Bogie: A Celebration of the Life and Films of Humphrey Bogart - Hardcover

Schickel, Richard

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0312366299 ISBN 13: 9780312366292

Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books, 2006

Synopsis

In the fifty years since his death in 1957 Humphrey Bogart has firmly established his position as one of the iconic figures in the history of cinema, a star of the same magnitude as Monroe, Gable or Chaplin, and the personaification of one of Hollywood's most enduring genres, film noir. In this lavishly illsutrated survey of Bogart's life and work, Richard Schickel assesses his career and enduring legacy while George Perry provides a detailed review of the films he made over three decades, with a particular focus on his key roles. Published with the authorization of the Estate of Humphrey Bogart, this official celebration is a fitting tribute to a much-loved star.

 

Having started out playing a series of supporting roles and "B" movie leads in routine gangster films, Bogart first emerged as a figure to be reckoned with in High Sierra before starring as the private eye Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon in 1941. Then, two years later, came Casablanca, the film in which, for the first time, he was allowed to show the humanity that lay behind the mask of the laconic, wisecracking tough guy. A humanity that was fully realized in the part of Charlie Allnut in The African Queen for which he won an Oscar in 1952.

 

In all, Bogart appeared in over seventy-five films, and consistently lived up to his own definition of stardom -- "you have to drag your weight at the box office and be recognized wherever you go" -- and was later adopted as a cult figure by a new generation of fans, who saw him as an existentialist hero. Five decades after his death, he remains an invigorating presence in our imaginations.

 

While Bogart's magnetism is to this day unmatched on screen, his private life was equally entrancing. He had already been married three times when he met Lauren Bacall on the set of Passage to Marseille and told her, "I saw your test. We're going to have a lot of fun together." She provided a much-needed stabilizing influence to his life and together they formed one of the most celebrated on- and off-screen couples. They had a son and daughter and appeared together in four movies including Key Largo and The Big Sleep.

 

On the night Bogart won his Oscar for The African Queen, Bacall reflected that "Bogie had everything now-- a happy marriage, a son, another child on the way, an ocean racing yacht [the legendary Santana], success, and the peak of recognition in his work."

About this title

About the Author

STEPHEN BOGART is a television producer for Court TV. He also writes crime novels, and his memoir Bogart: In Search of My Father was published in 1995. He is married with three children.

 

RICHARD SCHICKEL is a film critic, documentary film-maker and movie historian, who has written over thirty books, among them The Disney Version; D.W. Griffith: An American Life; Brando: A Life in Our Times; and a biography of Elia Kazan. His thirty documentaries include Charlie: The Life and Art of Charles Chaplin; Woody Allen: A Life in Film; and Shooting War, which is about combat cameramen in World War II. He has recently completed a documentary about Martin Scorsese and a reconstruction of Samuel Fuller's classic war film, The Big One, was named one of the year's Ten Best Films by the New York Times. He has been reviewing movies for Time since 1972 and writes a monthly column, 'Film on Paper', for the Los Angeles Times Book Review.

 

GEROGE PERRY is an author, broadcaster and former films editor at the Sunday Times, and has interviewed many of the greatest names in cinema. He has served or presided on film festival juries around the world, was President of the London Critics' Circle, and has written over thirty books, such as The Great British Picture Show and Forever Ealing, and definitive studies of Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals, The Complete Phantom of the Opera and Sunset Boulevard, as well as biographies of Rupert Bear, Monty Python, Miss Bluebell and James Dean. 

Reviews

To celebrate the 50th anniversary of Humphrey Bogart's 1957 death, acclaimed writers Schickel (Brando: A Life In Our Times) and Perry (James Dean) present this illustrated look at one of Hollywood's most lasting icons. Tracing Bogart's life from his well-to-do boyhood through his 20-year film career, this volume covers such highlights as his first films in the 30s, his breakout in 1941's The Maltese Falcon, his Oscar-winning 1951 performance in The African Queen and his last film, 1956's The Harder They Fall, with plenty of space devoted to 1942's Casablance-still regarded by some film enthusiasts as the best picture ever made. Enlivened with more than 200 candid and studio photos-many from the family's private archives and previously unpublished-this "celebration" covers the breadth of Bogart's career admirably, if at times fawningly (especially in son Stephen's foreword). The lengthy appreciation by Schickel, however, is convoluted but critical, taking aim at Bogart's initial lackadaisical approach toward acting and panning some of his earliest work. Likewise, Perry's extensive filmography doesn't flinch, but it occasionally veers into territory already covered by Schickel. A worthy addition to any film buff's library for the photos alone, this should serve as a fine reference.
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In this appreciation of Bogart 50 years after his death, American film critic Richard Schickel observes that of his cohort of male stars, which includes Astaire, Cagney, Tracy, Gable, Cooper, Grant, and Wayne, Bogart now glows the brightest. Projecting tough romanticism in sympathetic roles and evoking unsympathetic characters' demons without negating their humanity--think of Captain Queeg in The Caine Mutiny, Fred C. Dobbs in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Dixon Steele in In a Lonely Place (Schickel's pick as Bogart's best performance)--he forged a masculine persona that continues to be the envy of men and irresistible to women. In his review of Bogart's life and career, British film critic George Perry points up Bogart's real personality--preferring privacy and nonactor friends, unwise in marriage until wedding Lauren Bacall, hard-drinking and -smoking, impatient with fools and bullies, genuinely gentlemanly in his manners. While evaluating certain films differently (Perry is kinder to more of Bogart's lesser efforts), the two critics together make this a quite satisfying commemoration of a thus-far unforgettable figure. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books
• Publication date: 2006
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0312366299
• ISBN 13: 9780312366292
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 192
• Editor: Perry George