I grew up in jail.
And it looks like I'll spend
the rest of my life dead.
WORDS OF BOGART:
I owe a lot to Leslie,
and he was always
a great friend of mine.
It's not for nothing
my daughter is named Leslie.
Get away from that door.
You think I'm gonna let you
take those people out
and slaughter them?
Cut out the act, pal.
I won't let you do it, Duke.
Okay, pal.
-(GUNSHOT)
-(WOMAN SCREAMS)
I'll be seeing you soon.
WORDS OF BOGART: Because of "The
Petrified Forest" being a hit,
Jack Warner assigned me
to a contract with no options.
My God, how I worked
in 1936 and '37.
I no sooner
got finished with one,
then those bastards
had me in another.
(BELL RINGS)
-(BELL RINGS)
-By the mid 1930s,
the classical Hollywood
studio system
was running
a factory-type operation.
Pretty much the way
General Motors
was producing automobiles,
Hollywood was producing
motion pictures.
WORDS OF BOGART: Mr. Warner
and I frequently disagreed
as to what constituted
a good picture.
I was used to the theater,
where I was shown a script
and asked if I wanted
to play in it.
I resented being thought of
as an employee.
Did the Black Legion
have anything to do
with this, Taylor?
Come on, Taylor, be
a good fella. Give us a story.
Humphrey was away
all hours of the night.
The marriage
had become monotonous.
WORDS OF BOGART: This was the
first time I'd really been able
to support Mary.
WORDS OF BOGART:
I asked her to stay in
Hollywood and start a family.
WORDS OF PHILIPS:
I was becoming accustomed
to my name in lights
outside the theater.
BAKER:
You got something here,
my friend.
I'd say you deserved her,
only I don't think
any man's worth any woman.
WORDS OF BOGART: Marriage is not
to be taken lightly,
to be put secondary
to one's selfish purposes,
like a career.
Mary Philips and I parted.
Maybe it was my fault.
It was difficult to judge.
I was walking off the dance
floor when I saw Mayo.
She was wearing
a stunning red gown
and looked
very, very interesting.
I was besotted.
Listen, toots,
when a gal like me loves a man,
nothing makes any difference.
WORDS OF BOGART:
She had one fear.
She didn't want just another
Hollywood marriage.
So she made me promise
not to see her, phone her,
or write to her
for three months.
At the end of that time, we'd
know if it was the real thing.
A little absent treatment
won't do any harm.
WORDS OF BOGART: I found out
about Portland's Rosebud
in an old scrapbook.
LAX: She had started off
on Broadway as a huge success.
She was young and beautiful
and was highly sought after.
WOMAN:
When she came to Hollywood,
she was able to play
these fascinatingly
androgynous, tough,
very gritty characters,
the tough-talking dames.
Even the biggest stars
do a nosedive sometimes.
Listen, you.
I'll be a star when this show's
rotting in the warehouse.
All right, fine.
HUTCHINSON:
In the early 1930s, you had
lots of really exciting films
about young women liberated,
out in the workplace,
and finding their own way
in the world,
and often that meant
not playing by the rules.
(GASPING AND LAUGHTER)
In the summer of 1934,
everything pretty much changed.
The Hollywood censorship regime
really went into enforcement
under the authority
of a very strict Irish Catholic
named Joseph Breen.
All the motion picture
production companies
in the United States
have joined hands in adopting
what has come to be known as
a "production code of ethics,"
to ensure screen entertainment
which will be
reasonably acceptable
to our patrons everywhere,
entertainment which is
definitely free from offense.
DOHERTY: After the onset
of the Production Code regime,
Hollywood adheres
to a very strict set
of moral commandments.
HUTCHINSON:
No profanity on screen.
No homosexuality on screen.
And on a great big battleship
you'd like to be...
Working as chambermaids, ah
HUTCHINSON:
No interracial romance.
No crime without punishment.
No disrespect to authority.
No extramarital sex.
And ultimately the women of the
1930s were suddenly relegated
to the supporting character
of wife and/or mother.
The vulgar, the cheap
and the tawdry is out.
The code sets up
high standards of performance
for motion picture producers.
It states the considerations
which good taste
and community value
make necessary in this
universal form of entertainment.
Ooh, mama!
I know just how you're feelin'.
DOHERTY: Mae West
is the big star of 1933,
and the big star of 1934
is Shirley Temple.
Then come here.
HUTCHINSON: After the code,
there was no place
for the particular persona
that Mayo Methot
had crafted so well.
Sweetheart,
I'm never going to leave you.
Here are these two people
who seem to be,
as they come together,
really at kind of the same
point in their careers.
You'll see that they're
on escalators side by side,
and hers is going down
and his is coming up.
But there they are,
meeting face to face,
just in the middle,
at this point in their lives.
She grew older,
whereas for Bogart
it was all right to grow older.
I don't really look old, do I?
What do they expect a girl to
look like at six in the morning
after dragging a lot of
heavyweight shoe salesmen around
the dance floor all night?
Like a debutant?
-You knew the deceased,
Betty Strauber?
-Yes, sir.
Can you please speak a little
louder so the jury can hear you?
-Yes, sir.
-What kind of a girl
would you say she was?
She was the sweetest kid
you ever saw.
MAN: They boozed a great deal,
and they fought a great deal.
And I asked him why he enjoyed
fighting with her so much,
and he said because
the making up was so pleasant.
I don't wanna fight with you
tonight, you beautiful...
WORDS OF BOGART:
Both of us are actors,
so fights are easy to start.
Actors always see the dramatic
quality in a situation
more easily than other people
and can't resist
dramatizing it further.
With us, it's second nature.
So I say something.
If Mayo's in the groove,
she catches the cue
and sends it back to me.
I pick it up from there, back
to her it goes, and we're off.
One minute we're mad.
The next we're over it.
We never hold grudges
or go on those silent sulks
that are so bad.
We enjoy every minute
of every sword crossing.
When they're over,
they're forgotten.
WORDS OF BOGART: Mayo and I
are the Battling Bogarts.
We love it. And what's more,
we love each other.
A left to the jaw,
and a right to the heart.
Oh, you still think
I can wow 'em, don't you, Val?
Of course I do.
(BIRDS CHIRPING)
WORDS OF METHOT: I don't believe
in this new-fashioned idea
of young women continuing
with their work after marriage.
I find time
as full as it ever was
when I was working steadily.
One way
that the studio publicists
sort of kept control
of their wayward stars
was that actors were expected
to talk to the fan magazines.
WORDS OF METHOT:
I plan the meals and take care
of Bogie's clothes,
attend to buttons and mending
like a most admirable hausfrau.
HUTCHINSON:
Actors would go into the fan
magazines and talk about
all they really cared about
was home and family
and their husband,
and pose for photographs by the
fire, or, like Mayo Methot did,
sitting at the feet of her
new husband, Humphrey Bogart.
WORDS OF METHOT:
I'm not interested
in my career anymore.
Humphrey's career
is my interest.
LAX: It was the last thing
in the world that
she would have ever wanted.
She was as hungry as he was,
or any other actor in town.
WORDS OF BOGART:
I played heavies in Hollywood
for eight or nine years.
I was a punching block
for Cagney,
Raft, Robinson, everybody.
The gangster characters
I played are all the same.
You could almost make a card
index of the lines they speak.
"Get over against the wall."
"Get your hands up."
-(GUNSHOT)
-(GRUNTS) Crazy!
-Any cop... cop...
-Here's one rap you won't beat.
Hey...
WORDS OF BOGART: In my first
34 pictures, I was shot in 12,
electrocuted
or hanged in eight,
and was a jailbird in nine.
I always wound up dead
and never got the girl.
A gangster is never allowed
to have any sex life.
The Breen office,
you know, old boy.
This was one of the pictures
that made me march
into Jack Warner
and ask for more money again.
I was this doctor
brought back to life,
and the only thing
that nourished
this poor bastard was blood.
If it had been
Jack Warner's blood,
maybe I wouldn't have minded
as much.
The trouble was,
they were drinking mine,
and I was making
this stinking movie.
Tell Dr. Rhodes...
we'll have to postpone our talk
on... blood composition.
WORDS OF BOGART: Do you realize
you're looking at an actor
who has made
more lousy pictures
than any other in history?
I'd read a movie script
and yell that
it was not right for me.
Jack Warner would phone
and say, "Be a good sport."
I'd argue and say no.
Then I'd get a letter
from the Warner Bros.' lawyers
ordering me to report.
I'd refuse.
Then another wire from Warners
saying that if I did not
report, he'd cut my throat.
He'd always sign it,
"Love to Mayo."
When my father died,
Maud doubled up momentarily
as if she'd had the wind
knocked out of her,
then straightened up and said,
"Well, that's done."
I insisted she come west.
She thought California
a pretty rough place.
It had no traditions,
no social background.
The building
was on Sunset Boulevard,
two blocks
from Schwab's drugstore,
the famed Hollywood emporium
where you could buy anything
from a quart of French perfume
to a nickel hamburger.
(ELEVATOR BELL RINGS)
Schwab's provided her
with the activity
she missed in retirement.
She joined its congregation.
She made little purchases
and strolled
grandly home again.
She was Lady Maud
with a vengeance.
Maud was not a woman one loved.
For such was her drive,
her singleness of purpose,
that none of us
could really get at her.
What an adorable boy he was.
Sweet and darling.
I don't know why he has to play
all these dreadful parts.
WORDS OF BOGART:
She did not complain
about her final illness.
She said nothing to anyone
until it was much too late
to do anything for her.
Instead, at 75,
she went into a hospital,
slipped into a coma, and died.
When this remarkable, gifted,
successful illustrator
died in 1940,
her son was given
the death certificate
to sign and put her occupation.
And he put "housewife."
ACTRESS: I'm awful sorry
for the way I've acted.
You got nothing
to be sorry about.
Yes, I have, nagging at you
for flying off the handle.
I wish I hadn't. Oh...
Oh, I like it. I mean,
that's the way married people
ought to act.
Listen, my ma and pa
fought like cats and dogs
going on 40 years.
I wouldn't give you two cents
for a dame without a temper.
Well, I was a writer
at Warner Bros. in the '30s.
Bogart was
a contract actor there.
Um, I used to see him
on the lot,
and, uh, we became friends.
And presently I wrote a picture
that Bogart did, "High Sierra."
(TIRES SCREECH)
When the Communist scare
came along, around 1940,
an early version
of the House Committee
on Un-American activities,
which was known as HUAC,
came out
and was holding hearings.
Bogart spent an afternoon
with the committee,
not giving them anything
that they wanted
but becoming
more and more incensed
by the way he had been accused
by a man named Joseph Leech,
who had written letters
saying that Bogart
and others were seen
at Communist Party meetings,
which was just bunk.
(BIRD SQUAWKS)
WORDS OF BOGART: I'd always been
a loyal citizen.
I resented the intrusion
and the insinuation
that I was anything else.
LAX: He came out and he said,
"I can't stand by anymore.
We can't let America
come to this."
And that was his beginning
into politics,
which would really
come forth in 1947.
WORDS OF BOGART:
Mayo's a grand girl.
She knows how to handle me.
When I go to a party and
the party spirit gets at me,
I'm apt to flirt
with any amusing girl I see,
but I don't mean it.
My wife's job, and Mayo
has promised to take it on,
is to yank me out of the fire
before I get burned.
I like a jealous wife.
I can be a jealous husband too.
There is nothing
that cannot be ironed out
between two people
who love each other.
Do I ever throw things?
Oh, yes.
But the funny thing is,
I never seem to throw things
I really like.
Old things that won't break,
metal ashtrays and so on,
are fine for throwing.
Phonograph records are superb.
They make
such a satisfactory crash...
(SMASHING)
If you're too tame,
you're half dead.
Bogie and I like excitement.
We need it.
WOMAN: I got myself into a
dinghy once and rode out there.
Well, they both came out,
and everything was bleeding
on 'em, particularly noses,
and they yanked me on the boat
and they said,
"Have a drink, Joanie,"
and gave us a drink,
and they were the best of pals.
Bogie took a piece of ice
out of his highball glass
and put it at the back
of his neck to stop
the bleeding, and says,
"Boy, is she a dame.
She's got a right like
a truck driver. Look at my eye!"
And she'd say, "That guy!
Look at this shiner!"
And she had one.
And whatever piece of meat
or anything I had,
I'd plunk it on her eye.
And then we laughed,
and they laughed,
and we had a lovely time.
I think that when you're living
day to day with someone
who is embracing the career
that you've been fighting for
your whole life,
and you can see your own career
just slipping completely
out of view,
that must be
entirely devastating.
LAX: She had seen
what it was like to be a star.
She had enough taste
of being a star
to know how much she wanted it.
And every day it became
less and less possible for her.
And that had to feed
into the unhappiness
that she had in the marriage.
Oh, I could have got out of it
once, but I had a rotten break.
I fell in love.
After the gangster era,
Hitler was acting out scripts
far more brutal
than anything that
the Capone gang or Warner Bros.
had ever conceived.
And at that point,
when reality was so gruesome,
you could not have heroes
with curly hair and soft voices
like Leslie Howard.
They were suddenly dated.
WORDS OF BOGART: "The Maltese
Falcon" was the first
of the private eye movies.
I wanna talk to Mr. Cairo.
Joel Cairo.
WORDS OF BOGART: I had
a lot going for me in that one.
First there was Huston.
HUSTON: The original intention
was to have George Raft
play it.
But he pulled away from it
because he didn't want
to trust his career
to a young director, to someone
who had never directed before.
And, um, Bogart,
to my secret delight,
was substituted.
That picture began, I think,
a whole new career for Bogie.
-What do you want here?
-I'm Sam Spade.
Tom Polhaus phoned.
Oh, I didn't know you at first.
Back there.
WORDS OF BOGART:
I was the first Sam Spade.
I don't have many things
I'm proud of, but that's one.
The trench coat
has become a trademark.
I do like a man
who tells you right out
he's looking out for himself.
Don't we all? I don't trust
a man who says he's not.
Uh-huh.
The most effective
American war propaganda
during the Second World War
takes traditional
old Hollywood genres
and adapts them for
the purposes of the war effort.
Rick, there's gonna be
excitement here tonight.
We're going to make an arrest
in your caf.
-Again?
-Oh, this is no ordinary arrest.
A murderer no less.
If you're thinking of warning
him, don't put yourself out.
He cannot possibly escape.
-I stick my neck out for nobody.
-A wise foreign policy.
DOHERTY: It is trying
to persuade those Americans
who might be the traditional
American loner, like Rick,
that you really do
have to commit yourself.
Whatever gave you the impression
that I might be interested
in helping Laszlo escape?
Because, my dear Ricky,
I suspect
that under that cynical shell,
you're at heart
a sentimentalist.
We wanted to have
a romantic hero
who was working for the allies.
I mean, if he's the rebel,
he's the rebel in a good cause.
-He's the rebel
on behalf of the people.
-(SOLDIERS SINGING NAZI ANTHEM)
Play "La Marseillaise." Play it.
COOKE: He's against all the pomp
and the officialdom,
and the sleazy operations
of the establishment.
(SINGING "LA MARSEILLAISE")
No matter
what the future brings
As time goes by
Sam, I thought I told you
never to play it.
It's hard to be married
to a movie star.
You never know
when you might lose him
to a more beautiful woman.
Unless she's completely devoid
of jealousy,
she cannot help it.
It is a perfectly human thing
to do.
WORDS OF BOGART:
When I come home
from working on "Casablanca,"
Mayo is ready for me.
Sometimes I think
she lies in ambush for me.
I had admired Bogart very much
as an actor.
I found him fascinating.
There was something mysterious
about him.
And it was dangerous.
There was danger around him.
I always felt
there was a distance.
It was like
he was behind a wall.
"Casablanca" solidifies
Bogart's star status.
He gets the validation
that every true top billed star
has to have,
which is the romantic lead.
People had doubts about whether
he could make that transition
into the dreamy romantic lead.
They asked him whether
he thought he was adorable,
and Bogart replied,
"If Ingrid Bergman looks at you
like you're adorable,
then you're adorable."
Here's looking at you, kid.
BAKER:
Embrace me
My sweet embraceable you
Embrace me
You irreplaceable...
Mayo and Humphrey came in
and stood briefly at our table
to say hello
and tell us that they were
on their way to Africa
to entertain the troops.
They neither spoke
nor looked at each other
until the drinks
were brought to the table.
It was plain that the team
of the Battling Bogarts
was soon to break up.
-How are our boys doing?
-Our boys are doing a great job.
On our trip overseas,
my wife and I saw
thousands of American boys
in Africa and Italy, and you can
be awfully proud of them.
We did the best we could
to entertain them.
There's an organization
that's looking after them
in every theater of the war.
That's the American Red Cross.
WORDS OF BROOKS: Humphrey Bogart
had become big business.
It was time for Lauren Bacall
to make her entrance.
She who was also to become
his perfect screen partner.
As seductive as Eve.
As cool as the serpent.
Anybody got a match?
Thanks.
MAN: "Sam, I want you
to come up see me right away.
I've been stabbed." I said
"What?" He said "Stabbed."
And I walked in,
and he turned around,
and he had a...
a... a heavy,
uh, English tweed jacket.
And as he turned around,
I could see there was blood.
The blood had come
right through.
And the argument was that
they had a...
they had a difference of opinion
about politics.
BAKER:
He awakened in me
obviously something
that had never
been awakened before
and something
that I really needed.
And I needed someone
to really care about me.
And I guess I needed a man
to care about me.
And he was this...
He was the most caring man
that I've ever known.
And it just happened
that suddenly
I just had to be
with him all the time.
O'MOORE:
Come into my boudoir.
BACALL: We started shooting
"The Big Sleep"
on October 10th, 1944.
He told me
that the last few weeks
had been the most difficult
of his life.
Mayo said
she'd stopped drinking.
He had to give her a chance.
After about two weeks
of shooting,
the phone rang late one night.
He'd had a fight with Mayo,
of course.
She'd been drinking when
he got back from the studio
and things went
from bad to worse.
About three weeks into
the picture, Bogie left home
and checked into
the Beverly Hills Hotel.
WORDS OF BOGART: I couldn't
go on with the battles we had.
I wanted a new life.
What's wrong with you?
Nothing you can't fix.
WORDS OF BOGART:
It's hard to break up
a marriage of six years,
but we'd had so many fights.
I believed it was
the right thing to do,
and she was too sensible
to want to hold me.
INTERVIEWER: Howard Hawks tried
to discourage the relationship.
Oh, yes.
Oh, he kept saying to me,
"Oh, he'll never marry you.
Oh, don't be..."
And I would cry.
I was in tears most of the time.
And he'd say to Bogie, "Listen,
you don't have to marry.
Why don't you get
a little hotel room?"
That was not Bogie's style
at all, so it was...
Howard did everything he could
to try to stop it,
but it was unstoppable.
WORDS OF BOGART:
I never believed
that I could love again,
for so many things
have happened in my life
that I was afraid to love.
(APPLAUSE)
I never was happy
until I met that one.
My mother was born
Betty Joan Perske.
The family name on my
grandmother's side was Bacall.
Howard Hawks,
he didn't like the name Betty,
so he gave her the name Lauren.
Everybody who knew her
called her Betty.
INTERVIEWER: At that time,
was there any point
where you thought,
"I just can't take this crazy,
sick Hollywood scene"?
Oh, it was magic.
It was a fairyland to me
when I first went out.
All those green trees.
All those palm trees,
and the green grass,
and the oranges,
and the grapefruits.
The lemons. Lots of lemons.
(LAUGHTER)
-Including one or two pictures.
-Yeah.
I think if I had not had Bogie
as a guide, I really...
I dread to think
what might have happened.
When he used to talk about
actors who believed
their own publicity,
he said they forgot that the
studio planted the publicity.
They really began to believe
that it was them.
And it's very easy
to believe that.
Certainly when you're 19,
it's very easy to believe it.
Jack Warner decided he wanted
to put me in a picture
called "Confidential Agent"
with Charles Boyer.
I was not mad
about the script or my part.
Bogie didn't think
much of it either.
But to cast me
as an aristocratic English girl
was more than a stretch.
WORDS OF BOGART: Betty went from
what was practically oblivion
to the spotlight
of world attention.
Then, before she had time
to catch her breath,
she took a panning
that would have staggered
even a seasoned star.
The press went out of their way
to knock her,
just as they had built her up.
The plain fact of the matter is
that Betty was lauded
for one picture
out of all proportion
to her deserts,
and panned for another that
wasn't by any means her fault.
Betty had to learn two great
lessons practically overnight.
The lesson
of how to handle oneself
in the face of immediate
and unexpected success,
and that other lesson
of how to take immediate
and unexpected failure.
BACALL:
I fell from the top of that
ladder with a resounding crash,
and it was the last time Jack
Warner made a choice for me.
STEPHEN:
My mother's movie career
was kind of based
on my father's career.
She tried to separate herself,
but it all came back
to Bogie and Bacall,
because they were
one of the more famous couples
of that century.
DOHERTY: Throughout the 1940s,
there is a real concern
that not only
will the Soviet Union
be a threat to our democracy
but that the Soviet Union
has a fifth column, so-called,
of subversive agents
within America
also trying to undermine
American democracy.
J EDGAR HOOVER:
Communism in reality
is not a political party.
It is a way of life.
An evil and malignant
way of life.
It reveals a condition
akin to disease
that spreads like an epidemic.
And like an epidemic,
a quarantine is necessary
to keep it from infecting
this nation.
DOHERTY: The Hollywood Ten
were that group
of screenwriters,
one producer, one director,
who did not support the agenda
of the House Un-American
Activities Committee,
which was to investigate
alleged communist subversion
in Hollywood.
And if you opposed that agenda,
you were called
an unfriendly witness,
and you were subpoenaed
to come testify
before Congress.
MAN: The question
before this committee
will be to determine the extent
of communist infiltration
in the Hollywood
motion picture industry.
JACK WARNER: Ideological
termites have burrowed
into many American industries,
organizations and societies.
Wherever they may be,
I say let us dig them out
and get rid of them.
WORDS OF BOGART:
Our planeload of Hollywood
performers came east
to fight against
what we considered
censorship of the movies.
Our object
was to exert our influence
in defense of a principle,
the principle that
no man should be forced to tell
what political party
he belongs to.
None of us ever thought
for a moment
that we were
defending communists,
or that it had anything
to do with that.
As far as we were concerned,
we were defending man's right
to defend himself,
which Mr. J Parnell Thomas
was not allowing anyone to do.
Are you or have you ever been
a member of the Communist Party?
MAN: I believe
I have the right to be
confronted with any evidence
which supports this question.
I should like to see
what you have.
MAN 2:
It's unfortunate and tragic that
I have to teach this committee
the basic principles
of Americanism.
THOMAS: That's not the question!
MAN 2: It is an invasion
of the right of association
under the Bill of Rights.
THOMAS: Please be responsive
to the question.
MAN 2:
The rights of American citizens
are important in this room here,
and I intend
to stand up for those rights.
BOGART, ARCHIVE RECORDING:
This is Humphrey Bogart.
We sat in the committee room
and heard it happen. We saw it.
We saw American citizens
denied the right to speak
by elected representatives
of the people.
We saw police take citizens
from the stand like criminals
after they'd been refused
the right to defend themselves.
We saw the gavel
of a committee chairman
cutting off the words
of free Americans.
The sound of that gavel, Mr.
Thomas, rings across America.
Because every time
your gavel struck,
it hit the First Amendment
to the Constitution
of the United States.
WORDS OF BOGART: I think
the industry is so censored
and so shot at by factions
that it's like
a cowering rabbit,
afraid to stick its head out.
In the shuffle, we became
adopted by the communists,
and I ended up with my picture
on the front page
of the "Daily Worker."
LAX: Bogart, because he was
the most famous of the lot,
is the one who started
taking the criticism.
Tremendous pressure
was put on him.
DOHERTY:
Bogart has a press conference
in which he basically says,
"I was naive and stupid,
and I apologize
for doing what I did."
And it's really sort of one of
the more humiliating moments
in Bogart's life.
HUSTON: I was surprised to read
that Bogie had recanted
in the light of ensuing events.
Why, I regard it as a mistake
that Bogie did this.
He should have
stuck to his guns.
But I quite understand
why he didn't.
The man who followed Thomas
in the Senate, McCarthy,
made a nightmare out of his
decade, and... and no one...
So we can't hold Bogie too
strictly to account for this.
No one, literally no one,
had the...
the courage to speak up.
WORDS OF BOGART: Warner was one
of the worst, if you ask me.
He and a good many
of the stuffed shirts
who control this town
decided they had to
do something
to take the heat
off the industry.
That's why they set up
the blacklist
of stars, writers, producers.
BACALL: The other things,
maybe they're true.
Maybe it is a rotten world.
But a cause isn't lost
as long as someone
is willing to go on fighting.
Well, I'm not that someone.
But you are. You may not wanna
be, but you can't help yourself.
Your whole life's against you.
What do you know about my life?
A whole lot.
INTERVIEWER:
What was the name of that song?
BOGART: "The Bold Fisherman."
It's an old sea shanty that
my father used to sing to me
when I was
about eight years old.
INTERVIEWER: Would you sound
a bell note for Mr. Bogart
so he could start this
immortal song of the sea, hmm?
(PIANO INTRO)
BOGART: There was
a bold fisherman set sail
from off Billingsgate
To catch the bold piggie
and the gay mackeroo
But when he got off Pimlico
The wynds did begin to blow
And the little boat
wobble-wobbled so
-(LAUGHTER)
-That overboard
went he singing
-Twinky deedle dum
-(LAUGHTER)
Twinky deedle dee
Was the highly interesting
song that he sung
Twinky deedle dum
Twinky deedle dee
Bold fisherman
WORDS OF BOGART:
Hemingway said that the sea
is the last free place
in the world,
and I respect it and love it.
The sea, the air.
It's clean and healthy,
and away from the Hollywood
gossip and leeches.
Ever since I was little,
I wanted to have my own boat.
I've realized that ambition
in the Santana,
and you've no idea the
satisfaction I get out of that.
BACALL: He'd never had children
and I really wanted him
to have children.
I don't know
whether he wanted them or not,
but he was going to have them,
I made up my mind.
(LAUGHS)
He was afraid
that it would interfere
with our relationship.
And of course, in a way,
I suppose it does,
because children do take over,
don't they?
WORDS OF BOGART:
I was as frightened
as any stock expectant father
when I found out
she was gonna have Stephen.
After all, it was my first shot
at being a father at nearly 49.
I guess I was scared I wouldn't
know how to be a good father.
BACALL: I don't know what
happened, but after I told him,
we had the biggest fight
we'd ever had.
The next morning,
Bogie wrote me a long letter
apologizing for his behavior,
saying he didn't know
what had gotten into him
except his fear of losing me.
A child was an unknown quantity
to him.
He just would have to
get used to the idea.
WORDS OF BOGART: I can't say
that I ever truly wanted
a child before I married Betty.
My life never seemed settled
enough to wish it on a minor.
But Betty wanted a child
very much,
and as she talked about it,
I did too.
I'm realistic enough
to be aware
that I shall probably leave
this sphere before she does.
I wanted a child, therefore,
to stay with her,
to remind her of me.
Meeting adjourned.
Have a frozen daiquiri.
WORDS OF BOGART:
I don't think I could live
just as a husband and father.
I have to work.
When I'm in town
and not working,
it's a pretty dull day.
For lunch, I'm at Romanoffs
for a couple of hours.
I can meet my friends there.
It's kind of like a club.
He would come in
every morning before noon.
INTERVIEWER: Was he one of
the first people to show up?
NIKLAS: Always the first.
But he would go first
to the bar, get his drink.
Then he'd go back to his table,
and then he would wait
for whoever would show up.
As a matter of fact, they put
a plaque up behind the booth
with the names
of who belongs to this club
that can sit at this table.
INTERVIEWER: Now, did Betty
come ever with him
at that early hour?
NIKLAS: No.
She would join him later.
INTERVIEWER:
When Betty was with him,
was it a different atmosphere
at the table?
NIKLAS: No, she held her own.
-Go get yourself a drink
and cool off.
-Okay.
WORDS OF BOGART: I don't trust
any bastard who doesn't drink.
People who don't drink are
afraid of revealing themselves.
Here's happy days.
MAN: He was always
short-tempered,
but if you knew him,
you didn't believe it.
But he could have been
short-tempered to strangers.
The dividing line
was final and clear cut.
You knew where you stood
ten minutes after you met him,
you know.
FLORENCE: That's right,
you either had a rapport,
and you either would
communicate and he liked you,
or he didn't like you.
MAN: He made perfectly sure
that you knew
he was going to be
an unpredictable man.
He didn't walk round
with a chip on his shoulder.
He carried the chip in his hand
and made sure you knew he had it
and was going to put it
on his shoulder any minute.
He was a searcher for the...
the weakness in a person.
He loved to goad and, uh...
He would call it teasing.
It was really testing.
He loved to find
where he could jab
a sensitive part of a person,
and he was a master
at finding it.
MAN: There were times
when he would pick on people
for no reason whatsoever,
usually brought on by drink.
But on occasion
he would go after somebody
who had no defenses and who
really shouldn't be picked on.
WORDS OF BROOKS: During the last
ten years of his life,
driven by
his ferocious ambition,
Humphrey Bogart allowed himself
to be presented
to the world by journalists
as a coarse and drunken bully.
Just stop! You'll kill him!
WORDS OF BROOKS:
However, he played one
fascinatingly complex character
in a film whose title
perfectly defined
Bogart's own isolation
amongst people,
"In a Lonely Place."
There's a cancellation
on flight 16 for New York.
I'll stay with you, Dix.
I promise I'll stay with you.
I love you, Dix. I'll marry you.
I'll go away with you!
You'll run away from me
the first chance you get!
Don't act like this, Dix.
I can't live with a maniac!
I'll never let you go.
-Dix, don't! Don't! Dix, please!
-(PHONE RINGS)
Don't, Dix, please! Don't!
WORDS OF BROOKS:
It gave him a role that
he could play with complexity,
because the film character's
pride in his art,
his selfishness,
his drunkenness,
his lack of energy stabbed with
lightning strokes of violence,
were shared by the real Bogart.
(RINGING CONTINUES)
(SEAGULLS SQUAWKING)
WORDS OF BOGART:
We have a comfortable home,
a wonderful son,
a boat, and nice friends.
I hate like the devil
to take Betty away from our son
for such a long time.
The kid's only two,
and we're gonna be away
at least six months.
But I can't see it
any other way.
My other marriages broke up
on account of separations.
So wherever I go, she goes.
BACALL: I had agreed with him,
I made a pact with him,
I would always put my marriage
first, and I did.
I... I... I kept to that pact.
When my mother and father left
to go to "African Queen,"
Mrs. Hartley,
my nurse at the time,
brought us down to the airport
to see them off.
And they take off, get up in
the air, and she drops dead.
She literally drops dead
with me in her arms.
And the doctor calls her
and said,
"The nurse has died.
What do you wanna do?"
And that's when my mother said,
"Well, do I wanna go to Africa
with John Huston,
make a movie
with Katharine Hepburn
and have the most exciting time
of my life,
or do I wanna go home and
take care of the two-year-old?"
I understand this is
your first trip to Paris.
-Absolutely.
-And I bet you're excited.
And I can't wait to get there.
-The French capital.
-Yes.
It's always been
very glamorous to me,
and I've always loved
the French language.
And what about
the high spot of this trip?
What are you going to see?
The Folies Bergre,
the style salons or what?
For me?
Well, as it is for most women,
I think they're
pretty interested in fashion.
MAN: Bogie was saying, "You know
what I like about Paris?"
He says, "They don't bother you
over here."
He says, "You're a movie star.
So what? They ignore ya."
And we were in a car then,
and we stopped for a red light,
and this little Frenchman
with a beret looked in,
and he saw
and he recognized Bogart,
and he went up to the window
and he went "Bang, bang!"
INTERVIEWER:
How about the new picture?
You're going over to the deep,
dark continent to make it.
Yes, we're going over to Africa,
probably down
around Nairobi
and Northern Rhodesia.
Incidentally, we just found out
it was raining there,
so we may have to shoot it
in Scotland, I don't know.
(BIRDS CHIRPING)
Ah, it's a great thing to have
a lady aboard with clean habits.
Set the man a good example.
A man alone, he...
he gets to living like a hog.
I was wildly excited, but Bogie
knew that John would find
the most inaccessible spot
in Africa as a location,
and he dreaded it.
He liked his life as it was.
Going to New York was all
the traveling he wanted to do.
The only thing I hated
was leaving Steve.
HUSTON: Bogart didn't like
any part of it. (CHUCKLES)
He was against it
from the word go.
He cursed me
for taking him places
and said he wouldn't go
for anybody else.
And maybe
there was something to that.
VIERTEL:
WORDS OF BOGART: John Huston
wanted everything perfect.
If he saw a nice close mountain
to photograph,
that mountain was no good.
If we could get
to a location site
without fording
a couple of streams,
walking through
a nest of rattlesnakes
and scorching in the sun,
then he said
it wasn't quite right.
We called him
"Hard Way Huston."
The food was so awful,
we had to drink Scotch
most of the time.
And Katie kept saying,
"Wouldn't it be marvelous if
we could stay here forever?"
Whenever a fly bit
Huston or me, it dropped dead.
I built a solid wall of whiskey
between me and the bugs.
She doesn't drink,
and she breezes through it all
as though it were
a weekend in Connecticut.
Oh, miss. Oh, have pity, miss.
INTERVIEWER:
Could you have happily married
Humphrey Bogart?
HEPBURN:
It never occurred to me.
INTERVIEWER: Was he a funny man
to be around?
Light-hearted? Serious?
Uh, he was serious.
He was enormously fair.
He was very much of a gent,
very well born.
-Frightfully good manners.
-Not a tough guy?
Not at all. The exact opposite.
What you being
so mean for, miss?
A man takes a drop too much
once in a while,
it's only human nature.
Nature, Mr. Allnutt, is what
we are put in this world
to rise above.
Miss...
I'm sorry. I apologize.
What more can a man do
than say sorry, huh?
WORDS OF BOGART: Such a waste.
Each of Humphrey's wives
was fittingly chosen
to accord with the progress
of his career.
When he began to act
and had so much to learn
about the theater,
he married Helen Menken.
Mary Philips
was exactly right for him
during the time he required
comfort more than inspiration.
But no one contributed so much
to Humphrey's success
as his third wife, Mayo Methot.
He found her at a time
of lethargy and loneliness,
when he might have gone
on playing secondary
gangster parts at Warner Bros.
He met Mayo,
and she set fire to him,
and blew the lid off
all his inhibitions, forever.
ANNOUNCER: Hollywood turns out
for the Oscar Awards
by the Academy of Motion
Picture Arts and Sciences.
The night is bright with stars.
MAN: I said,
"Well, I got a speech for you.
Will you say it?"
He said, "Yes, I'll say it.
What is it?"
"When they call your name
and you walk up
and you get the Oscar,
look at the audience
very dramatically
for about five seconds,
and then say, 'Well, it's about
time.'" But he didn't.
-The winner is Humphrey Bogart
in The African Queen.
-(CHEERING)
BOGART:
It's a very long way from
the heart of the Belgian Congo
to the stage
of the Pantages Theatre,
and I'm very glad to say
that it's a little nicer here
than it was there.
I, uh...
I just want to pay a slight,
as a matter of fact,
a very big tribute,
to Mr. John Huston
and Miss Katharine Hepburn,
because they helped me
to be where I am now.
-Thank you very much.
-(APPLAUSE)
WORDS OF BOGART:
Acting is a nice racket.
The words "movie star" are so
misused, they have no meaning.
The studios can make anyone
a star if they get behind them.
That's why I don't kid myself,
why I can't take myself
or the business seriously.
BACALL: 1952 found me
pregnant again.
We didn't have room for the new
baby in Benedict Canyon.
So as Bogie threw his hands
in the air, I went hunting
and fell in love
with the most beautiful house.
WORDS OF BOGART:
At Warners I had
one of the biggest contracts,
but it was restrictive,
and I thought I'd do better
on the outside.
I finally left. You never saw a
guy so happy to get rid of me.
STEPHEN: The whole studio
system, and the constraints,
were part and parcel
of why he started
his own production company,
Santana Productions.
Almost no one had
their own production companies.
My father was one of the first.
It's your move.
WORDS OF BOGART: I had some
wonderful years at Warners.
I realized
they were largely responsible
for what was to follow
in my career.
I miss my battles with Jack.
No one ever gave me
such good insults as he did.
BACALL: 1953 was
a very good year for us.
Bogie worked continually
and in good films.
I had gone back to work,
after three years, in a movie.
The film was titled
"How to Marry a Millionaire."
At the same time,
Bogie would be in Italy
for "Beat The Devil."
It would be
our first separation
in eight years of marriage.
We had no script
when Bogie arrived.
A very poor semblance
of a script.
In heaven's name, Billy,
say something.
HUSTON: I said, "Bogie, Jesus,
we may be making a big mistake
in going ahead with this."
And there was an opportunity
to cut our losses
and get out of the whole thing.
It was Bogie's company,
and for this reason,
I felt doubly responsible.
Bogie said,
"Why, John, it's only money."
WORDS OF BOGART:
Huston had an idea.
"Instead of trying
to do 'Casablanca'
or 'Falcon' over again,
we'll get Truman Capote
to write the screenplay
and make it a human picture
with lots of heart and humor."
Truman wrote like fury,
had the darndest
and most upside-down slant
on humor you'd ever heard.
If I loved you a thousand times
more than you say you love me,
it still wouldn't make
any difference.
I've got to have money.
Doctor's orders are
that I must have a lot of money.
Otherwise I become
dull, listless
and have trouble
with my complexion.
But you're not like that now
and you haven't any money.
It's my expectations
that hold me together.
-Driver. Driver!
-INTERVIEWER: When "Beat
The Devil" was first released,
and when the studios
got a look at it,
did they say, "What is this
supposed to be about?"
HUSTON: They certainly did,
and so did the audiences
and the critics
and everybody else.
INTERVIEWER:
And when did they begin
to realize that it was funny?
HUSTON:
It took three or four years
for it to begin to catch on.
And then, as you said,
it slowly grew into that...
into a cult image.
INTERVIEWER: Yeah. How did
Bogart and Capote get along?
They got along famously,
until I remember one night
they began to wrestle.
And, um,
quite surprisingly, Truman,
who's a little bulldog,
by the way,
pinned Bogie's shoulders
to the floor.
BACALL: Bogie and I formed a
group known as the Rat Pack.
In order to qualify, one had to
be addicted to non-conformity:
staying up late,
drinking, laughing,
and not caring what anyone
thought or said about us.
WORDS OF BOGART:
I've worked all my life
and I've had the applause.
I'll be damned if I know
why I work so hard.
Work is therapy, I guess.
It keeps me on the wagon.
I've said I'd like
to make enough money to retire
and that's all.
But I suppose I wouldn't
be happy doing nothing.
In "The Caine Mutiny,"
I play Queeg,
a man who was given a command
and was unable
to accept the responsibility.
Good afternoon, gentlemen.
WORDS OF BOGART: I liked Captain
Queeg. I felt I understood him.
Naturally, I... I can only cover
these things from memory.
If I've left anything out, why,
just ask me specific questions,
and... I'll be glad
to answer them one by one.
WORDS OF BOGART: Queeg was not
crazy. He was sick.
I don't know
whether he was schizophrenic,
a manic depressive
or a paranoiac.
Ask a psychiatrist.
But I do know that a person
that has any of those things
works overtime at being normal.
In fact, he's supernormal
until he's pressured.
Then he blows up.
I personally know a Queeg
in every studio in Hollywood.
ANNOUNCER: And now I know
that you're as anxious as I am
to find out what actor
has won the Oscar for the best
performance of this year.
The winner is Marlon Brando
for On The Waterfront.
WORDS OF BOGART: I came out here
with one suit, and everybody
thought I was a bum.
When Brando came out
with one sweatshirt,
the town drooled over him.
These actor studio types,
they mumble their lines.
I can't hear their words.
Why the hell don't they learn
to speak properly?
This "scratch your ass
and mumble" school of acting
doesn't please me.
It's much heavier
than I imagined.
WORDS OF BOGART: I'm no longer
the flaming youth.
I have responsibilities.
I'm a married man
with two children,
and my wife is a very steadying
influence on me.
I don't think
I'm Bogart anymore.
-Oh, there you are.
-And here's Leslie.
WORDS OF BOGART: I'm probably
not a very good father.
It came a little late in life.
I don't understand them,
and I think
they don't understand me.
And all I can say is
thank God for Betty.
I don't think he really liked
being the father of a baby,
but I think as we got older,
we really would have gotten
into a groove with each other.
I think he would have been
a really good father,
and that's not to say he wasn't
when I was growing up.
He was just
kind of standoffish.
BACALL: 1956 was to be the year
that Bogie and I
were to make
our first film together
since "Key Largo"
eight years before.
We were both
looking forward to it.
We'd been married
ten and a half years by then.
Life seemed very good indeed.
Bogie came home one day
and told me
he'd run into Greer Garson
at lunch.
Greer had said
she didn't like his cough
and that he must go to see Dr.
Maynard Brandsma, her doctor,
an internist
at the Beverly Hills Clinic.
She actually dragged him there
for an examination.
BRANDSMA:
BACALL: Bogie asked
if it couldn't be postponed
until after the movie
was completed.
We were to start
in a week or so.
"Not unless you want a lot
of flowers at Forest Lawn,"
said Dr. Brandsma.
BRANDSMA:
WORDS OF BOGART:
I haven't been going out.
I'm supposed to sit here
and keep quiet.
I feel tired all the time.
I don't seem to have
any pep anymore.
Old age is catching up
with me, I guess.
BRANDSMA:
INTERVIEWER:
BRANDSMA:
BACALL: So the words
were spoken at last.
"It doesn't look too good."
I could not think
in terms of Bogie not living.
It was just
totally unacceptable.
A man's illness
is his private territory,
and no matter how much he loves
you and how close you are,
you stay an outsider.
WORDS OF BOGART: I have been
greatly disturbed lately
at the many unchecked
and baseless rumors
being tossed among you
regarding the state
of my health.
I have read that both lungs
have been removed,
that I couldn't live
for another half hour,
that I was fighting
for my life,
that my heart has been removed
and replaced
with an old gasoline pump.
I'm a better man
than I ever was,
and all I need now
is about 30 pounds in weight,
which I'm sure
some of you could spare.
And believe me,
I'm not particular
which portion of your anatomies
it comes from.
BACALL: For a couple of weeks,
our life was almost normal.
Leslie had her fourth
birthday party out of doors.
We spent Labor Day weekend
on the Santana
and had a quiet, happy time
in Catalina.
INTERVIEWER:
MAN:
INTERVIEWER:
NOKS:
INTERVIEWER:
NOKS:
INTERVIEWER:
NOKS:
STEPHEN: I think the clearest
memory I have of my father
is being on the boat.
I can see him laughing.
My father loved the water
as much as he loved anything.
It was his solace,
the way he rejuvenated himself.
That was where he liked to be
more than anything else.
HYAMS: I went upstairs, and
his valet was dressing Bogart,
who was lying
in the big double bed,
and he put
Bogart's trousers on,
and then he put
a smoking jacket on.
HUSTON: And he was too weak
to even be lifted
down the stairs.
There was a dumbwaiter,
and he used to crowd himself
into this dumbwaiter
and come down
to the first floor,
where he was then
put into a chair
and wheeled
into the drawing room.
It was a very social gathering,
and he would sit there like this
for an hour or two,
without really sipping,
'cause he didn't have
the strength to lift the glass
or light the cigarette.
I don't think any of us knew
until almost the very end
what tremendous courage it took
for Bogart to get there,
sit in that chair,
and for an hour
try to be a host.
That's the last picture
I have of Bogie.
Um... And quite in keeping
with... with the image that...
that I have of him altogether,
his whole life.
STEPHEN: I remember him
coming down in the dumbwaiter
and being rolled out,
and, you know,
his friends would come in.
He didn't want us
to see him like that,
so we were not allowed
to really see him that much
during that year.
HEPBURN: Spencer and I
went to the house,
we talked for a while,
and Bogie was entertaining
as always.
And he was sitting in a chair
in his bedroom,
sitting in a wheelchair.
And then we got up to go,
so as not to exhaust him.
And, uh, I kissed him goodbye,
walked over to the door,
and Spencer walked over
and patted his shoulder
and said, "We're on our way."
And Bogie reached up with
his hand, patted Spencer's hand,
looked at him and said,
"Goodbye, Spence."
BACALL:
Somewhere around midnight,
I kissed Bogie goodnight,
this time, for the first time
in eleven and a half years
of married life,
with no response from him.
I lay down on the bed,
and for the first time
in almost a year,
I sobbed and sobbed and sobbed.
(THUNDER CRASHES)
(CHURCH BELL TOLLS)
At no time during
the months of his illness
did he believe
he was going to die.
Not that he refused
to consider the thought.
It simply
never occurred to him.
Himself, he never took
too seriously.
His work, most seriously.
He regarded the somewhat
gaudy figure of Bogart the star
with an amused cynicism.
Bogart, the actor,
he held in deep respect.
His life was a rich, full life.
We have no reason
to feel any sorrow for him,
only for ourselves
for having lost him.
WORDS OF BOGART: I like people,
yachts, chess, politics.
A good drink.
A good wife. Nice kids.
I had those.
(THUNDER CRASHES)
Don't take him,
he's no good
Trust me, I'm better
He won't hate you
like I could
He's too lovely
Take me, I'm bad
Trust me, I'm unforgiven
He won't entertain you
like I would
He's too lovely
No, no, no, no
He's not the one you wanted
Take me, take me
Instead