Posts tagged Humphrey Bogart

BOGART QUIZ ANSWERS

May01
2013 Leave a Comment Written by classicmovieguys

He’s one star who hasn’t faded. In fact this week down in Key Largo, Humphrey Bogart’s son, Stephen, will host the first Humphrey Bogart Film Festival. 

Hello Everybody. Morella and Segers here with the answers to some of those questions about one of the durable stars Hollywood ever produced.

How did you do with our Humphrey Bogart Quiz?

We deliberately tried to avoid slam-dunk questions, and tried to genuinely test your knowledge about the most enduring star to emerge from the classic Hollywood studio era.

Like the weekly cliff-hanging movie serials of old, we’ll try to draw this question-answer exercise out a bit to keep up the suspense. We’ll run the answers to our first 3 questions in today’s blog, and then you’ll have to wait to find out the answers to the remaining questions.  So, by all means, stay tuned.

Here we go:

QUESTION: Alan Ladd was legendarily short for a Hollywood leading man, but wasn’t Humphrey Bogart even shorter?  Exactly how tall was Bogie?

ANSWER:  If you guessed 6 feet tall, you are wrong.  Not just Bogie but also Robert Redford and Tom Cruise are shorter than that. As for Alan Ladd, few major studio stars – excluding 5-foot-2 inch Mickey Rooney — possess less stature than the 5-foot-6-1/4 inch Ladd.  (No wonder Alan had to be artificially elevated in love scenes.)

Bogie was a fully-grown 18-year-old when he enlisted in the Navy in 1917. The particulars at the time of his induction physical include the notation that he stood 5-feet-8 inches in height, “weighing 136 pounds, with brown eyes and hair and no remarkable scars,” according to “Tough Without A Gun: The Life and Extraordinary Afterlife of Humphrey Bogart” by Stefan Kanfer. So that made Bogie one inch taller than Cruise and one inch shorter than Redford.

Question:What’s the famous line associated with Bogart’s early days on stage?

ANSWER:  ”Tennis Anyone?  or was it “Anyone for tennis?”

Question: Name Bogart’s last two wives.

Answer: Meyo Method and Lauren Bacall (above with Bogie and Monroe). His first two were actresses Helen Menken and Mary Philips.

QUESTION: What famous actor was originally scheduled to take the costarring Bob Curtin role with Bogie’s Fred C. Dobbs in 1948’s “Treasure of the Sierra Madre” but pulled out at the last minute? (The role went, thank goodness, to Tim Holt.)  Hint: this famous actor became even more famous in another public arena.

ANSWER:  We may have already given this one away, but you deserve the break.  Ronald Reagan was scheduled to take the part of the relatively even-tempered Bob Curtin, the essentially good-hearted ballast of the odd-fellow trio of gold prospectors in Mexico rounded out by Bogie’s violently deranged Fred C. Dobbs and the super-grizzled prospecting veteran, Howard, memorably portrayed by Walter Huston, father of the movie’s director John Huston.

It’s not clear today exactly why Reagan bowed out. The reason might have something to do with the fact “The Treasure of Sierra Madre” was one of the first American movies to be made completely on location outside the U.S. — in Tampico and Jungapeo, Mexico. Reagan may not have relished the idea of spending weeks in mountainous Mexican wilderness.

While Reagan would have certainly been sufficient in the role of Bob Curtin, Tim Holt was magnificent in it. It’s his best movie performance outside of his brilliant turn as the insufferably spoiled George Amberson in Orson Welles’ brilliant 1942 movie, “The Magnificent Ambersons.”

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A BOGIE QUIZ

Apr30
2013 Leave a Comment Written by classicmovieguys

JUST HOW MUCH DO YOU REALLY KNOW ABOUT HUMPHREY BOGART ?

Hello everybody,  Joe Morella and Frank Segers here again.

Today we have a real challenge for you. It revolves around one our favorite personalities and probably one of yours as well.  So, here we go.

There is absolutely no question that Humphrey Bogart remains one of the most enduring star names in the Hollywood pantheon – then and now.

Author Stefan Kanfer’s book, “Tough Without A Gun: The Life and Extraordinary Afterlife of Humphrey Bogart,” makes the case for Bogie not as just as a legendarily classic movie star but a worldwide cultural icon.  Kanfer’s book examines Bogart’s life, and the actor’s amazing surge in popularity since his death more than a half century ago.

Ok, ok, as a longtime classic movie fan – why else would you be reading this blog? – we bet you earnestly believe that you know all about Bogie.

We thought we did until taking a closer look at Kanfer’s book and director John Huston’s memoir of several years ago titled “An Open Book.” After sifting through both we came up with some questions that we believe will put your knowledge of Bogie to a real test.

Some of these questions, admittedly, are a bit obscure (on purpose). We can’t make things too easy for you. But as a tried and true Bogie fan, you should be able to come up with at least partial answers to at least some of these questions.

— Alan Ladd was legendarily short for a Hollywood leading man, but wasn’t Humphrey Bogart even shorter? Exactly how tall was Bogie?

— When he was a preppy, young Broadway stage actor, what’s the line that Bogie became best known for after running onstage?

— Bogart had four wives, all actresses.  Can you name the last two? Who was the last?  (We are being merciful here; you should have no trouble identifying her.)

— What famous actor was originally scheduled to take the co-starring Bob Curtin role with Bogie’s Fred C. Dobbs in the “Treasure of the Sierra Madre” but pulled out at the last minute? (The role went, thank goodness, to Tim Holt.)  Hint: this famous actor became even more famous in another public arena.

— Who turned down the role of Sam Spade in “The Maltese Falcon”, and then bitterly resented Bogart’s success in the role?

–What film is the above picture from and why is it important in Bogart’s career?

The answers tomorrow.

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More Dogs and Their Stars

Mar05
2013 1 Comment Written by classicmovieguys

Hello, everybody.  Joe Morella and Frank Segers, your clasic movie guys, here with another episode of star meets pooch.

Last week we asked you to identify two famous Hollywoodites and the breed of their pets. It was, of course, Doris Day, a well known animal lover with her pet schnauzer  and Humphrey Bogart with his great dane. (No chihuahuas for Bogie.)

Here’a another shot of Bogie and his pooch, this time with the missus.

And of course that gent up above with his best friend is –?? ( shouldn’t be hard to identify). We’re not sure of the breed however.

Any guesses?

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Bogie, Jennifer, Gina and Peter Lorre At Sea On An Italian Cruise Ship? Oops!

Feb01
2012 4 Comments Written by classicmovieguys

Hello, everyone.  Joe Morella and Frank Segers, your classic movie guys, suggesting today that the unnerving headlines about the Costa Concordia disaster bring to mind a favorite film of Frank’s.

And, no, it’s not any of the Titanic titles.

Before we reveal the identity of this movie, it should be said that Joe regards it more or less as an amusing trifle, once seen and that’s it.  Frank has enjoyed watching the film again, and again, and cannot get enough.

That pretty much defines the split reaction to Beat the Devil since it first came out in 1954. Say what you will about this sometimes forgotten gem, its plot points parallel to some degree the current cruise-line horror off the coast of Tuscany that has transfixed the world.

There’s an Italian passenger liner involved in the movie, operated by a loud, unreliable Italian captain (he is frequently drunk.)  There is a mid-voyage mishap that forces passengers to abandon ship.  Some of those aboard, including one principal player, are not accounted for. The movie’s principals must cope with being shipwrecked.

It needs to be said in a hurry that depiction of the specifics of the at-sea accident in Beat the Devil is not comparable to the life-threatening situation faced by the some 4,200 passengers aboard the Costa Concordia after it ran aground near a small island off the coast of Tuscany.

Whereas the movie’s mayhem is a semi-farcical plot device,  the grim reality of the cruise ship disaster is anything but — as underscored by the deaths of at least 17 persons.

Beat The Devil stars Humphrey Bogart (who also co-produced the picture, meaning he put his own money into it).  The cast also includes Gina Lollobrigida in full flower as Bogie’s wife.

Jennifer Jones (who looks great in the picture) is also on hand, married to a proper Englishman but falling for Bogie anyway. The terrific supporting cast includes Robert Morley, Peter Lorre , Edward Underdown, Ivor Barnard and Bernard Lee.  The movie was directed by the John Huston, who, of course, cut his professional teeth along with Bogie and Lorre in the 1941 classic, The Maltese Falcon. (Huston also wrote the script in conjunction with a young Truman Capote.)

Beat the Devil was shot on location in Ravello, a steeply banked mountaintop village behind Sorrento on Italy’s Amalfi Coast south of where the half submerged Costa Concordia now lists.

The plot has to do with the search for supposed uranium deposit in East Africa by a motley international group of shady characters stuck in a small village until a dilapidated Italian cargo ship — hardly in the class of the gigantic, $450-million Costa Concordia — is able to transport them to Africa.

As captain of the SS Nyanga, Italian actor Saro Urzi delivers a marvelously blustery performance complete with high-decibel rants at both crew and passengers. Much of the actor’s dialogue could have been adapted directly from the post-accident verbal exchanges between an outraged Italian Coast Guard officer and the seemingly clueless Costa Concordia captain, Francesco Schettino.

After the SS Nyanga’s mid-voyage accident, the motley group minus Jennifer Jones’ stuffy British husband find themselves washed ashore in an unspecified African country, and are brought before a local Arab chieftain. In one scene, the chieftain poses this question to the film’s world-weary narrator-protagonist, Bogie: “Now tell me, do you really know Rita Hayworth?”

Beat the Devil was not well received when it first came out nearly 60 years before the general public had ever heard of the cruise liner Costa Concordia. Ironically, director Huston felt the movie was “ahead of its time.”

Despite its early reception, the picture has developed an enthusiastic audience. Beat the Devil has done well over the years, concluded Huston. “I only wish Bogie could have been around to see this happen. “It was the last picture I made with Bogie.” 

(Bogart died three years after Beat the Devil was released, of cancer. He was 58.)

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A Man’s Name But A Woman in Bed!

Sep15
2011 Leave a Comment Written by classicmovieguys


 

 

 

 

 

 

Hello, everybody.  Joe Morella and Frank Segers, your Classic Movie guys, wondering today about how the womanly actress seen in the photos here today wound up with a man’s name.

On Monday (Aug. 29), we published one of those wonderful, early Forties snapshots from The Donald Gordon Collection showing that devil Donald posing — hands interwined — with actress Jeff Donnell. (You see it in reduced form above right.)  She looks wonderfully girlish, very pretty and certainly not someone you’d expect to call “Jeff.”

We didn’t identify the actress on Monday, and asked our most knowledgeable readers to come up with her name.  One did, Patricia Nolan-Hill, who writes that she “first became aware of her on ‘General Hospital’ playing a maid to the notorious Quatermaines. Later on, she seemed to show up in every old movie I watched.”

No question that over a movie and tv career spanning several decades — Jeff’s first appearance, we figure, was in 1942′s “My Sister Eileen” — she became one of those pretty faces you couldn’t quite name. Jeff said she was never the “glamorous” type, and felt “lucky” to be an actress.  For our money, she’s much too modest.

Born Jean Marie Donnell in 1921, she fell in love as a youngster with the “Mutt and Jeff” comic strip, and later decided to adopt the latter character’s first name when she turned professional.  After studying drama, including a stint at Yale, she was spotted by a Columbia studios agent while working at a New England theater operated by her and her first husband.

Jeff had a defiantly wholesome look that led her to be cast in tomboy, virtuous wife or breezy girlfriend roles. She plays Frank Lovejoy’s virtuous, homebody wife in director Nicholas Ray’s 1950 film, “In A Lonely Place,” a rare rational character in a dark, cynical movie inhabited by Gloria Grahame and Humphrey Bogart as an on-the-ropes screen writer.

She has an angelic but yet sexy edge as the befuddled secretary to Sidney Falco (Tony Curtis) in director Alexander Mackendrick’s 1957 urban drama, “Sweet Smell of Success,” starring Burt Lancaster as an unscrupulous newspaper columnist who destroys lives with the flick of a wrist. Supposedly a steamy love scene with Curtis, playing a super ambitious press agent, was left on the cutting room floor.

But what intrigues us is that for all her surface wholesomeness, Donnell’s private life seemed deliciously racy.

She was married and divorced four times.  Her second husband was Aldo Ray (pictured here with a brassier looking Jeff, above left), the early Fifties hunk who was the Hollywood flavor of several years. The union lasted only two years, and was marred by what have been described as “drinking problems.”

Her fourth marriage in 1974 was even shorter, lasting a year, after which Donnell was blissfully single until her death in 1988 at the age of 66.  From the Fifties on,  Jeff performed on TV a lot including four seasons as comedian George Gobel’s wife, Alice.

She also squeezed in maternal roles in in 1961 and 1963 in two “Gidget Goes…”movies. Her professional annuity, as our reader Patricia suggests, was in the daytime soaper “General Hospital,” which began in 1979 and lasted until her death.

We salute our very feminine actress with a masculine first name.

 

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WAS GEORGE RAFT A MEMBER OF THE MOB?

May10
2011 Leave a Comment Written by classicmovieguys

Hello everybody.  Mister Joe Morella and Mister Frank Segers here again.  MRS. Norman Maine is out getting pizza.

We know that you have all been waiting breathlessly for the other shoe to drop in our Humphrey Bogart Quiz.  How well have you all done so far?

OK, don’t give up hope.

And keep in mind that we deliberately avoided the easier questions in order to genuinely test your knowledge of America’s most enduring Hollywood star. So, without further fanfare, here’s the answer to the final question.

QUESTION:  Who turned down the role of Sam Spade in “The Maltese Falcon”, and then bitterly resented Bogart’s success in the role?

ANSWER: Although it had been filmed twice before and had bombed each time at the box office, director John Huston decided that author Dashiell Hammett’s crime masterpiece “The Maltese Falcon” deserved another shot.    He was right.  But before anyone knew that, Huston had to contend with a studio front office that insisted that actor George Raft be offered the role of Same Spade, which Bogie made his own.  Raft’s career was tapering off at Warner Bros. but the personally intimidating actor (he had mob connections that frightened even hardened studio moguls) still had sufficient clout to get first dibs on leading parts. As Huston crisply recalled, “This time it was George Raft who had to be offered (the Sam Spade) role first.  Raft turned it down; he didn’t want to work with an inexperienced director.” A relieved Huston said that he “fell heir to Bogie, for which I was duly thankful.”  Bogart “was not particularly impressive offscreen,” said Huston, “but something happened when he was playing the right part.”  Something did happen to Bogie’s career thanks to the huge success of “Falcon,” and Raft knew and resented Bogart’s success in the picture.  Raft would later grumble, “there but for the grace of me, go I.”

But Raft, who supposedly had been one of Mae West’s lovers in his early days in New York, worked right up until his death.  He’s remembered for many roles, most notably as the gangster in “Some Like It Hot.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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DON’T BOGART THAT JOINT

May05
2011 Leave a Comment Written by classicmovieguys

Hello Everybody. Mr. Joe Morella and Mr. Frank Segers here again.

OK.  Let’s see how you did with our Humphrey Bogart Quiz

We deliberately tried to avoid slam-dunk questions, and tried to genuinely test your knowledge about the most enduring star to emerge from the classic Hollywood studio era.

Like the weekly cliff-hanging movie serials of old, we’ll try to draw this question-answer exercise out a bit to keep up the suspense. We’ll run the answers to our first 3 questions in today’s blog, and then you’ll have to wait to find out the answers to the remaining questions.  So, by all means, stay tuned.

Here we go:

QUESTION: Alan Ladd was legendarily short for a Hollywood leading man, but wasn’t Humphrey Bogart even shorter?  Exactly how tall was Bogie?

ANSWER:  If you guessed 6 feet tall, you are wrong.  Not just Bogie but also Robert Redford and Tom Cruise are shorter than that. As for Alan Ladd, few major studio stars – excluding 5-foot-2 inch Mickey Rooney — possess less stature than the 5-foot-6-1/4 inch Ladd.  (No wonder Alan had to be artificially elevated in love scenes.)

Bogie was a fully-grown 18-year-old when he enlisted in the Navy in 1917. The particulars at the time of his induction physical include the notation that he stood 5-feet-8 inches in height, “weighing 136 pounds, with brown eyes and hair and no remarkable scars,” according to “Tough Without A Gun: The Life and Extraordinary Afterlife of Humphrey Bogart” by Stefan Kanfer. So that made Bogie one inch taller than Cruise and one inch shorter than Redford.

QUESTION: What famous actor was originally scheduled to take the costarring Bob Curtin role with Bogie’s Fred C. Dobbs in 1948’s “Treasure of the Sierra Madre” but pulled out at the last minute? (The role went, thank goodness, to Tim Holt.)  Hint: this famous actor became even more famous in another public arena.

ANSWER:  We may have already given this one away, but you deserve the break.  Ronald Reagan was scheduled to take the part of the relatively even-tempered Bob Curtin, the essentially good-hearted ballast of the odd-fellow trio of gold prospectors in Mexico rounded out by Bogie’s violently deranged Fred C. Dobbs and the super-grizzled prospecting veteran, Howard, memorably portrayed by Walter Huston, father of the movie’s director John Huston.  It’s not clear today exactly why Reagan bowed out. The reason might have something to do with the fact “The Treasure of Sierra Madre” was one of the first American movies to be made completely on location outside the U.S. — in Tampico and Jungapeo, Mexico. Reagan may not have relished the idea of spending weeks in mountainous Mexican wilderness. While Reagan would have certainly been sufficient in the role of Bob Curtin, Tim Holt was magnificent in it. It’s his best movie performance outside of his brilliant turn as the insufferably spoiled George Amberson in Orson Welles’ brilliant 1942 movie, “The Magnificent Ambersons.”

YESTERDAY’S PIC: That was Bogart looking suspiciously at Mary Astor, looking suspiciously at Peter Lorre.

TODAY’S PHOTO:  Can you identify the song and dance man? and do you know what important influence he had on President Reagan?

 

 


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HOW TALL WAS ALAN LADD?

May03
2011 Leave a Comment Written by classicmovieguys

 

Hello everybody.  Morella and Segers here.

The never before published photo of Alan Ladd  which we ran yesterday — (he once said of himself that he had the face of an aging choirboy) — was taken by Donald Gordon in the early-to-mid 1940′s when Ladd was at the height of his reign as Paramount Pictures’ biggest male star.  Although never a favorite of critics, Ladd was hugely popular with general audiences who flocked to see the seven movies he made with favorite costar, Veronica Lake, from 1942 to 1946. One of these — “The Blue Dahlia” with a screenplay by Raymond Chandler –is a film noir classic that stands up well to this day. Born in 1913 in Hot Springs, Ark., Ladd endured a hard scrabble childhood that more than occasionally left him malnourished.  He was undersized as a result (his nickname was “Tiny”).  At 5-foot-6-1/4-inches, the fully-grown Ladd was one of the shortest leading male figures in Hollywood history.  All manner of devices — hidden platforms, low camera angles, shoe lifts — were employed during filming to mask Ladd’s diminutive stature especially relative to his leading ladies.  Ladd is best known today for his role as the weary, gentle-spoken gun fighter in George Stevens classic 1953 western, “Shane.”  (pictured above) Watch carefully how Stevens filmed the climatic gunfight scene showing Ladd squaring off against 6-foot-4-inch Jack Palance as the cold-blooded villain. However short in stature, Ladd enjoyed a lengthy career, appearing in more than 90 movies. He also had his share of problems towards the end.  He eagerly sought the lead in “Lawrence of Arabia” that went to Peter O’Toole. A long second marriage to agent Sue Carol was showing signs of strain. Ladd embarked on an unhappy affair with June Allyson.  He died in 1964 in Palm Springs, California, of an alcohol-barbiturate overdose. He was just 50 years old. (Final factoid:  As a struggling actor, Ladd appeared in a small role as a newspaper reporter in Orson Welles 1941 masterpiece, “Citizen Kane.”)

We’re giving you another day to come up with those answers to the Bogie Quiz.

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How tall was BOGART?

May02
2011 Leave a Comment Written by classicmovieguys

JUST HOW MUCH DO YOU REALLY KNOW ABOUT HUMPHREY BOGART ?

Hello everybody,  Joe Morella and Frank Segers here again, with the photo of another short star.

Today we have a real challenge for you. It revolves around one our favorite personalities and probably one of yours as well.  So, here we go.

There is absolutely no question that Humphrey Bogart remains one of the most enduring star names in the Hollywood pantheon – then and now.

Author Stefan Kanfer’s recent book, “Tough Without A Gun: The Life and Extraordinary Afterlife of Humphrey Bogart,” makes the case for Bogie not as just as a legendarily classic movie star but a worldwide cultural icon.  Kanfer’s book examines Bogart’s life, and the actor’s amazing surge in popularity since his death more than a half century ago.

Ok, ok, as a longtime classic movie fan – why else would you be reading this blog? – we bet you earnestly believe that you know all about Bogie.

We thought we did until taking a close look at Kanfer’s new book and director John Huston’s memoir of several years ago titled “An Open Book.” After sifting through both we came up with some questions that we believe will put your knowledge of Bogie to a real test.

Some of these questions, admittedly, are a bit obscure (on purpose). We can’t make things too easy for you. But as a tried and true Bogie fan, you should be able to come up with at least partial answers to at least some of these questions.

So please don’t be bashful or the slightest bit abashed. Charge in a take a shot at our Bogie quiz.

Here we go.

— Alan Ladd was legendarily short for a Hollywood leading man, but wasn’t Humphrey Bogart even shorter? Exactly how tall was Bogie?

— When he was a preppy, young Broadway stage actor, what’s the line that Bogie became best known for after running onstage?

— Bogart had four wives, all actresses.  Can name the last two? Who was the last?  (We are being merciful here; you should have no trouble identifying her.)

— What famous actor was originally scheduled to take the costarring Bob Curtin role with Bogie’s Fred C. Dobbs in the “Treasure of the Sierra Madre” but pulled out at the last minute? (The role went, thank goodness, to Tim Holt.)  Hint: this famous actor became even more famous in another public arena.

— Who turned down the role of Sam Spade in “The Maltese Falcon”, and then bitterly resented Bogart’s success in the role?

The answers will appear later in the week.

LAST FRIDAY’S PIC:  a candid of Betty Grable from the Donald Gordon Collection.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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