Lauren Bacall Was a Goddess

Lauren Bacall, who passed away today at 89, was the real deal - a genuine glamor girl who could give as good as she got. Whether asking Bogart if he knew how to whistle, playing mean and low down with Kirk Douglas, or putting Gregory Peck through the hoops, Bacall was never less than glowing. From her screen debut 70 years ago(!) in the classic To Have and Have Not; to How to Marry a Millionaire with two other cinema queens, Betty Grable and Marilyn Monroe; to Harper opposite Paul Newman; to the all-star whodunit, Murder on the Orient Express, Lauren Bacall was an always welcome sight and sound. With her deep, smoky voice and model-thin body, Bacall brought a sexy, seen-it-all, hard on the outside, soft on the inside quality to her best performances. Playing opposite the very best Hollywood had to offer (but Oscar nominated only once for The Mirror Has Two Faces as Barbra Streisand's domineering mother), Bacall made every film she was in special.

In the end, I suppose, Bacall will be remembered best as Humphrey Bogart's last wife, the one who finally made him happy and with whom he had his two children, Stephen and Leslie. They were nicknamed Bogie and Baby due to the extreme age difference (he was 45, she 20 when they met). She traveled to Africa when he made The African Queen and put her own career on hold to have their children in the early 1950s. She made him happy, which is saying a lot. And it wasn't all sunshine and roses (although, to be fair, what marriage is?). Bogie liked to drink and carouse and needle people. It took someone with plenty of fortitude to deal with it all, and Bacall grew up in a hurry. Yet Bogie gave her a life she couldn't imagine: meeting the biggies like Kate Hepburn and Spencer, Sinatra, John Huston, Peter Lorre, Richard Brooks, Howard Hawks, Ernest Hemingway. I suppose she could have met some of them without Bogie (in fact, Hawks discovered her), but Bogie's love and partnership gained her quick acceptance to that world. After he passed on, she always honored his spirit and work. When he died in 1957, Bacall was only 32 - a widow with two youngsters to raise. She was briefly engaged to Sinatra and married Jason Robards with whom she had a son - Sam - who would become an actor.

Never one to be idle for long, Bacall conquered Broadway in Goodbye Charlie, Cactus Flower, Applause, and Woman of the Year. She received Tony Awards for the latter two. While always politically progressive, Bacall was in John Wayne's last film, 1976's The Shootist, and the two became good friends on set. She was voted one of the 25 most significant female stars in film history by the AFI in 1999. I always thought of her as a tough broad, as they use to say, but according to her autobiography, nothing could have been further from the truth. In fact, she was so terrified during the making of To Have and Have Not that she had to keep her head down to stop it from shaking due to nerves, resulting in the famous Bacall "look."

I don't know how to end this because I really don't want to. If I put an amen to it, it will close a chapter I wish were still open. I don't want to say goodbye. I never met her of course, but I feel like I know her well from her movies, her writings, her television talk show appearances. The heavens are getting more crowded with each passing day. Maybe now she will be reunited with her first love. Godspeed, Ms. Bacall. We were lucky to have you as a part of our lives.

Robin Williams, 1951-2014

He had many good roles in several good movies, and my guess is this one wouldn't crack most people's top five, but I have loved The Fisher King since I first saw it, in large part because of Mr. Williams work in it. He made me laugh, then he made me cry.

No one needs me to weigh in on this. Just a goddamn shame.....I really hope you can find peace.

Under The Influence

The Four Marx Brothers in The Cocoanuts, their 1929 screen debut.

The Marx Brothers, I think it's safe to say, were my first BIG movie influence. Back in 1973, 14 years old, just bitten by the theatre bug, when KTLA channel 5 a TV station broadcast out of Los Angeles, showed The Cocoanuts, Monkey Business, Duck Soup and Horse Feathers on consecutive nights Monday thru Thursday at { I think } 1AM-2:30AM. I don't recall why I wanted to see this madcap comedy team that consisted of four actual brothers. Everyone has a favorite, but mine was Groucho. I had never seen anyone so verbally abusive and funny at the same time. A role model that I still carry with me every day.

With Eva Marie Saint in On The Waterfront, 1954

Brando. What can I say?  I've already done a couple of blog entries on some of his { lesser ? } work, but On The Waterfront was the movie that brought his genius home to my front door. I had previously seen Mutiny on the Bounty, I think, but other than that I was pretty clueless about his work. His portrayal of ham-and-egger Terry Malloy was the first that hit me deep, where I live. This movie and Brando's interpretation of Malloy still resonate with me.

Family portrait : Butch, the Kid and Etta Place

  Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid. Butch was the first movie character I really wanted to inhabit. He was so glib and charming { even if he didn't possess all the answers like he thought he did } that, as a ten year old, I couldn't help but fall under his spell. One of the great buddy movies of all-time.

He's a very nosy fella :  Gittes tries to avoid it, but nothing can keep him out of Chinatown.

Jack Nicholson in Chinatown. J.J. Gittes, a descendent of Bogart's Philip Marlowe, part sleuth, part wiseguy/smart ass, who deals in " matrimonial work ". Nicholson's performance here is rich, subtle and varied. It's a demanding part; the dude is in every scene. Helluva piece of work and a character that I keep in mind when I'm in over my head and haven't the foggiest notion what the hell is going on. When my life turns into a mystery, I have J.J. Gittes to help me piece it all together.

The Beatles : The end is nigh. .

 I think everyone who reads this blog knows how I feel about these guys. Best band ever. Period.

The nefarious Prof. Fate!

Jack Lemmon aka Professor Fate from Blake Edwards' The Great Race. Lemmon's dual role as Fate { " push the button Max! " } and the lightly gay Prince Friedrich Hapnick { " brandy, more brandy! " } was a perennial favorite of mine as a youth { the dual roles must have appealed to the Gemini in me }. To this day I can sit in front of the tube and revel in Lemmon's comic mastery in this, along with two more early favorites :  his amazing C.C. Baxter in The Apartment and his wonderful turn as Frank Thurlowe Pulver in Mister Roberts. Lemmon was one of Hollywood's genuinely nice guys that everyone loved, yet there must have been a dark side to him as he supposedly battled a drinking problem. Who'd thunk Jack Lemmon could have demons?

Dean as ranch hand Jett Rink : " Ain't nobody king in this country. "

 I first came under the influence of James Dean on a Sunday night watching East of Eden on a 19 inch black and white television when I was suppose to be sleeping and preparing for another week of high school. Well, I was prepping alright. Studying how to have teenage angst while, somehow, look cool doing it. I got the angst down fairly well { still do, from time to time }, but I never achieved the coolness that I always aspired to. As for Jimmy, I think his Jett Rink in George Stevens' Giant may be my favorite, but it took several years and innumerable viewings to reach this conclusion. It was a reach, a stretch of his talent; a possible precursor to what his future could have been had he not met a different fate on September 30, 1955.

Sinatra as comedian Joe E. Lewis, back when drunks were funny, The Joker is Wild, 1957

Frank. The Voice. The Chairman of the Board. Ol' Blue Eyes. Sinatra was a later influence than the rest of these guys, I came to him when I was twenty. I'd seen a couple of his movies, but it was when I got into his music that everything fell into place. After that it was just a short hop to his work in films and reading nearly everything that's been written about him. I became obsessive about not only his work, but his life as well, reading the { mostly bad } bios, along with one or two good ones { Sinatra in Hollywood by Tom Santopietro, along with Frank : The Voice by James Kaplan are the best }. Sinatra won a Supporting Actor Oscar for From Here To Eternity, which started the great comeback for him, but my three favorites are The Joker Is Wild, Pal Joey and Some Came Running. 

Dylan, hat, flowers and eye liner during the Rolling Thunder Revue days of the mid-70's

Dylan, my last great obsession. I'd never been a great fan of his music until ten years ago I became friends with a band called The Snake, The Cross and The Crown. I had no girl, time on my hands and was ready to cut loose a bit { middle age crazy }, so I spent nearly every weekend with them and every weekend was a party. No matter how slow the evening may begin by night's end { or the day's beginning }, there was sure to be interesting people of all sorts and music was always a big part of the scene. They were all Dylan fans, so I decided to take the plunge and bought { of all things } 1969's down-home family album Nashville Skyline, a work not typical of Dylan at the time, but it had an ease and kind of country-funk that I surprisingly enjoyed. At the time he made this album Dylan was fed up with his persona and decided to turn left at Albuquerque to try to throw off the fanatics. I too was fed up with certain aspects of my life and this seemed a good tonic. After that it was on to the Martin Scorsese doc No Direction Home, his great 60's work, his still-neglected 70's work { his Rolling Thunder Revue being particularly fascinating for me } and discovering that there was more to the guy than a songwriter with a twangy-nasal voice that drive some to distraction. I've been hooked ever since. 

James Garner Has Made His Great Escape

Sorry to hear that James Garner aka Jim Rockford/ Bret Maverick, has passed on today at the age of 86. Garner made a name for himself in the late 50's on the television western Maverick, beginning in 1957. Garner would leave the top-rated show after the third season to pursue a life in film. A major star of TV, jumping to the big screen was a new and fairly radical venture. Garner's film career began with A-List projects, starting off with William Wellman's second-to-the-last-directed feature Darby's Rangers, followed by Cash McCall with ingenue Natalie Wood. 1961 found Garner caught between Audrey Hepburn and Shirley MacLaine in The Children's Hour, director William Wyler's remake of his own 1936 adaptation of These Three, based on the play by Lillian Hellman. His biggest hit of the 1960's, possibly of his entire career, came in 1963's POW - WW II classic The Great Escape. Starring alongside Steve McQueen and a couple of not quite but future stars, Charles Bronson and James Coburn, Garner played "the scrounger ", Flt. Lt. Robert Hendley.

The success of Escape helped pave the way for Garner the rest of the decade. One of his best roles was in The Americaniztion Of Emily, with Julie Andrews, as Lt.Cmdr. Charlie Madison, a self confessed coward who is picked to be a hero at the invasion on Normandy on D-Day. Though not a big success at the time, this Paddy Chayevsky-penned film has gathered a cult following thru the years and is the personal favorite of both Andrews and Garner. Per Wikipedia, William Holden was originally tabbed for Garner's role, but when Holden backed out, Garner stepped in. If so, I can imagine Holden in the part too. Probably would have fit him like a glove as both actors project an ease and naturalism on camera, with Garner being particularly adept in comedic parts. Garner would round out the 60's in just such a role, Support Your Local Sheriff, a surprise hit from 1969. For most of the 1970's Garner would focus on television. His big success portraying P.I. Jim Rockford in The Rockford Files, and it may be the work he is best remembered for today. Premiering on NBC on September 13, 1974 at 9pm, Rockford was an instant hit with tube watchers. However, due to the pressures of a weekly television show, Garner was to suffer from ulcers, which would precipitate his leaving the show. Just goes to show the stress involved in making it all look easy.

 1982 brought the gender-bending comedy Victor/Victoria, again with Julie Andrews, and in 1985's Murphy's Romance, Garner - opposite a sexy, thirty-something Sally Field as a divorced mother with a teenage son - played the widowed, 50-ish Murphy Jones, druggist of a small Arizona town, who gets a second chance at love. Charming and easy going - though at times irascible - Garner had one of the best parts of his career and was honored with an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. Irascibility combined with an easy going charm may seem opposite ends of the spectrum, yet Garner, like Cary Grant, seemed to make crabby almost likeable. Certainly, he made it funny. In the 1969 film Marlowe { not an especially good adaptation of Chandler's book Little Sister, yet as to date the only one we have }, there is a scene in which Marlowe is getting roughed up by some thugs. Check out the very beginning of this video. It is an example of what James Garner did so well.

I have always loved that smart-ass, throw-away humor that Garner was so great at. A lost art, I'm afraid. That's what Garner seemed to do best, and may qualify as to why he never really got his due as an actor. Like Mitchum, Grant, Holden and a handful of others, these guys made the difficult craft of acting look effortless. Garner never showed the wheels spinning. I cannot even think of a film or television show in which Garner was not, at least, good. The man never gave a bad performance.  R.I.P. Jim Rockford/Bret Maverick/Murphy Jones/Charlie Madison, etc. You were one of the best.

Happy Birthday, Ringo

One of my favorite lines from one of my favorite films, A Hard Day's Night, 1964

Very sincere and heartfelt birthday wishes to Ringo, the beloved drummer from that band called The Beatles. Seventy Four years young today, Ringo may be the most beloved of all the Fab Four. His affable good humor { which led to at least a couple of immortal songs like, a hard days' night and tomorrow never knows, both Ringo-isms } , even temperament, off-key singing,  and steady drumbeat helped keep the group jelled throughout their time together. While John may have had issues with Paul or George, or George may have had issues with Paul or John, nobody, I mean nobody ever had issues with Ringo: it may be that his greatest strength was, paradoxically, his greatest weakness. At times, because of his ability to be everybody's friend, { good ol'  Ringo }, they took him for granted.

Good ol ' Ringo, everyone's best mate, circa 1967.

At least once, it seems, Ringo got fed up with it all. Whether it had to do with being overlooked, tried of the fighting that had recently started within the group, or he just went on holiday, is not known. What is a known is that in August 1968, while the band was working on what came to be known as The White Album, Ringo - the last to join The Beatles - was the first to walk out. Just left. For two weeks or so, leaving the band without a drummer. Therefore, Ringo has the distinction of being the first member to quit the world's most famous band. Consequently, the band's all-round utility player, Paul McCartney, played drums on Back in the USSR and Dear Prudence. Ringo eventually came back a couple of weeks later, after the band sent him flowers and love letters saying things like " you're the best rock drummer ever ", and " we love you, Ringo, come back ".  Goes to show how bad things had gotten for the Fabs when the most affable member is fed up and needed a holiday.

Ringo, about to knock the button off Paul's lapel, circa 1965.

Besides excelling as a drummer, Ringo also dabbled in acting. Besides the good reviews he received for A Hard Day's Night and Help!, Ringo also appeared in the all-star sex-romp Candy, and The Magic Christian opposite comic genius Peter Sellers, while still making music with the band. After the group split Ringo still made music and had a surprising run of hit records thru the 70's.  According to that beacon of facts, Wikipedia, at one time RIngo had seven straight top ten hits including : Photograph { co-written by George Harrison }, Oh My My, a cover of the 50's hit You're Sixteen { which made #1 }, and the No No Song. The 1970's were a busy time for Ringo, besides records he continued with his movie making : That'll Be The Day,  Ken Russell's Lisztomania and Mae West's last film, Sextette. Starr's biggest try for the big time as an actor was in 1981 with the comedy Caveman, which also starred Dennis Quaid, Shelley Long,  and Bond Girl Barbara Bach. Ringo and the lovely Ms. Bach would be married about a year after the film was made, and have been in happy cohabitation ever since. The failure of Caveman essentially ended Ringo's big screen ambition's, although he would appear in Paul McCartney's movie Give My Regards To Broad Street and the first two seasons on the TV kiddie show, Thomas The Tank Engine & Friends, as the best Mr. Conductor ever { just ask my son Tim }. Except for a rare cameo, Ringo's film appearances have been confined to documentaries in which he is usually the warmest,  most honest person in the film. His reminisces in The Beatles Anthology and, especially Living In The Material World, Martin Scorsese's film on the life of Harrison, are especially poignant.

 The above clip is what I like about Ringo. He's not afraid of just being himself, not shy of sharing his emotions when most would keep that side private, and then come up with the Barbara Walters line as a topper. Perfect. Just so folks don't think Ringo is resting on his laurels, he is currently on tour with the latest edition of Ringo Starr and His All-Star Band. In fact, Ringo and his chums will be at the Santa Barbara Bowl this Saturday July 12. So, Happy Birthday to the boy from The Dingle - Liverpool's rough slum where he grew up a sickly youth - the lad who happened to be in the right place at the right time. Happy Birthday Mr. Starkey, the luckiest man in show biz.

P.S. Just for the record, my favorite song Ringo sang is one he did back in 1967 with his best mates, a little ditty called With A Little Help From My Friends.

 

A Hard Day's Night, "The 'Citizen Kane' of jukebox musicals"

Opening night in London, July 6, 1964

It's been 50 years this month since A Hard Day's Night opened in British cinemas. The movie, which wouldn't open stateside until August, was a revelation upon release. The Beatles proved they could not only handle dialogue with the best of them, but they also had expert comic timing and screen presence to burn. Screenwriter Alun Owen followed the group around for a couple of weeks to get their Liverpudlian rhythm down, incorporating their unique speech patterns and slang into the screenplay while the film's director, Richard Lester, imbued the film with a silent-movie slapstick, cinema verite style.

"Hey mister, can we have our ball back?"

Filmed in black and white for just $500,600 over seven weeks shortly following their Ed Sullivan Show appearances on American television, the movie was made so United Artists could get the rights to a Beatles soundtrack album. UA got that and a whole lot more; they got a commercial hit (no big surprise); a critical, Academy Award-nominated hit (big surprise); and ultimately, a bona fide classic (biggest surprise of all), making the movie, as Andrew Sarris called it, "The Citizen Kane of jukebox musicals."

Today, "jukebox" is an antiquated term, but 50 years on, the movie - unlike jukeboxes - not only holds up, it may actually have improved with age. It's still a rollicking, good, fictional day-in-the-life of The Beatles. Besieged by fans, living life in "a train and a room a car and a room and a room and a room," it makes life on the road of the world's most wildly successful band manic with its perpetual movement. Indeed even by today's on-the-go standards, A Hard Day's Night is never boring; it hardly stops for a breath. The witty repartee between the Fabs, the press conference, the tormenting of the TV director and the band's manager (in fact, any authority figure), the sheer exuberance and joy of being young and alive with talent and promise (best represented by the "Can't Buy Me Love" sequence, below) with all the world as their oyster make the film irresistible.

And then there's the music. The songs in the movie were from the Beatles third album, but it was the first to have only Lennon and McCartney songs with no covers. McCartney's contribution is significant but relatively small with "And I Love Her," "Things We Said Today," and "Can't Buy Me Love" figuring prominently. But there is no doubt who the mover and shaker is on the soundtrack: John Lennon.

The bulk of the writing was done by Lennon, still in the manic/leadership role he had been in since the group began to jell in the late 1950s. Giddy from the insane heights the band had scaled in just two years, Lennon hadn't yet found the time to let the fame - and, for him, emptiness - sink in. That would arrive on his psychological doorstep soon enough. By the time The Beatles next film, Help!, was being filmed in early 1965, Lennon and the rest of the group had discovered the magic of marijuana and were consuming it with a vengeance (when they were "smoking marijuana for breakfast.") But none of the others were affected by a drug-induced introspection like Lennon was. While he continued to write brilliant songs, he would never again dominate a Beatles album like he did A Hard Day's Night.

The original soundtrack that was issued in the US had only the eight songs performed in the film. The  five additional songs on the UK version would find their way to American shores via other albums released by the Capitol record label that distributed the Fabs records here. With only eight cuts on the US version, United Artists added four instrumental tracks to round out the soundtrack.

The original soundtrack album issued in America, courtesy of United Artists

The movie opened to surprisingly glowing reviews, with special regard for the eclectic array of songs (the album is probably their best from the Beatlemania days, with both uptempo and more melancholy compositions). The zest of director Lester's vision, the wit of Owen's screenplay, and the film's slashing cut-and-run editing and photography were all singled out. Among the four Beatles as actors, Ringo was praised for the vignette in which he temporarily walks out on the band just before a television appearance and makes friends with a ten-year-old boy who has cut class for the day ("I'm a deserter, too."). The concert performed at film's end is, to me, the best example of the frenzy and fury of Beatlemania, the word that gave the movie its original title. By the time the dust had settled, A Hard Day's Night would receive two Oscar nominations for Best Screenplay and Best Scoring of Music. Amazingly, given the subsequent success of pop music artists at the Oscars, none of the Lennon-McCartney songs got a nod from Oscar. There may not have been any kind of uproar at the time regarding that snub, but if the film were made today there certainly would be. At the time, however, the two noms it did get were pretty big news for a movie that wasn't expected to achieve much. At the box office the film raked in over $12 million, according to IMDB, which is a ridiculously successful return on investment (adjusted for inflation, the cost would be $3.6 million, and a return of nearly $90 million).

One of the most interesting aspects of A Hard Day's Night is that the band is never named. In other words no one, not once, refers to them as "Beatle Paul" or "Beatle John" or "The Beatles." The only real acknowledgement that they are, in fact, The Beatles, is the logo on the front of Ringo's drum kit. Other movies with musicians like Bing Crosby or Frank Sinatra or Elvis Presley were successful, but they didn't play anyone like themselves. Elvis, maybe in Jailhouse Rock, was an extension of his real self, but they always played characters. With A Hard Day's Night, we are thrown into this movie knowing exactly who John, Paul, George, and Ringo are. No needless exposition on how they got where they got, no backstory. Since they are all named after themselves, and the film is shot in a semi-documentary style, audiences of the day assumed this was who they were since they were not actors in real life. Seeing their press conferences on TV news - the way they would volley answers back to the reporters - made the film seem a genuine portrayal of their life, which undoubtedly contributed to its success. (This, of course, would only confuse fans just two years later in 1966 when rumors began to swirl about a possible break up of the band, following the group's decision to stop touring. Those rumors would intensify a year after that when their manager Brian Epstein died of a drug overdose. But that was all in the future.)

Americans were already traveling a hard road by 1964. The shock and dismay that accompanied the assassination of President John Kennedy signaled the turmoil to come over the next six years of the decade. But thanks to the lads from Liverpool, Americans got a little joy back into their lives. In the summer of 1964, A Hard Day's Night was the right antidote for a battered world.

It still is.

Sources: IMDB
              Wikipedia
              My Beatles.net

Bogart (and Baby) in Love: The Sequel

Bogart and Bacall, together again for the first time

On October 10,1944, shooting had started on a new Humphrey Bogart film, again co-starring Lauren Bacall and with director Howard Hawks at the helm. The movie was a detective story, The Big Sleep, based on the book by Raymond Chandler, a pulp fiction writer whose Farewell, My Lovely was adapted by RKO Studios as Murder, My Sweet, starring Dick Powell.

Bogart and Bacall had cooled the affair they’d begun on the set of To Have and Have Not and not seen each other since late summer while Bogie moved back in with Mayo to give his marriage one last chance. Though miserable, Bogie felt he owed it to Mayo and confided as much to Bacall, who didn't like the decision one bit. The effort was short-lived; a week later, Bogart had left Mayo again, thus continuing a cycle of makeups and breakups between the Bogarts for the rest of their marriage. When filming started on The Big Sleep, they were back together.

"He said that, that's what the man said, he said that." Marlowe, up against it, in The Big Sleep

Mayo, alone all day with alcohol as her only friend and fighting her anxieties, lost the battle. Bogie would get home from the studio and find her drunk, in a nasty mood, and spoiling for a fight. Sometimes he would join in, drinking and fighting. Other times he would leave, hightailing out into the night. On October 19th, Warners made the announcement that the Bogarts were separating. Bogart sequestered himself at the Beverly Hills Hotel. Bacall would stop by from time to time but always with a companion, which would make Bogart morose. He wanted Bacall alone. Then there was Mayo, who was not about to go down without a fight. She would call him at the Beverly Hills Hotel and call friends to intervene, leaving Bogart with little peace. It worked. In early November, Bogie moved back in with Mayo. Bogart broke the news to a heartbroken Bacall on set in late October. For Bogart, a gallant man, the situation seemed hopeless. 

Early in the shooting, Bogart stepped easily in the role of world weary, cynical private eye, Philip Marlowe. Always on time, hitting his marks, knowing his lines, he was the ultimate professional, no matter what he faced in his personal life or how much he may have had to drink the night before. Hawks was tremendously impressed with such discipline, and impressing Hawks wasn't an easy accomplishment.

The bookshop scene (above) in which Marlowe is on the trail of a pornography ring (camouflaged due to censors) and assumes a bogus identity as a gay customer (“Do you happen to have a Ben-Hur 1860?") is funny, though somewhat stereotypical of what gay looked like in 1940s America. Bogie improvised the scene on set, which Hawks loved. One of the most fascinating things about the film is how all sorts of women throw themselves at Marlowe throughout the movie, and how Bogart as Marlowe is supremely confident and assured. In fact, these were the exact qualities Bogart lacked due to his domestic situation.

While Bogie-as-Marlowe seems to have the time of his life trading double entendre with the older, wiser, and just as slinky sister (played by Lauren Bacall) of his client, Carmen Sternwood (played by Martha Vickers), Bogart was having a truly miserable time off screen. Drinking more than usual (impressive, considering that Bogie always drank a lot), out of love with his wife, and on pretty thin ice with Bacall, the soon-to-be 45-year-old Bogart was probably also experiencing a mid-life crisis. In her book, Bacall tells of one night when Bogart, having drunk too much, telephoned her.

“Hello, Baby."
"Where are you where are you calling from?"
"I'm home. I miss you."

Just then "Sluggy," as Bogart called Mayo, earned her nickname and snatched the phone from him. "Listen, you Jewish bitch, who's gonna wash his socks? Are you?!"

Bacall hung up, shaken. On set the next morning, there was no sign of Bogie. Bacall went to Hawks and asked what was going on "Bogie called,” he replied.  “He's going to be late."

Hawks shot around Bogart as much as he could, but Bogie didn't show up that day. For an actor who prided himself on his professionalism, missing a day was anathema. When Bogart reported for work, he told Bacall what had happened. He had walked out after his phone call to her and proceeded to drink further. At about 7AM, having not slept, looking like hell, and having walked the streets for hours, he stopped, looked through a window, and saw a woman fixing breakfast for her family (imagine Humphrey Bogart looking through your window). The husband opened the door and invited him in. Bogie sat with this happy family, sipping coffee as they ate their breakfast.

Bogart would have more physically arduous shoots - Treasure of the Sierra Madre and The African Queen, both John Huston films, come to mind – but filming The Big Sleep, while vacillating between Mayo and his Baby, was the most personally difficult time he faced during his professional acting career. 

Lobby Card

By December 4, nearly a month into his reconciliation with Mayo, Bogart announced their   separation. For good this time, he said. "It's hard to break up a marriage of six years.... She can anything she wants if she will let me go" was the quote from Bogie in newspapers around country.  Supposedly, it wasn't that easy (although what divorce is?). Mayo didn't want a settlement; she wanted her man. All through this ordeal, Mayo actually appeared to be the stronger of the two. Clifton Webb, Bogie's good friend from their days in the New York theatre, claimed that Bogie was "a softie," and that "any woman could walk all over him." This time, however, Bogart held firm – he  wasn't going back. Mayo, at the end of a very thin rope, turned all her anger inward. Going on crying jags, she seemed to lose any fight that was left in her. Bogie, despite all his talk of not moving back   with Mayo, of wanting "a new life," was scared. Alone in his hotel room, he finally had the time to    look back on his past and contemplate his future. But an excess of time exacerbated his doubts and    fears. While it's true that he wanted to start fresh and have a new beginning, Bogart felt responsible for Mayo. She had threatened suicide in the past, and he worried about her emotional state.       

       

    

The Bacall situation came with an entirely different set of issues. Though in love, the age difference between them was a huge factor. It held Bogart back and kept him off kilter. While his three previous wives had all been contemporaries, Bacall was a kid; it wasn't for nothing he called her “Baby." And she'd probably want kids (Bogart was childless). To Bogart, the past with all its troubles held more solace that an unknown future with a girl a quarter century his junior.

Incredible as it may seem, Bogart gave Mayo one last chance. By mid-December, trying to stay strong yet beside himself with angst, Bogie started to come to the set late. The log book of unit manager Eric Stacey, whose job it was to keep the film on schedule, shows some significant entries:

Dec 12th: "Mr. Bogart overslept this morning."
Dec 14th: “Company waited for Bogart one and a half hours."
Dec 15th: “Bogart delayed company one full hour this morning."
Dec 20th: “30 minute delay. It was necessary for Hawks to speak to Bogart and straighten him out relative to the 'Bacall situation,' which is affecting their performances."

Off set, Bogart was working on Mayo, trying to persuade her to move to Reno for a quick divorce, but she was having none of it. With his depression deepening, Bogart had emotional breakdown over the Christmas holiday. The company had been dismissed at noon on December 23rd, a Saturday. For Christmas, he gave Bacall a gold watch, but spent the day – his birthday – alone. He was 45.

Drinking the day away, he decided to see Mayo on December 26th. Very drunk, he confronted Mayo. Fifteen minutes later, assistant director Bob Vreeland received a call from Mayo, sounding terrified. By the time Vreeland, Eric Stacey, and studio cop Blayney Matthews arrived at the Bogarts’ house, Bogart had passed out. In a report to Jack Warner, Stacey reported, "[D]o not feel Bogart's condition can be fixed overnight.... Bogart had been drinking for three weeks....mental turmoil...entering into the situation." 

Hawks shot around his star, again, as much as possible before sending the company home early. The next day, Hawks faced an empty set. No Bogart. The log sheet stated, "Company did not work today, due to Mr. Bogart's illness." The film was scheduled to wrap on November 28, but at that time Hawks had only finished about half the shooting script.  Though never one to be rushed, Hawks, already contending with script rewrites and the film’s problematic second half, tired of the delays Bogart's personal problems had cost the film. Filming had been sporadic since early December.

After Bogart’s December 28th return to set, Hawks and company could at last finish The Big Sleep, which they did on January 13, 1945. However, due to Bacall's huge impact in To Have and Have Not, Jack Warner wanted more scenes of his two stars together. Additional retakes were shot late in January, including the very racy dialogue between Marlowe and Bacall’s character, Vivian Rutledge, about horse racing and who is "in the saddle." 

With the film in the can, next up was a publicity bit in New York City as To Have and Have Not prepped for its nationwide release. Also in New York was Bogie's good friend and drinking buddy, Peter Lorre. Bogie told Lorre to meet him at the Astor Hotel, which Bogart had frequented as a young actor. Over drinks, a nostalgic Bogart reminisced about the times he would spend sitting at the bar with other actors, hoping for that big break. He was talking about the 1920s, when his Baby was just that – a baby. Hell, he said, he probably would be lucky to get five, maybe ten years out of a marriage to Bacall. Wouldn't be easy. Couldn't last. Lorre told him to shut up, that he could be happy, that everything could work out, that he liked Bacall and thought her a great dame. Bogart couldn’t help but agree.

In May Mayo, who'd at last taken up residence in Reno in March when a divorce settlement had been agreed upon, was in court for the final dissolution of her marriage to Bogart. Bogart generously gave her nearly everything a soon-to-be-ex-wife could want, including their house on North Horn, two-thirds of his cash, his life insurance, and his investments in two Safeway grocery stores. Though Bogart felt he was buying himself out of the marriage, he was, at last, a free man.

May 21, 1945, Bogie and Baby's wedding day. Don't they look happy?

On May 21, 1945, at the home of writer Louis Broomfield in Ohio, Miss Betty Joan Perske (aka, Lauren Bacall) was wed to Humphrey DeForest Bogart, Jr. They would have two children, Stephen and Leslie; always refer to each other as Slim and Steve, their characters’ names in To Have and Have Not; and live as husband and wife in apparent wedded bliss until Bogie's death from lung cancer in 1957. Mayo died on June 9, 1951, back home in Portland, Oregon (Bogie's take on her death: "Too bad. Such a waste.") As for the film, The Big Sleep would be a tremendous money-spinner for the Brothers Warner, go on to be a film noir classic (possibly the best of it's kind), and add immeasurably to the cult of Bogart that took off in the 1960s and hasn't stopped to this day.           

Sources: Bogart by A.M. Sperber & Eric Lax

                By Myself by Lauren Bacall

                Howard Hawks: The Grey Fox of Hollywood by Todd McCarthy

                Wikipedia page on The Big Sleep

                Turner Classic Movies broadcast of The Big Sleep