Humphrey Bogart Movies

The African Queen is a simple lovable film directed by John Huston. Huston is known to have made more powerful films than this one but none so appreciated and loved on a universal scale. Humphrey Bogart and Katherine Hepburn play the roles of an improbable pair amidst German East Africa in this film adaptation of C.S. Forester’s novel set during World War I.  Bogart (who would win the Oscar® for best actor thereafter) is the drunken skipper unreliably chugging on the backwaters of the “Dark Continent.” After the death of her bachelor brother played by Robert Morley, Hepburn plays a squeamish Methodist missionary who is determined to use the “Queen” to attack a full-sized German gunboat making patrol watches over the lake to get back at Kaiser Wilhelm’s troops; the same troops that burned her village to the ground.  John Huston is a director quite on terms with absurdity and this is one such inane proposition.

It was not until Huston got to the Congo when he realized that The African Queen was turning into a good funny film. This is all thanks to the comic sense that grew out of the daily performances of the odd pairing of Kate and Bogie.  As stated by him, “One brought out a vein of humor in the other.” While only having a small boat available to him, Huston still managed to come up with countless ways for his leading characters to be on different visual planes even as the setting and raw emotional urgency complot to bring them together. This is also the first John Huston feature film shot in Technicolor by Jack Cardiff (The Red Shoes).  However, neither of them could find a solution against the fact that the film has inadequate screen-processing technology for Hepburn and Bogart’s scenes on the rapids. This is just about the only failure in their goal of giving one enchanting fairy tale for adults. The script is written by James Agee, Huston himself, and Peter Viertel who was uncredited in the movie but was called in to write additional material while the crew was in Africa. Viertel would later fictionalize the experience into a roman a clef entitled White Hunter, Black Heart.

–Richard T. Jameson

The Enforcer features the iconic actor Humphrey Bogart as a district attorney who has dedicated all his work to prosecute a mob boss. All Humphrey Bogart fans and crime completists alike were drawn to the film. The film was based on actual court cases and portrayed the plot by flashback as Bogart’s character thinks back on his case against the fell con artist Everett Sloane, who has murdered anyone who was brave enough to testify against him.  Director Bretaigne Windust masterfully directed the movie with help from Raoul Walsh (who was uncredited but shot most of the film’s crucial suspenseful events including the conclusion). The films unusual structure, combined with Bogart’s terrific performance on the movie and a marvelous supporting cast including Zero Mostel contributed largely to the film’s standard law versus mob script. The film also had the opening narration voiced-over by Estes Kefauver, the chairman of a Senate investigation on organized crime during the time of the movie’s release.

. –Paul Gaita

Humphrey Bogart plays the role of a GI paratrooper stuck in a deceitful city dominated by all kinds of crooks in Dead Reckoning. The movie is set in a world post World War II with Bogart hot on the trail of a friend who is AWOL. He then meets the dubious Elizabeth Scott, an alluring femme who may be fatal. The B roster consisting of Marvin Miller (a nightclub owner’s personal thug) and Morris Carnovsky (a fastidious, gambling nightclub owner) is dominated by Bogie’s performance of a well-reserved and seasoned war veteran. The film’s plot closely resembles other elements of Bogie classics such as The Maltese Falcon and The Big Sleep buy recast on a low budget. While Scott is definitely no Lauren Bacall, her excellent performance is appropriately equivocal with the film’s skeptical edge, brutal anxiety, and sullied perspective of small-time crooks filled with big dreams.  This further led to put on a darker shade to Hollywood’s post-war vibe.

–Sean Axmaker