Bogart: Life Comes in Flashes

Nobody wore trench coats in movies better than Humphrey Bogart. Other actors also portrayed Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe, but they never escaped Bogart’s shadow. Years after his death, his persona still inspired such loyal fandom, there were several films about people trying to be him, like The Man with Bogart’s Face. You never heard about anyone trying to have Clark Gable’s face, even though it was considered more desirable. Filmmaker Kathryn Ferguson chronicles Bogart’s life, using his own words unearthed from unpublished letters and other largely unseen archival material, in Bogart: Life Comes in Flashes, which opens Friday in New York.

Any casual fan knows Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall were the first great Hollywood romance, rivaling Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward. Yet, Bogart had three prior marriages, all to women of considerable fame. Ferguson and producer-co-writer Eleanor Emptage will fill in the rest of the story for a lot of fans. For instance, his first wife Helen Menken was a stage actress whose acclaim was on par with Katharine Cornell. Menken was even president of the American Theater Wing—twice.

Mary Philips maybe never quite achieved the fame of the other Ms. Bogarts, but she had a long career (which apparently Bogart believed she prioritized ahead of their marriage), including A Farewell to Arms in 1932. However, none of his marriages held as much drama as his third, to Mayo Methot. At the time, she was a star verging on superstardom, specializing in wild, flapperish roles, until the Hayes Code largely put her out of business. According to Flashes, she shot at Bogart with her revolver on at least twice and stabbed him fairly seriously on one occasion, so it was definitely a dramatic union.

Flashes does not discuss Bogart’s career, film by film. It rather traces the state of his life, particularly with regard to the ups and downs of his marriages. However, there is some colorful archival footage of John Huston discussing Bogart’s career-making casting in The Maltese Falcon. We also hear Bogart’s complaints regarding The Return of Dr. X, which some describe as his “only horror film,” but even at the time, its horror cred was debatable. In contrast, Ferguson (perhaps mercifully) overlooks the other oddball curio of Bogart’s Warner years, his only musical, the corn pone Swing Your Lady.

Throughout the doc, Kerry Shale reads Bogart’s words “in character,” but without attempting a Rich Little-esque impression of the unique Bogart voice (in contrast to Mark Cousins’ My Name is Alfred Hitchcock, which would make a fitting companion film). Ferguson also incorporates extensive interviews with Bacall and their son Stephen Bogart (who also wrote two mystery novels inspired by his famous parents). Fittingly, we also hear a good amount from Huston and Katharine Hepburn, obviously including considerable discussion of The African Queen, for which Bogart won his only Oscar.

However, the film errs during its coverage of Hollywood’s McCarthyite years, by implying the Hollywood 10 were “innocent.” Anyone can object to McCarthy’s tactics on moral, ethical, or legal grounds. Nevertheless, there really was a concerted effort to inject Communist propaganda into Hollywood films, as Edward Dmytryk confirmed, after he broke with the Party and the Hollywood 10. If you actually make the effort to read Alvah Bessie’s writings for New Masses, it is clear he is a Party propagandist, pure and simple. Frankly, there is an accepted narrative to this period that Flashes largely adheres to, even though history is much more complex.

Beyond such expected shortcomings, Ferguson and company do a nice job conveying a sense of Bogart’s personality and his life beyond studio press releases (as well as Bacall’s). It feels like a very personal portrait, reflecting the close collaboration of the Bogart family and estate. As a result, this is one of the best documentary profiles of a genuine Golden Age Hollywood movie star in a number of years (at least since Boris Karloff: The Man Behind the Monster). Highly recommended, Bogart: Life Comes in Flashes opens this Friday (11/15) at the Quad.