Movie Review: Sirocco (1951)

Genre: War Drama

Director: Curtis Bernhardt

Starring: Humphrey Bogart, Lee J. Cobb, Märta Torén 

Running Time: 98 minutes

Synopsis: In Damascus of 1925, local rebels are fighting for independence from French colonialists. French General LaSalle (Everett Sloane) accepts advice from his head of intelligence Colonel Feroud (Lee J. Cobb) to try and negotiate a truce. Caught in the middle is shady American businessman Harry Smith (Humphrey Bogart), who is secretly selling weapons to the Syrian rebels. Harry's troubles multiply when he sets his eyes on Feroud's lover Violetta (Märta Torén), who is eager to escape the war and find passage to Cairo.

What Works Well: Produced by Bogart's Santana Productions, Sirocco has clear intentions to mimic Casablanca. Some aspects are reasonably successful: despite the studio-bound sets, director Curtis Bernhardt does create an effective war-torn milieu, with society humming along in dark alleys and behind black curtains as the sounds of battle rage outside. LaSalle is caught in a dilemma between using brute force and offering to negotiate, and Lee J. Cobb adds nuance to the role of a military man tired of killing. The secondary cast is animated by the sweaty presence of Zero Mostel and Nick Dennis.

What Does Not Work As Well: The story belongs more to Cobb's Feroud than Bogart's Smith, and the attempts to force the gunrunner into the spotlight are awkward. Violetta's involvement never gains traction, Märta Torén unable to generate neither heat nor chemistry. The local Syrian rebel leaders barely feature, and the script falls into prominent logic holes.

Conclusion: Serviceable foreign intrigue adventure, but quite a few guns short of a full shipment.



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Movie Review: The Enforcer (1951)

A crime investigation drama, The Enforcer (also known as Murder, Inc.) is a taut race-against-time thriller filled with shady characters and enlivened by a pleasingly complex flashback-within-flashback structure.

Assistant District Attorney Martin Ferguson (Humphrey Bogart) is desperate to protect star witness Rico (Ted de Corsia) on the night before he testifies against master criminal Mendoza (Everett Sloane). But Rico gets cold feet and falls to his death when attempting a window escape. With only hours to go before the trial starts, Ferguson reviews the case records to try and uncover any previously missed clues.

Multiple flashbacks reveal the investigation started when Duke Malloy (Michael Tolan) stumbled into a police station claiming he was forced to kill his girlfriend Nina Lombardo. Duke then hangs himself in his prison cell. His surviving associates include Big Babe (Zero Mostel), who is interrogated and reveals the inner workings of a murder-for-cash business managed by Rico, receiving telephone instructions from Mendoza. Ferguson uncovers a gruesome mass burial site and a plot to eliminate witnesses. With the clock ticking, the life of an innocent girl and the evidence needed to convict Mendoza hang in the balance.

Inspired by real events, The Enforcer celebrates thorough police work, a follow-the-evidence and intimidate-the-bad-guys approach working well for Ferguson and his crew to unearth and dismantle a lethal underworld business. Director Bretaigne Windust (with an uncredited assist from Raoul Walsh) trusts the convolutions of the Martin Rackin script, and embarks on a winding journey tracing nervous criminals dealing in death and guarding against each other as the noose tightens. 

The film rides a shifty, always on the move energy, and introduces audiences to new-at-the-time terminology like "hit" and "contract". Robert Burks' cinematography enjoys dark corners, harsh lights, sweaty men at close quarters, and in the final scene, the chaos of the crowd throwing plans into disarray.

For a long stretch, the film lacks an effective counterpoint to Bogart's character. The connect-the-dots structure results in isolated chapters featuring a succession of low level goons. Rico and Mendoza return to the ring only in the final act, but the payoff is worth the wait. Windust patiently reveals a human dimension through the story of Mendoza's origins and his very first hit, and Ferguson's long chase ends with an imperative to save a life. 

In his element, Bogart is supremely comfortable dishing out threats and picking up on hints. The rest of the cast is choppy, the bad guys generally lacking charisma, and no romantic sub-quests make it to the screen. The Enforcer may lack glamour, but finds craftsmanship in the nitty-gritty of police work.



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Movie Review: Deadline - U.S.A. (1952)

A journalism drama, Deadline - U.S.A. underlines the fundamental importance of the press through the story of an esteemed newspaper fighting for existence.

In a thriving metropolis, Ed Hutcheson (Humphrey Bogart) is the managing editor of The Day, a long-established and respected family-owned newspaper. His staff are shocked to learn the founder's heirs, including the widow Margaret Garrison (Ethel Barrymore) and her daughters, are planning to sell the paper to a competitor, and The Day will be shut down. Undeterred, Ed pursues stories exposing crime boss Rienzi (Martin Gabel), who pretends to be a respectable businessman.

Ed assigns his reporters to cover different angles of the mobster's business, and soon makes a connection between Rienzi and murdered showgirl Bessie Schmidt. In his personal life, Ed is desperate to win back his ex-wife Nora (Kim Hunter), and doggedly lobbies Mrs. Garrison to stall the newspaper's sale. The Rienzi story reinvigorates the paper, and Ed's team track down the dead girl's brother and mother for more details. But Rienzi will not be easily intimidated, and Ed has to decide how far he will fight in the name of journalism.

Deadline - U.S.A. provides full-throated advocacy for journalism's essential role in a free society and the imperative to guard against press monopolies. Writer and director Richard Brooks is happy to demonstrate bias for fact-based reporting and disgust towards news as shock-value entertainment. Despite the clear agenda, the results are still excellent thanks to crisp pacing, an efficient running time, and a plot packed with converging storylines. 

The film thrives on a high energy, sleep-deprived ambience, the collision of multiple crises ensuring every interaction can offer a surprise. Ed Hutcheson's days are filled with urgent phone calls, barked orders, and on-the-fly decisions. But just as important, Humphrey Bogart also provides Ed with plenty of passionate humanity. He is as willing to fight for the paper as he is determined to win Nora back, and his dogmatic attitude is steeped in confidence, leaving only contempt for other (obviously wrong) viewpoints.

While Ed's definition and motivations are sharp and unerring, Nora's arc is less convincing. The speechifying does go on well after the point is made, and the mystery of showgirl Bessie's death is bogged down in too much talking and not enough showing. A minor subplot about a new college graduate seeking a career in journalism is forgotten in the waiting room.

Elsewhere in the cast, The Day's dedicated on-the-go reporters are brought to life by Ed Begley, Warren Stevens, Audrey Christie, and Paul Stewart, all with small but impactful roles. James Dean is uncredited in a bit appearance.

The final act ties the threads together in resolutions both satisfying and bittersweet, but intentionally never conclusive. Deadline - U.S.A. acknowledges the news never ends, and prints the known facts in clear type.



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Movie Review: The Roaring Twenties (1939)

A crime thriller set during the Prohibition era, The Roaring Twenties is a wild ride through a decade of excess, featuring the rise and fall of an ambitious racketeer. 

During the first World War, three American soldiers meet under fire on the battlefields of France. Eddie Bartlett (James Cagney) is an enthusiastic car mechanic, George Hally (Humphrey Bogart) is an acerbic saloon owner, and Lloyd Hart (Jeffrey Lynn) is an aspiring lawyer. 

Back in the United States after the war, Prohibition is introduced in 1920, creating a new and massive underground alcohol industry. In New York City Eddie meets nightclub manager Panama Smith (Gladys George) and gets into the alcohol business, with Lloyd as his reluctant lawyer. After teaming up with George, Eddie rises to become a big-time criminal manufacturing and distributing alcohol.

On his way to the top Eddie meets and falls in love with lounge singer Jean Sherman (Priscilla Lane), but she is unsure about romancing a gangster and is more interested in Lloyd. Increasing levels of violence cause rifts between Eddie, Lloyd, and George, before the Great Depression upends the entire economy.

Based on the memoirs of journalist Mark Hellinger as recounted in his 1938 book The World Moves On, The Roaring Twenties captures the energy of its title. The script by Jerry Wald, Richard Macaulay, and Robert Rossen is packed with incident, and Raoul Walsh directs with suitable vigour: the scenes are short, the years tumble by, the characters evolve, and no time is wasted as a country rides a roller coaster of nightclubs, parties, money, and violence fuelled by an unpopular law imposed on an unwilling public.

Propelled by James Cagney's irrepressible intensity, Eddie Bartlett chases the American Dream whereby a lowly mechanic can become a somebody, his rise made possible by a massive underground industry created overnight. Eddie starts with delivery, progresses to manufacturing (at first in his bathtub), then moves onto distribution, offering a range of products including luxury varieties. Along the way he forges uneasy alliances (including with George), elbows competitors out of the way, and makes plenty of enemies.

But Eddie always carries a torch for Jean, the teenager who wrote to him when he was in the trenches of France. He waits for her to grow up then sponsors her career. But while she is always grateful, she also represents Eddie's great blind spot. Over the years he fails to understand she will never respect a gangster, and remains oblivious to her blooming romance with Lloyd. Overall, Eddie is much less successful at affairs of the heart than at business: he also fails to recognize or acknowledge Panama's decade-long crush on him.

Eddie's love for Jean makes him sympathetic, as do the two men more brutal than he is: George is a cold-blooded killer when needed, as proven in an early scene during the war when he does not hesitate to snipe a teenager. And rival booze industry mobster Nick Brown (Paul Kelly) is also quick to deploy deadly tactics of intimidation.

The final act features Eddie's dramatic descent back to his roots, his fate now resting in the competing palms of George and Lloyd. Eddie can still grab the initiative for the sake of the great love of his life, and hurtles to the only place where retribution and redemption can meet.



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Movie Review: Stand-In (1937)

A satire and romance set in Hollywood, Stand-In pokes good fun at the movie-making culture but stumbles on unsteady tones.

Colossal Pictures is a badly managed and financially struggling Hollywood movie studio. When unscrupulous corporate raider Ivor Nassau (C. Henry Gordon) submits a low-ball purchase offer, New York bank executive and mathematical wizard Atterbury Dodd (Leslie Howard) is dispatched to assess the situation at the studio.

In Hollywood he bumps into helpful stand-in and former child star Lester Plum (Joan Blondell), who helps him uncover a wasteful culture exemplified by imperious director Koslofski (Alan Mowbray), fading star Thelma Cheri (Marla Shelton), and fast-talking publicity manager Tom Potts (Jack Carson). Producer Doug Quintain (Humphrey Bogart) wants to do the right thing but is hampered by his lingering love for Thelma. Dodd has to find a way to turn the studio around, but remains oblivious to Lester's attention as she falls in love with him.

Directed by Tay Garnett, Stand-In offers plenty to admire. A story of intentional corporate devaluation and shady business transactions evolves into a tasty behind-the-scenes look at big-budget movie making. The accompanying wastefulness and narcissism are laid bare, director Koslofski and star Thelma Cheri indulging in the endless shoot for Sex And Satan, a movie that will either save the studio or comprehensively sink it.

Along the way, the haughtiness of celebrities is contrasted with the down-to-earth attitude of Lester Plum. She had her moment of glory as a child star but is now on filmmaking's margins, reduced to sweating in the lights as scenes are prepped for Thelma's appearance. Joan Blondell as Lester is Stand-In's spark, her sass, energy and precise comic timing repeatedly injecting spirit. She perfectly complements Leslie Howard's Atterbury Dodd, a genius at numbers but otherwise sexless and devoid of empathy, treating people as units until his eyes are opened by the industry's madness.

In a refreshingly different role, Humphrey Bogart offers sturdy support as Quintain, although in an example of Stand-In's wayward focus his self-hating venom for still loving Thelma appears to belong in a different movie. Garnett dawdles for too long on some scenes, only to lurch from satire to romance to slapstick to jealousy to meltdowns. The film's most spectacular stumble arrives in the final act, abandoning all the previous sub-plots in favour of an ill-fitting "we the workers" climax, and the clunky script does not even bother to ride out the final curve. 

Either the ideas or the budget ran out, but along the way Stand-In offers decent jabs into the ribcage of its own culture.



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Movie Review: Dead End (1937)

A drama about class tensions between rich and poor, Dead End explores life at the edge with plenty of ambience but only fragments of story.

In Manhattan, new high-rises are encroaching towards traditionally poor riverfront neighbourhoods. At the base of one new swanky building, a group of tenement boys (the Dead End Kids) spend their days coming up with new ways to cause mostly harmless mischief. Painter and aspiring architect Dave (Joel McCrea) keeps an eye on the street, while Drina (Sylvia Sidney), the older sister and sole guardian of one of the boys, pines for Dave's attention.

But Dave is now more interested in Kay (Wendie Barrie), one of the wealthy women occupying an apartment in the new high rise. Gangster Baby Face Martin (Humphrey Bogart) grew up in the neighbourhood and now returns with his henchman Hunk (Allen Jenkins), hoping to reconnect with his estranged mother (Marjorie Main) and former lover Francey (Claire Trevor). The street kids get themselves into trouble when they bully a wealthy kid, while Dave stands up to Martin's intrusion, leading to violence.

An adaptation of the stage play by Sidney Kingsley, Dead End introduces the Dead End Kids to movie audiences and provides Bogart with another stock and poorly defined gangster role. The Lillian Hellman screenplay is notably sympathetic towards the hardscrabble street life of the disadvantaged, the rich folks here presented as uncaring elitists infringing on the turf of the oppressed. William Wyler does his best to add a sense of place, but the film remains a stage-bound spectacle essentially confined to one set.

Wyler does capture tension caused by the expanding footprint of wealth. The poor neighbourhood is now in the literal shadow of a building built by and for the rich. No commonalities exist between the two worlds, and when the curious but clueless Kay tentatively explores the run-down building where Dave lives, she quickly concludes she cannot belong here - or with him.

Hellman's script lacks a singular focus and instead invests an inordinate amount of time with the Dead End Kids and their juvenile street level shenanigans. But it remains unclear whether their lifestyle, consisting of horseplay, bullying, pushing and shoving, tough talk and threats of violence, is being condemned or celebrated as boys-being-boys. 

The children-as-a-product-of-their-environment theme is frail, and a feeble attempt to get away with a bullying-and-stabbing episode falls foul of the Hays Code. The good Dave and bad Martin are supposed to represent the two alternative outcomes for the kids to pursue, but neither man is provided a meaningful opportunity to chart a path or make a case.

Humphrey Bogart as Baby Face Martin generates the best electricity, and he enjoys a partial arc as his encounters with his mother and former lover don't go as planned. Along with Dave, Drina and Kay, the adults are far more interesting than the kids and create the basis for what could have been a more compelling drama. But at this waterfront, the grownups are on the sidelines and the dead end street is overwhelmed by rowdiness.

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Movie Review: You Can't Get Away With Murder (1939)

A straightforward morality tale, You Can't Get Away With Murder is a prison-set drama as obvious as its title suggests.

In New York City, bubbly Madge Stone (Gale Page) and her boyfriend Fred Burke (Harvey Stephens), a security guard, excitedly make plans to get married and relocate to Boston. But Madge's younger brother Johnny (Billy Halop) is falling in with the wrong crowd, idolizing small-time criminal Frank Wilson (Humphrey Bogart). Frank and Johnny hold-up a gas station, then Johnny steals Burke's gun and Frank leaves it at the scene of a pawn shop murder when the next robbery goes wrong. 

Frank and Johnny are arrested for the gas station job and incarcerated at Sing Sing prison. Burke is wrongly convicted of the pawn shop murder based on circumstantial evidence and sentenced to die. Johnny knows the truth but struggles with his conscious while serving his sentence, caught between ratting out Frank or letting Burke die. Elderly prisoner Pop (Henry Travers), in charge of the prison library, tries to help Johnny sort through right and wrong.

A standard Warner Bros. crime and punishment film, You Can't Get Away With Murder is only 79 minutes long but feels much longer. Once Frank and Johnny land behind the walls of Sing Sing and Burke is convicted of murder, director Lewis Seiler has another 40 minutes or so to burn, and the film drops into a tiresome and repetitive loop. With Johnny stuck agonizing over his predicament, all other characters and events freeze at the same note until the final climax.

The script by Jonathan Finn and Lewis E. Lawes (adapting Lawes' play Chalked Out) attempts to add vibrancy through the assorted characters populating the prison system. The most prominent is Henry Travers as Pop, a sick and aging seen-it-all prisoner who senses Johnny's conflict and attempts to nudge him to the side of light. The rest of the riffraff is less successful, including a prisoner who loudly recites recipes (?) and another who runs a gig betting on death row inmates.

The acting is of the grim straight-ahead variety, with Bogart stuck in another thankless reinterpretation of the sharp-tongued small time criminal. Gale Page is overly theatrical, Harvey Stephens is bland, but Billy Halop effectively evolves his Dead End Kids persona.

The photography is slick and Seiler creates a viable prison environment, but You Can't Get Away With Murder gives away its message in the banner, then makes hard work of trudging to the waiting cell.



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Movie Review: Racket Busters (1938)

A routine low budget crime drama, Racket Busters is a flat story of truckers caught between goons and government.

In New York City, gangster boss John Martin (Humphrey Bogart) is gradually exerting control over elected officials, and turns his attention to domination of the city's food market. He unleashes his thugs to intimidate the food truckers into joining a new union under his control. The government responds by appointing Special Prosecutor Hugh Allison (Walter Abel) to break up the rackets.

Trucker Denny Jordan (George Brent), his business partner Skeets Wilson (Allen Jenkins) and old-school honest union boss Pop Wilson (Oscar O'Shea) are all opposed to Martin's power grab. Initially Denny takes a strong public stand to oppose the criminals, but when he is frozen out of a living and his pregnant wife Nora (Gloria Dickson) is imperiled, he has a difficult decision to make. In the meantime, Martin does not hesitate to leave a trail of victims as he muscles in on his next target group, the food supply merchants.

A filler feature recycling overused themes from the Warner Bros. crime repertoire, Racket Busters offers nothing new in a story of featureless hardhead goons threatening salt-of-the-earth truckers. But at least the film does not overstay its welcome: director Lloyd Bacon hustles the hard boiled action along in a B-movie appropriate 75 minutes, and does capture some decent street mood scenes with good camera work down at the bustling food market.

Humphrey Bogart's name was retroactively elevated to the top of the credit list once he achieved fame a couple of years later, but his role is quite secondary. He appears in just a few short scenes as intimidating crime boss Martin, and otherwise disappears for long stretches.

The real main character is independent trucker Denny Jordan, and co-writers Robert Rossen and Leonardo Bercovici send the protagonist on a wild and unlikely ride, first intent on stopping the racketeers with his fists, then suddenly changing course to meekly play along, before just as suddenly rediscovering his soul and working his way into a ridiculous climactic brawl. George Brent is miscast and fails to convince in any iteration of the role. 

The good government guys are represented by Walter Abel in the role of Hugh Allison, a character inspired by celebrated real life prosecutor Thomas E. Dewey. Abel is unable to do much in a repetitive portrayal, beseeching the truckers to resist the racketeers then failing to protect them when they do so.

Racket Busters is standard and uninspired, but also economical and unpretentious.

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Movie Review: Tokyo Joe (1949)

A listless post-World War Two drama, Tokyo Joe suffers from disengaged characters and a throwaway plot.

Army veteran Joe Barrett (Humphrey Bogart) returns to Tokyo to pick up the pieces of his pre-war life. Joe used to own and operate a nightclub and gambling joint, but fled just before the attack on Pearl Harbor. Now the city is run by the American military and Joe has limited visa time to plan his future. 

He had heard that his wife Trina (Florence Marly) was dead, but is shocked to find her alive and married to influential American businessman Mark Landis (Alexander Knox). Joe makes no secret he wants to win Trina back. To stay in Japan he goes into business with underworld leader Baron Kimura (Sessue Hayakawa). They launch an air freight business to export frozen frogs, although Joe suspects the Baron has more nefarious future plans. With American officials breathing down his neck, Joe discovers Trina's shocking secrets and is caught between protecting his ex-wife and thwarting dangerous militants.

Produced by Bogart's own Santana Pictures and a curiosity for being among the earliest Hollywood productions to feature post-war on-location filming in Japan (albeit with just the second unit and a stand-in for Bogart), Tokyo Joe attempts to recreate a Casablanca vibe but falls well short. The film carries promise, and the basic plot elements featuring a scrappy American navigating a defeated Japan, bureaucratic US Army administration, and the remnants of his previous life contain kernels of interest. But the pieces never gel into a cohesive drama. 

Four different writers were involved in creating a sub-90 minute screenplay devoid of wit, zip, menace and energy. Scenes drag on, the characters are monotonal, and the action scenes, when they arrive late on, are assembled with marked clumsiness by director Stuart Heisler.

Trina's big secret, verbally described rather than visually demonstrated, is simply not that compelling to drive momentum, and the film suffers a choppy second half with Joe landing in the middle of a barely defined militant repatriation plot unrelated to most of what preceded it. 

Bogart is less interested than usual, and the supporting cast is decidedly second rate. Florence Marly offers a passable physical resemblance to Lauren Bacall, but is an otherwise dour and expressionless presence, not helped by lifeless dialogue. Sessue Hayakawa starts his career comeback with a good turn as Baron Kimura, and the film would have benefited from expanding his role.

Tokyo Joe deserves credit for an overall restrained portrayal of the Japanese people, presented as a typical societal mix, and avoidance of jingoistic triumphalism. But unfortunately the laudable cultural accommodation is bundled into a blanket of blandness.

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Movie Review: The Return Of Doctor X (1939)

A science fiction suspense thriller, The Return Of Doctor X is a stiff low-budget mystery featuring bloodthirsty murders and corpses that refuse to remain dead.

Newspaperman Walter Garrett (Wayne Morris) scores an interview with theatre star Angela Merrova (Lya Lys). He is shocked to find her stabbed to death in her hotel room, but even more astounded when the next day her corpse disappears, and then Merrova shows up alive, if a little pasty. Garrett turns to his friend and blood expert Dr. Mike Rhodes (Dennis Morgan) for some amateur sleuthing.

Suspicion soon centers on Mike's mentor Dr. Francis Flegg (John Litel) and his creepy, pale assistant Marshall Quesne (Humphrey Bogart). Flegg is experimenting with blood transfusions and the development of synthetic blood. Soon another murder is committed, and then Mike's new girlfriend nurse Joan Vance (Rosemary Lane) is threatened.

The Return Of Doctor X is a curiosity due to the presence of a pre-stardom Humphrey Bogart in one of his least favourite roles. He plays a dead-eyed ex-physician with memorable makeup and hair, in a role better suited to Bela Lugosi or Boris Karloff. The film is also the first to be directed by Vincent Sherman.

As a B-movie clocking in at 62 minutes, The Return Of Doctor X is not a total loss. The potential benefits of blood transfusions and synthetic blood as a life-saving scientific advancement are among the topics discussed. The Lee Katz script also features some wry humour, Garrett maintaining his sense of investigative fun despite losing his job and finding himself at the centre of multiple murder scenes.

But otherwise this is a standard monster-in-human-form cheapo production, heavily inspired by Frankenstein but with plastic characters, rushed delivery, and a plot designed for bargain thrills rather than any logic. The three lead performances from Wayne Morris, Dennis Morgan and John Litel belong in local amateur theatre productions, while the character of Joan Vance hangs around on the margins for the sole purpose of becoming a final act damsel in distress.

Bogart looks suitably ghastly and aghast at having to endure the rampant nonsense. His roles had already started to improve with appearances in classy productions like Dark Victory (also from 1939). Within a couple of years High Sierra and The Maltese Falcon would make him a star, consigning Dr. X to embarassing footnote status.

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Movie Review: Battle Circus (1953)

A semi-documentary highlighting the difficult work of army medical units under fire, Battle Circus features a tepid romance floundering within a narrative void.

During the Korean War, Major Jed Webbe (Humphrey Bogart) is a battle weary doctor and part of the leadership team for Mobile Army Surgical Hospital (MASH) unit 8666. Operating out of large tents near the front lines, MASH has to be ready to redeploy frequently and at short notice, and sometimes overnight. New arrivee Lieutenant Ruth McCara (June Allyson) joins the unit as a nurse, and Jed first saves her life during an enemy air raid and then tries to initiate a romance within the confines of a hectic military environment.

In addition to treating wounded soldiers and remobilizing to new locations, Jed and the other unit leaders including Sergeant Orvil Statt (Keenan Wynn) and Lieutenant Colonel Hilary Whalters (Robert Keith) have to deal with columns of displaced civilians requiring treatment, injured prisoners of war, enemy bombing raids, ambushes, foul weather, and the uncertainties of shifting front lines. Ruth initially resists Jed's advances and the other nurses in the unit warn her about him. But eventually a deep love emerges, although he refuses to reveal whether or not he is married.

Before the much more famous (but no better) MASH movie and television series, Battle Circus ventured to the front lines with doctors and nurses given the unenviable task of patching up bodies close to the arena of combat, although this is a field hospital with no visible blood or injuries, and remarkably pain-free and well-behaved patients. Director and co-writer Richard Brooks cobbles up a non-script most interested in featuring men-at-work putting up and taking down large tents, and occasionally dodging unconvincing and quite wayward enemy attacks.

Bolted on to the appreciation of American medical ingenuity under fire is a miserable love story, consisting of Jed lecherously pursuing Ruth. His pushiness to get his hands all over her borders on assault rather than romance. Regardless she falls passionately in love for reasons lost in the muddy terrain between the tents. Bogart and Allyson are far from convincing as medical professionals, and even less so as lovers, sharing no chemistry.

Brief glimpses of human drama poke their helmets out of the foxholes in the form of an injured Korean child who arrives at the field hospital near death, and later a delirious enemy soldier waving a hand grenade. The doctors carry on with their surgeries and disregard the wobbly intruder, just as this film is best ignored.

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Movie Review: It All Came True (1940)

A crime comedy musical drama, It All Came True is a weird mixture of gangsters, entertainers and dotty seniors, but gels enough to maintain interest.

Hardened mobster Chips Maguire (Humphrey Bogart) and his naive piano player Tommy Taylor (Jeffrey Lynn) are forced to flee Chips' nightclub in a hurry to avoid arrest when the police stage a raid. During the escape, Chips shoots and kills an informer using a gun he had previously registered in Tommy's name. The two men take refuge at the financially struggling boarding house run by Tommy's mother Nora (Jessie Busley) and her lifelong friend Maggie Ryan (Una O'Connor). Nora is thrilled to welcome back her son, who still believes Chips will help him become a famous musician.

The boarding house guests include the paranoid Miss Flint (ZaSu Pitts), washed-up magician The Great Boldini (Felix Bressart) and his scene-stealing dog, Mr. Salmon (Grant Mitchell), and Mr. Van Diver (Brandon Tynan).

Chips pretends to be a businessman named Grasselli and confines himself to his room, while Tommy reconnects with his childhood sweetheart Sarah Jane (Ann Sheridan), Maggie's daughter and now a feisty singer. Chips starts to go stir crazy, and eventually decides to convert the boarding house into a new nightclub venture with Tommy and Sarah Jane as the main attraction.

Made the year before Bogart's breakout roles in High Sierra and The Maltese Falcon, It All Came True is a curiosity. A slow and meandering start and a weak ending dominated by vaudevillian performances bookend the film. But the middle third surprisingly corrals the right amounts of wit, gentle romance, light gangsterism and sweet musical numbers into a decent enough package.

The main theme of a hardened criminal gradually softening in the presence of mother-like care is predictable enough, but Bogart plays along and subjects himself to plenty of self-deprecating humour. His fish-out-of-water presence in a room filled with stuffed animals towers over the film, although Ann Sheridan comes close to matching him in a spirited performance of her own as an entertainer who stands her ground but cannot hold a job. Compared to Bogart and Sheridan, Jeffrey Lynn is unfortunately bland.

The weaker parts of the movie have director Lewis Seiler surrendering arduous stretches to the boarding house guests gibbering away about not much or performing versions of poetry readings and magic shows decades past their best-by date. The film's title is a reference to the imaginative tall tales spun by Mrs. Taylor, and many scenes have a static theatrical feel as the residents natter. Happily, the little bits of interaction with law enforcement and Chip's gangland colleagues push back with doses of energy.

As the nutty fluctuations in tone, subject matter and quality develop a charm of their own, It All Came True is neither good nor bad, just quirky.

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Movie Review: Invisible Stripes (1939)

A gangster drama, Invisible Stripes examines the lingering stigma of prison and the ever attractive shortcuts to riches offered by crime.

Cliff Taylor (George Raft) and Charles Martin (Humphrey Bogart) are released from New York's Sing Sing prison on the same day. Cliff still has a year on parole, but regrets his criminal past and is intent on living a straight life. Charles has a more jaundiced view of society and quickly seeks out his old mobster buddies and reenters the crime world.

Cliff reconnects with his mother (Flora Robson) and younger brother Tim (William Holden), a car mechanic who is engaged to Peggy (Jane Bryan). Tim is financially struggling, hot headed and eager to live the good life. Cliff has to talk him down from thinking about crime as a quick pathway to riches, but Cliff himself finds life as a parolee difficult, as employers are unwilling to trust him. The option of joining Charles' criminal exploits becomes more difficult to dismiss.

The title refers to the stench of prison garb enduring upon release, and what Invisible Stripes lacks in originality it more than makes up for in polish. This is Warner Bros. studio at their absolute sweet spot, director Lloyd Bacon delivering a straightforward and compact crime drama with a mix of established and future stars. Morality, repentance, family, social barriers, bank hold-ups, shootouts and the eternal dilemma of choosing between good and evil are wrapped into a tidy 80 minute package.

The film is based on a novel by real-life warden Lewis E. Lawes, a proponent of prison reform, and Invisible Stripes invests well-meaning effort in exploring the tricky seam between good intentions and societal barriers. Both the warden and Cliff's parole officer are on his side and want him to succeed, but trust for an ex-con is in short supply among business owners, factory workers and yard bosses. Despite Cliff's best intentions and notwithstanding the Taylor brothers' short tempers, he is more pushed back rather than pulled into the orbit of crime in order to survive.

The cast members easily fit into the material. George Raft is in his element and immediately convincing, while Humphrey Bogart generates his own electricity fuelled by abrasive resentment. In his second major role, William Holden is relatively bland and superficial compared to his more weathered co-stars. Jane Bryan as his generic girl gets one scene to shine, bumping up against the dreams and reality of rich society.

On a sour casting note, Flora Robson is asked to play Raft's mother despite being six months younger, and there is an ickiness to the excessive nuzzling between mother and son.

The stripes are invisible, but the film's overall slick proficiency is on clear display.

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Movie Review: In A Lonely Place (1950)

A murder mystery and romantic drama, In A Lonely Place mixes genres with stunning success as it delves into a complex psychological profile.

In Los Angeles, Dixon Steele (Humphrey Bogart) is a short-tempered Hollywood script writer going through a dry spell. His agent Mel Lippman (Art Smith) urges him to read a popular book and convert it to a screenplay. Instead Dixon invites hatcheck girl Mildred (Martha Stewart), who has already read the book, to his apartment to tell him the story. She leaves after midnight.

Mildred is murdered later that night, and detective Brub Nicolai (Frank Lovejoy), who served with Dixon in the war, and Captain Lochner (Carl Benton Reid) question Dixon. His nonchalant behaviour does not erase suspicions, but his neighbour Laurel Gray (Gloria Grahame), an aspiring actress, provides an alibi. Dix and Laurel start an intense love affair, reawakening his writing creativity. But the murder investigation drags on, and Laurel starts to fear Dix's fiery temper, suspecting he is capable of extreme violence.

Captain Lochner: Considering that you've never met Mr. Steele, you pay quite a bit of attention to him.
Laurel: Hmm-hmm. I have at that.
Lochner: Do you usually give such attention to your neighbours?
Laurel: No.
Lochner: Were you interested in Mr. Steele because he's a celebrity?
Laurel: No, not at all. I noticed him because he looked interesting - I like his face.

Directed by Nicholas Ray and written by Edmund H. North, In A Lonely Place uses a murder case as a catalyst for a tempestuous romance. A thematic film noir, neither the murder nor the romance are necessarily at the centre of the story. Rather, this is a dazzling examination of one man's troubled psyche, likely damaged during the war. Dixon Steele is an unforgettable character, in turns brilliant, caustic, and amorous. But his fury is never far from the surface, and provides a dangerous and destructive source of energy.

Mel Lippmann (talking to Laurel about Dix): You knew he was dynamite - he has to explode sometimes! Years ago, I tried to make him go and see a psychiatrist. I thought he'd kill me! Always violent. Well it's as much a part of him as the colour of his eyes, the shape of his head. He's Dix Steele. And if you want him, you've gotta take it all, the good with the bad. I've taken it for 20 years and I'd do it again.

The film generates magnificent menace by obscuring Dixon's guilt or innocence in Mildred's murder. He knows who and what he is, and it's up to the world around him, from the cops to his agent and his new lover, to react and draw their conclusions. Dixon's duality occupies the core of the film: he is capable of extreme rage at the slightest provocation, just as efficiently as he can express kindness towards a has-been actor (Robert Warwick), romance Laurel, and immerse himself in creative work.

Captain Lochner: You're told that the girl you were with last night was found in Benedict Canyon, murdered. Dumped from a moving car. What's your reaction? Shock? Horror? Sympathy? No - just petulance at being questioned. A couple of feeble jokes. You puzzle me, Mr. Steele.
Dixon: Well, I grant you, the jokes could've been better, but I don't see why the rest should worry you - that is, unless you plan to arrest me on lack of emotion.

Dixon is both black and white, with plenty of in-between and fast shades of grey, a perfect conundrum at the heart of a film noir. Ray makes excellent use of close-ups, and the crisp black and white Burnett Guffey cinematography sparks the simple but cluttered sets to life.

The final third of the film nudges the perspective ever so slightly towards Laurel's dilemma. Entranced by her man, she is also frightened by his violent and impetuous tendencies. The risks and rewards of sticking by Dix are both potentially great, and navigating a path towards happiness will be extraordinarily difficult, even for an exceptionally resourceful and calm woman.

Dixon: You know, you're out of your mind - how can anyone like a face like this? Look at it...[leans in for a kiss]
Laurel Gray: I said I liked it - I didn't say I wanted to kiss it.

Humphrey Bogart delivers one of his career best performances as a man defined and dominated by his disposition and victimized by breakneck mood transformations. He is matched by Gloria Grahame in top form, an icy cool neighbour and torrid lover capable of dissecting just about every situation with an acerbic stare.

Dixon, pondering a line he wants to use in his script: I was born when she kissed me. I died when she left me. I lived a few weeks while she loved me.

In A Lonely Place is a story of personal turmoil crawling into the open, charm, pugnacity and talent coalescing into a combustible combination.

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Movie Review: All Through The Night (1942)

A jaunty thriller, All Through The Night mixes laughs with action in a story of a New York gambler tangling with a Nazi terrorist cell.

"Gloves" Donahue (Humphrey Bogart) is prodded by his Ma (Jane Darwell) to investigate the murder of popular cheesecake maker Mr. Miller. Along with his sidekicks Sunshine (William Demarest), Barney (Frank McHugh), and Starchy (Jackie Gleason), Gloves starts to investigate Miller's mysterious customer, the alluring singer Leda Hamilton (Kaaren Verne). Soon another murder is committed, and this time Gloves is falsely implicated, forcing him to delve deeper into the plot to try and clear his name.

Gloves: [Breaking into a building] Personally, I'd feel more comfortable if I had a rod.
Sunshine: Here lies Sunshine under the sod. That's not odd. He had no rod.
Gloves: You know, there are times when I wonder about you.

His pursuit of Hamilton leads him to an auction house used as a front by a Nazi terrorist cell commanded by Ebbing (Conrad Veidt) and assisted by Madame (Judith Anderson) and their enforcer Pepi (Peter Lorre).With the cops on his tail, Gloves has to infiltrate the terrorists before they can launch their latest elaborate bombing plan, all while deciding which side Leda is really on.

Ebbing: You're not afraid to die, are you?
Gloves: I don't mind dying, but I hate to be divided up into small pieces.

Any wartime film that tries to add levity to a raging conflict where the outcome is still in doubt is bravely walking a tightrope above the abyss of bad taste. All Through The Night pulls it off, barely, thanks to a smart script filled with really sharp zingers courtesy of Gloves' collection of dubious friends.

[Sunshine knocks out a Nazi with an ax handle]
Gloves: Very good. Joe DiMaggio couldn't have done better.
Sunshine: I used to bat .320 at reform school.

The central character is good natured and only a bit shady, Gloves apparently a Broadway promoter of some sort but mostly interested in gambling scams. His background gives director Vincent Sherman and co-writers Leonard Spigelgass and Edwin Gilbert license to surround Gloves with wisecracking friends who provide a continuous stream of witty commentary on the evolving mess. A running gag features Barney marrying his girl Annabelle at the start of the evening, but unable to spend any time with the new bride because of the events of the wild night.

Barney: Say, chief, can't I get away just long enough to give my girl a quick hello?
Gloves: No, stick around, will ya?
Starchie: What are you so nervous about? She'll keep!
Barney: That's what you think. I can't take a chance. The fleet's in and she's defense-minded!

On a more serious note, the film makes mention of the Dachau concentration camp, perhaps one of the earliest references in a Hollywood film to the Nazis' worst atrocities. And while the plot contains a large number of holes as the Nazis oscillate between dangerous and dimwitted, Sherman maintains brisk pacing on the cheap, limiting the action to a few sets and several hide-and-seek set-pieces with conventional gunplay and fisticuffs.

Barney: I don't get it. I marry Annabelle and I spend my honeymoon with you.
Sunshine: Well, I can cook.

With Bogart injecting his confident swagger into every scene, this time emboldened by unscrupulous tendencies rather than personally-defined principles, All Through The Night is never less than watchable. Kaaren Verne is more than adequate as the damsel in distress who may or may not be part of the terrorist cell, and Conrad Veidt is as oily as bad guys come. The film features a large gathering of the Warner Bros. company of character actors, with Peter Lorre prominent as the the most cold-hearted plotter.

Leda [speaking to gathered reporters]: Well, I also feel it's about time someone knocked the Axis back on its heels.
Gloves: Excuse me, baby. What she means is, it's about time somebody knocked those heels back on their axis!

Any film that gets away with that line deserves some recognition.

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Movie Review: Action In The North Atlantic (1943)

A World War Two merchant navy war film, Action In The North Atlantic suppresses most of its propaganda tendencies to deliver a rollicking seaborne adventure.

World War Two is raging and the merchant marines are doing their best to supply the war effort in Europe. Commanding an oil tanker, Captain Steve Jarvis (Raymond Massey) and his first officer and friend Joe Rossi (Humphrey Bogart) tangle with a German U-boat and are sunk, their lifeboat rammed for good measure. Steve's men make it onto a raft and drift for eleven days before being rescued.

Awaiting their next assignment, Steve recuperates with his wife Sarah (Ruth Gordon) while Joe meets and marries lounge singer Pearl O'Neill (Julie Bishop). The two men are then paired up again and placed in charge of the new Liberty class SS Seawitch. They join a large multinational supply convoy on the way to the Soviet port of Murmansk via a stop in Halifax. Despite a navy escort, the journey across the North Atlantic will be perilous.

Most of Action In The North Atlantic is directed by Lloyd Bacon, although a contractual dispute meant that he did not complete the film. Byron Haskin and Raoul Walsh, both uncredited, were brought in to complete the project. At just over two hours, this is an ambitious, visually rich war adventure, and the pace never slows down. While there are a few scenes undoubtedly geared towards rallying the troops and encouraging recruitment, between them the directors create an impressive war film, with a commitment to quick pacing, tension build-up, regular doses of action and plenty of variety.

Action In The North Atlantic spends most of its running time on water, and features an assortment of engagements: stealthy sub attacks, survival in lifeboats and rafts, a battle between a sub wolfpack and a large convoy, a prolonged one-on-one chase across the high seas, and seaplane attacks. Using a combination of stock footage and models the special effects and scenes of wanton destruction on the ocean are excellent. Large ships are torpedoed, set on fire, attacked from the air, and abandoned, while subs are destroyed with depth charges, rammed and sunk.

The enemy is portrayed as committed without being dehumanized. All the scenes featuring German combatants and their commanders are in German with no subtitles, adding a welcome sense of authenticity.

The scenes on dry land are relatively few, and are used to effectively sketch in the backgrounds and love lives of the key characters. The relationship between Captain Jarvis and first officer Rossi underpins the story, and the film avoids any superfluous dramatics, complexities or buddy tendencies, with Raymond Massey and Humphrey Bogart delivering typically dependable performances. Jarvis and Rossi respect each other and work well together towards the same cause, and there isn't much more in their dynamic.

The film invests plenty of time with secondary characters, the seamen who have to unquestioningly obey orders, endure boredom and bad food, question the likelihood of their own survival, and then jump into sudden action within seconds of the alarm sounding. Alan Hale Sr., Sam Levene and Dane Clark are among the grease-stained actors who bring the crew to life while adding some comic relief.

Action In The North Atlantic delivers what it promises, in a quality package brimming with wartime verve.

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Movie Review: The Harder They Fall (1956)

A powerful boxing drama, The Harder They Fall examines the sport's sordid underbelly and finds nothing but sleazy profiteers and clueless victims. The film is dark, compelling and boasts two excellent performances from Humphrey Bogart and Rod Steiger.

A New York syndicate run by shady businessman Nick Benko (Steiger) recruits unknown Argentinian boxer Toro Moreno (Mike Lane) into the United States. Toro is a powerfully built hulk of a man, but stiff and quite clueless as a boxer. Undeterred, Nick hires washed-up sports reporter Eddie Willis (Bogart) as a full-time press agent to promote the boxer and build-up his career through a series of fixed fights. Nick could not care less about Toro and his manager and interpreter Agrandi (Carlos Montalban); he just sees Toro as an investment to be milked all the way to a money-spinning championship bout, and then discarded.

Eddie desperately needs the money and so sells his soul and accepts the assignment, despite the reservations of his wife Beth (Jan Sterling). He forms a tentative friendship with Toro, and starts the process of manufacturing fake publicity and lining up fixed fights with corrupt promoters across the country to build-up Toro's reputation as a fearsome fighter. With out of control egos inside and outside the ring, the stakes get dramatically higher as Toro gets closer to his unearned title shot.

Directed by Mark Robson and written by Philip Yordan (who also produced), The Harder They Fall is unofficially inspired by the career of real-life boxer Primo Carnera, and features actual former boxers, including Jersey Joe Walcott and Max Baer, in small but important roles. This is a gritty, pessimistic and hard-hitting drama, featuring three types of men: those who have long since sold their soul, others on the way to selling out, and the saps in the middle of the ring who are used to generate box office and gambling revenue and then unceremoniously abandoned.

Robson bypasses any semblance of glamour, honour, or sports heroism. The film is concerned primarily with the hard-nosed business end of the sport as built on a solid foundation of fraud. From the nondescript gyms and hotel rooms where deals are made and parties held, passing through the dressing rooms and all the way to the ring itself, the odour of sweat and dishonesty jumps off the screen. Nick accounts for every cent in his business and Eddie uses his smooth-talking, persuasive skills to keep the fix on track and overcome every obstacle. These are not stupid men; just smart operators making good money by manipulating the undeniable appeal of pugilism.

The corruption is presented factually; only a few characters care enough to raise the alarm, and they are the annoying outsiders to the game. Although Eddie's character is portrayed as struggling with the morality of his choices, there is no doubting that the culture has grown bigger than any man: boxing has its own twisted rules, its soul long since hijacked and beyond salvation. Men like Eddie have to either participate in the graft or bail out altogether. Yordan takes the time to highlight the real victims of the sport, former two-bit fighters dumped onto the scrapheap of society, damaged goods who never even knew they never stood a chance.

There are several scenes in the ring, and they are doubly painful: the fight is where all the planning pays off, but in this version of the sports world, sportsmanship is irrelevant. The agony comes from watching the clueless Toro lumbering around, haplessly believing he is boxing his way to stardom, while frantic efforts are underway in the opposite corner to ensure his opponents uphold their end of the deal to take a dive at the appropriate moment.

In his screen last role, Bogart brings down the curtain on a stellar career with a nuanced, relatively low key performance, Eddie an observer, an insider, a participant and a victim all at once. Money talks, and Bogart allows Eddie to succumb to the lure of an easy payday just as easily as he demonstrates why he is so good at his job. Steiger gets the showier, more intense role as Nick, and finds a man on the edge, running a business, racking up expenses, and never losing sight of the ultimate goal: a championship bout, the big payoff, all victims be damned as long as he is a winner.

Uncompromising and pessimistically grim, The Harder They Fall packs a knock-out punch.

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Movie Review: Sabrina (1954)

A sophisticated romantic comedy with a bright cast and an enjoyable love triangle, Sabrina sparkles with wit and talent.

The Larrabee family are rich industrialists who control multiple companies and throw lavish parties at their grand mansion. Linus Larrabee (Humphrey Bogart) runs the business empire with cold efficiency, while his younger brother David (William Holden) is the careless playboy, already married and divorced several times. Thomas Fairchild (John Williams) is the loyal family chauffeur, and he lives above the garage with his impressionable daughter Sabrina (Audrey Hepburn).

Sabrina harbours a long-term crush on David, and when she is finally convinced that he does not even know that she exists, she tries to kill herself but is saved by Linus. Thomas packs off his daughter to Paris, where she enrolls in cooking school. Two years later, she returns as a much more sophisticated woman, with a stylish look and a new confidence to get what she wants. David is immediately smitten, but Linus has arranged for his younger brother to marry Elizabeth Tyson (Martha Hyer) in the interest of furthering a major business deal. Linus starts to spend time with Sabrina to distract her from David, and an unexpected love triangle develops.

Fresh from her break-out performance in Roman Holiday, Audrey Hepburn was quickly paired with more top Hollywood talent in the form of Humphrey Bogart, William Holden and director Billy Wilder. With a screenplay by  Wilder and Ernest Lehman, Sabrina is a lighthearted delight, making best use of Hepburn's charms and cajoling a uniquely engaging performance out of Bogart.

In many ways turning the premise of Roman Holiday on its head, in Sabrina Hepburn plays the commoner mingling with the upper classes, and she proves her range with an equally convincing turn. Whether barefoot and star-struck standing on a tree early in the film or at the height of sophistication and stealing all hearts in her post-Paris transformation, Hepburn oozes understated star power, effortlessly commanding the screen with her searching eyes and undeniable presence.

Hepburn provides an injection of life into Bogart's screen persona. Linus Larrabee has all the decisive attributes of a typical Bogart character, but despite the age difference his romance with Sabrina rings true. Both Linus and Sabrina have their hearts clearly set on other targets (David in her case, new business opportunities in his case), so when their relationship starts to warm up it crackles with the familiar current of unintended attraction.

Despite venturing into territory as dark as attempted suicide and the thorny issues of classism, Wilder manages to keep the mood jovial with exquisite pacing. The film bounces along at an energetic clip, and allows all three of the lead characters plenty of opportunities to develop along individual arcs. Sabrina uses Paris to mature from girl to woman, David finally sets his eyes on a woman that he might settle down with, and Linus awakens to the opportunities offered by a world outside the corporate boardroom.

And it's all delivered with touches of refreshing humour, including David dealing with the consequences of sitting on wine glasses, Linus wholeheartedly embracing the technology of plastics, and the patriarch Oliver Larrabee (William Hampden) slipping into the dottiness of old age.

She may be only the chauffeur's daughter, but Sabrina is the one who takes the Larrabee family on a wild ride.

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