To Have and Have Not: When Bogie Met Baby

It’s funny to think the movie version of To Have and Have Not (TH&HN) came about as a wager between producer/director Howard Hawks and author Ernest Hemingway!   According to TCM’s John Miller, Hawks was trying to persuade his Nobel Prize-winning author pal Hemingway to try screenwriting.  Hemingway balked, saying most of his writing was unfilmable.  Hawks wouldn’t give up that easily, boasting that he could make a good film out of what he considered Hemingway’s worst novel: “That bunch of junk To Have and Have Not.”  From what I’ve heard about “Papa” Hemingway, I would’ve expected those fellas to duke it out at that point, but Hemingway was up to the challenge.  Jules Furthman banged out a screenplay, turning “that bunch of junk” into an exciting, sexy, totally irresistible adventure with what turned out to be one of the best romantic teams in movie history, onscreen and off-screen! 

We’ve said this here at TotED before, but we’ll gladly say it again: For our money, there seemed to be no genre that Hawks couldn’t tackle with the greatest of ease, and there’s never been a more perfect romantic team than Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, the latter becoming Mrs. Bogart in 1945, and staying happy together until Bogart’s death in 1957.  (Damn cancer!)   Admittedly, the kind of perfection I’m talking about has nothing to do with such trifles as linear, crystal-clear plotting.  (Clarity? We don’t need no stinkin’ clarity!)  The elements that made Hawks’ best films so entertaining and unforgettable included charismatic actors in memorable roles, whether they were big stars or character actors; zesty direction; rapid-fire delivery, which inspired the late Robert Altman’s directorial style; and those sleek, smart, bewitching Hawks women, almost all of whom try to seduce the hero to one degree or another.  I know I’ve said this elsewhere, too, and I still mean it: I want to be a Howard Hawks kind of woman when I grow up!

Screenwriter Jules Furthman (from the 1935 version of Mutiny on the Bounty; Nightmare Alley; Rio Bravo) and novelist/screenwriter William Faulkner (The Big Sleep; The Long Hot Summer; Intruder in the Dust) were no slouches in the excitement department when it came to crafting entertaining movies!  Our story starts in: “Martinique in the summer of 1940, shortly after the fall of France.”  Meet Harry Morgan (not to be confused with the co-star of the TV version of M*A*S*H), a rugged fisherman for hire (the ever-awesome Humphrey Bogart of The Big Sleep; Across the Pacific; All Through the Night).  World War 2 is on, and Martinique is Vichy-controlled, so it’s not exactly the most carefree place in the world.  War is Hell indeed!  Harry and his first mate, Horatio (Sir Lancelot), charter fishing boats for tourists.  Harry’s current client, Mr. Johnson (Walter Sande of Don Winslow of the Navy; The Blue Dahlia; Detective Mathews in the Boston Blackie movies), is a handful. 

Johnson is an inept fisherman who blames others for his careless and expensive mistakes, as well as being a cheapskate and a whiner.  Right now, he’s complaining about Harry’s longtime friend Eddie (three-time Oscar-winner Walter Brennan from Come and Get It; Kentucky; The Westerner; and the hit 1957 TV series The Real McCoys).  Apparently Eddie’s cheerful blathering is getting on Johnson’s nerves—aw, poor baby, our hearts bleed for you!  Hey, if Harry and Horatio can shrug off Johnson’s whiny personality—not to mention losing the rod and reel due to his ineptitude—he should be able to put up with Eddie’s gabbiness and occasional mistakes (which our hero matter-of-factly sets right).  Eddie can’t help it, though, with his alcoholism:

Johnson:  “I don't see why you want that rummy around.”
Harry:  “Eddie was a good man on a boat before he got to be a rummy.”
Johnson:  “Well, he's no good now... What do you look after him for?"
Harry:  “He thinks he’s lookin’ after me.”

So since then, Harry has taken Eddie under his wing, looking after Eddie as if he was an addled but endearing old dad.  Harry’s kindness to Eddie endeared me to him right away.  Note that even with Eddie’s issues, he’s still more capable on the boat than bumbling "Blame Game" Johnson, who comes mighty close to getting tossed overboard when Johnson tries to get tough with Eddie (“Are you a good swimmer, Mr. Johnson?”)! TH&HN has terrific atmosphere, thanks to Charles Novi’s Art Direction, Casey Roberts’ Set Decoration, and Sid Hickcox’ cinematography.

I like the AMC Website’s response to Eddie's recurring Dada-esque question: 
“Was you ever bit by a dead bee...a honey bee?”  It’s a perfect Rorschach-style personality character test for every character that crosses Eddie’s path.  Harry, of course, understands Eddie, so they’ve long since passed the “Dead Bee” test with flying colors.  If Eddie’s question triggers confusion, impatience, and/or anger from others, we know these people are, if not full-tilt villains, then at the very least, they’re not Harry’s kind of people (or ours)! “Frenchy” Gerard (Marcel Dalio from Grand Illusion; Sabrina; Gentlemen Prefer Blondes), a member of the French Resistance, offers Harry big bucks to smuggle a good-guy member of the French Resistance out of the country.  Being no fool, Harry sticks his head out for no one.  But then along comes a woman who’s just checked in at Frenchy’s hotel:  the sulky and sultry Marie Browning, played by native New Yorker and model-turned-actress Lauren Bacall in a film debut that puts the “WOW!” in the “Wow Factor”! 

Although Marie seems cool, calm, and insolent, she’s actually living by her wits, starting with cozying up to the unsuspecting  Johnson in the café and picking the big boob’s pocket.  Granted, Johnson is getting a little too hands-on with Marie, but Harry isn’t letting her get away with it:  “You ought to pick on someone to steal from who doesn’t owe me money.”  Lucky for Harry, our gal Marie gains Harry’s trust when Johnson gets tripped up by his own lies about being penniless until the next day, when in fact Johnson was all set to hop a plane at dawn!   But no sooner does Johnson begin to sheepishly sign his Traveler's Cheques than gunfire rings out in the café, leaving the joint in a mess and Johnson dead in the crossfire.  As Harry says, “He couldn’t write any faster than he could duck.  Another minute and his cheques would have been good.”  Thanks to that vile Vichy gunfire, both Harry and Marie are in the soup, and we don’t just mean vichyssoise!   Now the slimy Vichy Captain Reynard (Dan Seymour from Key Largo; Johnny Belinda; The Way We Were) and Lt. Coyo (Sheldon Leonard, who went from supporting roles like Another Thin  Man in the movies to becoming a wildly successful TV producer) have Harry and Marie over a barrel. 

 

Actual dialogue from the film: 
“He couldn’t write any faster than he could duck. 
Another minute and his chequewould have been good.”

Harry can tell that Marie’s life hasn’t been a bed of roses, unless you count the thorns; during Reynard’s grilling, Marie takes a slap in the face without batting an eye.  She admits she’s trying to get home to the States: “I’d walk, if it wasn’t for all that water.”  In the great Hawks tradition, Harry and Marie get closer, including cool pet names: “Steve” for Harry, and “Slim” for Marie—which were actually Mrs. and  Mrs. Howard Hawks’ pet names for each other in real life!  The mating dance between “Steve” and “Slim” is tantalizing, yet still yields Harry’s better instincts as he agrees to help Marie get back home in exchange for smuggling Frenchy’s refugee friends. Well, they say that adversity brings people together in hard times, so our heroes have no choice but to help Frenchy and his Resistance allies, and help Marie in the bargain.

Cricket and Slim make beautiful music together at the café!

French Resistance Fighter Paul deBursac (Walter Szurovy, a.k.a. Walter Molnar) boards Harry’s boat, with a new last-minute passenger:  his wife, Hellene (Dolores Moran from The Ghost Breakers; Old Acquaintance; The Horn Blows at Midnight).  Staying calm and paying attention doesn’t seem to be the deBursacs’ strong suit:  despite Harry’s warnings to just get flat on the deck and stay there, that peacenik Paul shouts out, “Don’t shoot!”  All he gets for his trouble is a bullet in the shoulder, though Harry gets them to land and safety.  When they get back, Harry discovers our gal “Slim” has found a sweet gig as a chanteuse at the café, just goes to show you can’t keep a great gal down!  And not a moment too soon; turns out Frenchy snuck the injured Paul in the cellar so jack-of-all-trades Harry could operate on our little Freedom Fighter in peace—especially when well-meaning but overprotective Mme. deBursac accidentally knocks herself out with the chloroform she was supposed to use to operate on Paul.  Well, at least now we can get Paul healed in peace and quiet!  Boy, Harry can’t seem to get a moment to himself!  He’s tangling with bad guys, beautiful women, French resistance fighters, lovable (albeit needy) alcoholic sidekicks—sheesh, the man can’t seem to get a moment to himself!  He needs a “Do Not Disturb” sign!

Two’s company and a gaggle of Resistance Fighters
is a crowd when "Slim" and "Steve" are interrupted's
 by Frenchy and his Resistance pals!

It’s been said that Hawks got his nose out of joint for a time because Hawks wanted Bacall all to himself, to no avail.  *Tsk tsk!* No point being greedy, Hawks, especially since he already had a charming and lovely wife at home!  But beautiful Dolores Moran could surely have been a fine runner-up as Mme. deBursac, even if her character  was often more of a hindrance than a help in her well-meaning but overbearing way.  In real life, Dolores Moran had a reputation for going around with well-known married Hollywood heavyweights, as well as supporting parts in The Ghost Breakers; Old Acquaintance; and The Horn Blows at Midnight.

Will the lovely and well-meaning but maddeningly

overprotective Hellene deBursac turn out to be Hell on wheels? 

“Harry, you was ‘fraid I’d get hurt.  You was thinkin’ of me!” 

"That’s right, Eddie, this is all about you.  Now let me steer before we crash into a luxury liner or Nazis, will ya?!"

 

 Mme. de Bursac goofs and ends up knocking herself out with Harry’s chloroform. 
Thank goodness, we thought that dame would never shut up! 

Here’s the complimentary breakfast we give Freedom Fighters in our charming café. 
Now scram, toots, and let “Steve” and me catch up on our nookie! 

Bacall wasn’t the only one making a film debut in TH&HN; so was Oscar-winning singer/songwriter Hoagy Carmichael (for Here Comes the Groom; Starlight; Gentlemen Prefer Blondes),  playing piano man Cricket at the café.  In fact, the catchy background music at the café makes me wonder if anyone considered making this a Broadway musical.  I’d see it if I had the dough!

Whether Bogart and Bacall are being playful or serious onscreen (or offscreen, for that matter), the sparks between them are hotter than July 4th fireworks—and nobody even had to get naked, at least onscreen!

To Have and Have Not: When Bogie Met Baby

It’s funny to think the movie version of To Have and Have Not (TH&HN) came about as a wager between producer/director Howard Hawks and author Ernest Hemingway!   According to TCM’s John Miller, Hawks was trying to persuade his Nobel Prize-winning author pal Hemingway to try screenwriting.  Hemingway balked, saying most of his writing was unfilmable.  Hawks wouldn’t give up that easily, boasting that he could make a good film out of what he considered Hemingway’s worst novel: “That bunch of junk To Have and Have Not.”  From what I’ve heard about “Papa” Hemingway, I would’ve expected those fellas to duke it out at that point, but Hemingway was up to the challenge.  Jules Furthman banged out a screenplay, turning “that bunch of junk” into an exciting, sexy, totally irresistible adventure with what turned out to be one of the best romantic teams in movie history, onscreen and off-screen! 

Dangerously They Live - Garfield and Fiends

This post is part of the John Garfield Blogathon, hosted by Patti of They Don’t Make ’Em Like They Used To, running from March 1^st through March 4th, 2013. Enjoy!

In 1941, John Garfield’s often-turbulent life was in transition—and this was before World War 2 sent the whole world reeling!  Having achieved stage stardom in New York City’s Group Theatre with his performance in Awake and Sing, then moving on to bigger Broadway success as the title character in Clifford Odets’ Golden Boy, and then becoming a movie star with the Lane Sisters in Four Daughters in 1938, Garfield was on a roll—until William Holden got the the Golden Boy role in the 1939 movie version that our man Garfield had created on the Great White Way!  Warner Bros. stepped in with the sweet consolation prize of a long-term contract.  But according to Richard Harland Smith at TCM's Web site, Garfield wasn’t really feeling it with his next projects, such as The Sea Wolf, in which Garfield was billed below co-stars Edward G. Robinson and Ida Lupino.  So Garfield kicked his agents at Lyon & Lyon to the curb, joining forces with super-agent Lew Wassermann and business manager Bob Roberts to help Garfield set up his own production company.

Smiling Jane Graystone, visiting the U.S. for the first time, looks forward to a vacation chock full of baseball, hot dogs, apple pie, and Chevrolets….

…until Eddie Mars turns up! Didn’t that bounder
learn his lesson in The Big Sleep?!

Smith makes an excellent case that Garfield was eventually drawn to Dangerously They Live (DTL) (1941) because the script by writer/producer Marion Parsonnet (Gilda; My Forbidden Past; I’ll Be Seeing You) surely would have appealed to him because he was a member of the Hollywood Anti-Nazi League long before America entered World War 2 in December, 1941.  No doubt Garfield enthusiastically approved of the film’s uncompromising depiction of German agents wreaking havoc in the free world; I sure would!

Directed by Robert Florey (from Murders in the Rue Morgue; The Cocoanuts; Meet Boston Blackie; TV’s Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Dick Powell Theatre), we meet our heroine, Jane Graystone (Nancy Coleman in her film debut; she also co-starred in Kings Row; Mourning Becomes Electra; The Gay Sisters; and TV’s Ryan’s Hope), a lovely lass with a slight British lilt in her voice.  Jane seems to be checking out the sights and sounds of The Big Apple as she checks in with another British gent. What’s with all the U.K. visitors? Is there a Doctor Who Con in town?  But judging from the men giving Jane the hairy eyeball as she innocently grabs a cab, our heroine will be forced to confront the aforementioned Big Apple's worms lurking in our otherwise fair city!

Hmm, I’m kinda liking the way Dr. Mike Lewis
displays his bedside manner!

Before you can say, “Where’s Traveler’s Aid?,” a henchman identified as John (John Ridgely of The Big Sleep; The Man Who Came to Dinner; Air Force) hangs around the the British Export Bureau.  Somehow I don’t think John's there to buy Travelers Cheques. Sure enough, Jane’s cab driver deliberately smashes the car into a wall, with a little help from from the fiendish cabbie.  Pandemonium reigns, and Jane is brought to the hospital as evil John and his cabbie cohort beat a hasty retreat!

Enter chipper, cocky-yet-likable Dr. Michael “Mike” Lewis (Garfield), as he gives Jane a through examination:

Jane: “I’ve got all my arms and legs and everything?”
Mike: “Yes, and believe me, they’re worth keeping.”

Dr. Mike looks forward to treating temporary amnesia victim Jane
like other doctors look forward to Christmas!
Nice to know he’s serious about his work!

As Mike admits Jane to the hospital, our anxious damsel-in-distress can’t remember a thing about herself.  Mike’s examination of his pretty new patient indicates temporary amnesia all right, giving Mike a perfect opportunity to fully examine a temporary amnesia patient, something he’s apparently been wanting to do for ages. How’s that for on-the-job training?

Before long, Mike gets a visit from Jane’s dad, John Goodwin (Moroni Olsen of The Glass Key; Pride of the Marines, also starring Garfield; and Alfred Hitchcock’s Notorious) turns up to aid his darling daughter.  Looks like a real fatherly, pillar-of-the-community type…but Jane doesn’t recognize him, either, and she swears the photos he brought to help kick-start her memory aren’t doing the trick, either.  It’s gradually dawning on our stalwart sawbones that Jane’s scared, and not just because of this alleged amnesia!  She finally gets alone with Mike — no, not because of his bedside manner or his attractive tush:

Jane: “You’re a good doctor, but you weren’t there when I was born, and I was.  That’s not my father.”

Mike (humoring her): “Now take it easy.  Everything will be all right.”

Jane:  “Yes, if you’ll stop humoring me and listen!  I work for British Intelligence, and that man is not my father.  He and his gang are trying to find out what I know.  Would you do me a favor?  Keep your eyes and ears open, and please never be far away from me?”

Call me paranoid, but Jane’s Dad strikes me as creepy,
not fatherly. Maybe he needs cuddlier glasses!

Mike does so, and during Jane’s hospital stay, she and Mike get to know and become increasingly fond of each other during their otherwise increasingly sinister predicament. But now Jane must keep the amnesia gambit going, or it’ll be curtains for both of them—and we don’t mean the drapes in the Psychotic Game Room! In the meantime, at least Mike and Jane can enjoy the lovely melody “You’re Not So Easy to Forget” in the background.  If fans of MGM’s Thin Man movies listen carefully, they’ll hear that song in the final Thin Man movie, Song of the Thin Man (1947).  It’s a nice touch, considering the film’s amnesia motif!

Dr. Mike and Head Nurse Johnson (Lee Patrick from The Maltese Falcon; Auntie Mame; Vertigo) discuss who’s going to pay for Jane’s hospital tab:
Mike: “Don’t worry, I’ll pay for it.”
Head Nurse Johnson:   “With what?”
Mike:   “Don’t tell me you prefer blood.”
Head Nurse Johnson: “Not yours; I like it red.  Did you find out who she is yet?”
Mike: “No, she can’t remember a thing.”
Head Nurse Johnson: “I don’t know what a brilliant student of mental diseases would do to find out a girl’s name, but I’d check her laundry mark.”

Mike:  “Not bad, Sherlock—but they may be in Chinese.”
Hmm, could it be mere coincidence that Jane’s laundry mysteriously goes AWOL soon afterward?  Are Head Nurse Johnson and/or the other busy little elves at the hospital just being unwittingly overzealous about putting away patients’ clothes, or is there something more sinister afoot?  If this story wasn’t set in 1941, I bet there would be lawsuits galore!

When it comes time for Jane to leave the hospital, it seems she and Mike just might catch a break:  Mike’s older colleague, Dr. Ingersoll (Raymond Massey from Abe Lincoln in Illinois; The Woman in the Window; Arsenic and Old Lace) agrees to let Mike come home with Jane to help her emotional healing—where we find out for sure that Dr. Ingersoll is, to borrow a line from cartoonist Mark Martin of CBG’s 20 Nude Girls 20, a “bad mans!”  Mike and Jane’s lives get more fearful and paranoid every day.  Seems Jane’s faux dad Mr. Goodwin and Dr. Ingersoll are really Nazi scum, and they’re tormenting the poor groundskeeper,  Mr. Steiner (Christian Rub from You Can’t Take It With You; he’s also the voice of Geppetto in Walt Disney’s Pinocchio), who’s under these creeps’ collective thumb.  With the villains packing heat and doing a fine job of keeping our heroes under control and away from anyone who could help them  (their most potent weapon seems to be the aforementioned Hairy Eyeball), the war of nerves alone makes escape harder than getting Alicia Huberman out of Alex Sebastian’s house in Alfred Hitchcock’s Notorious!  Where are Humphrey Bogart and his tough yet lovable Runyunesque pals from All Through the Night when you need them?!

Jane and her protector Mike couldn't be safer in Dr. Raymond Massey’s care; after all, he’s Honest Abe Lincoln! Then again, he was also evil Jonathan Brewster in Arsenic and Old Lace! Yikes!

Aha! It’s the ol’ Halifax trick, like in Across the Pacific!

In today's news, minor accident on Fifth Avenue leads to romance!

Across the Pacific: Pan-ama-demonium!

This post is part of the CMBA’s Fabulous Films of the 1940s Blogathon, running from February 17th through February 22nd, 2013. Enjoy!

After The Maltese Falcon became a hit in 1941, Warner Bros. wasted no time in following up with Across the Pacific (AtP) in 1942, reuniting its powerhouse stars Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, Sydney Greenstreet, composer Adolph Deutsch,  and of course, director John Huston, this time working from a script by Richard Macaulay (They Drive By Night; The Roaring Twenties; Born to Kill), based on the serial Aloha Means Goodbye.  (Macauley was later known for testifying as a “friendly witness” before HUAC during the McCarthy era, but that’s a story for another time.)

AtP has plenty of suspense, romance, and flag-waving, what with the U.S. poised to enter World War 2 any minute.  The result was an entertaining adventure with that cheeky Huston feel, at once suspenseful and playful, while never forgetting that war is on the horizon and you can never be sure who to trust.  Only Peter Lorre was missing among the AtP cast—but he turned up just long enough to horse around, according to TCM’s Bret Wood: “Without informing his cast, Huston had Lorre enter the background as a waiter, clumsily disrupting the scene until announcing his presence with a wet kiss on the back of Astor’s neck.”  Oh, those impish Warner scamps!

Love, exciting and new! Come aboard, we're expecting you!

Would you believe I first saw AtP in colorized form?  Yes, that was back in the bad old days when Ted Turner thought people would turn up their pert little noses at black-and-white movies.  Instead, the colors looked muddy and just plain awful. Lovely Mary Astor’s lips looked gray—blecch!  Give me glorious black-and-white anytime!

Even Canada, our friendly neighbor to the North,
won't let Rick fight!

Our story is set in 1941, where our hero Rick Leland (Bogart) is in the very un-heroic position of being dishonorably discharged from the U.S. Army, with woman trouble indicated.  So our antihero Rick comes aboard the Genoa Maru, a ship heading toward Panama; after all, there’s always something a freelance adventurer can do to earn a few bucks!  Rick meets Dr. Lorenz (Greenstreet), an American who seems to be a lot more sympathetic to the Japanese than most of us Yanks would’ve been during that era, being on the brink of war and all.  Another passenger, Joe Totsuiko (Victor Sen Yung, a.k.a. Sen Yung of The Letter; Number Two Son Jimmy Chan in the Charlie Chan movies; and Hop Sing on TV’s Bonanza, among others), is a sharp young Japanese-American who grew up in the U.S., and has almost the same hepcat lingo as Kookie from TV’s 77 Sunset Strip (*snap snap*).  But don’t underestimate his boyish charm and thick glasses; Joe’s jujitsu moves will knock you on your butt!

Romance on the high seas for Rick and Alberta...

War or no war, there’s always time for romance, by George!  Rick romances passenger Alberta Marlow (Astor, for whom I’ve always had a soft spot, as she reminds me of my late Auntie Joy), who’s pretty gosh-darn glamorous for an unassuming little lady supposedly from a town called Medicine Hat.  (By the way, there really is a town called Medicine Hat in Alberta, Canada!)  But hey, aren’t cruises supposed to be exciting and romantic?  While I don’t always agree with venerable New York Times film reviewer Bosley Crowther, I do agree with his comment about our leading lady: “Miss Astor is so beautiful a creature that you naturally know you must reserve your trust.”

...til mal-de-mere strikes! Can Alberta get a refund?

TCM’s Bret Wood goes on to say: “Once war was declared, it was difficult for the crew to hold onto their Japanese-American actors, who were suddenly considered a threat to security.  According to Astor, ‘a little indignation and some wire-pulling held them at least until the picture was finished.’ The Japanese actors were forced to endure a fair amount of racial stereotyping in the wartime film. Most speak pidgin English, while Victor Sen Yung was required to wear grotesque magnifying spectacles. In spite of this thinly disguised racism, Across the Pacific is in many ways respectful of Asian culture and in several instances attempts a serious understanding of the Japanese character and the philosophy of Judo.”

A pleasure cruise on the fab Genoa Maru!
Hope they got entertainment & all-you-can-eat buffets!

Our travelers sure do get their share of adventure and intrigue, eventually foiling a dastardly Japanese plot against the Panama Canal (keep in mind this was wartime in the 1940s, well before WW2 ended and the U.S. and Japan became chummy so everyone could make money on electronics and such.)  Happily, we discover Rick really is on the side of the angels; he’s working for amiable spymaster A.V. Smith (Charles Halton of To Be or Not To Be; The Best Years of our Lives; Alfred Hitchcock’s Foreign Correspondent), who’s basically Rick’s spymaster for this mission. (He was gonna be reinstated once his mission was over, wasn’t he? I assume nothing!)  I enjoyed the swell repartee between Rick and Alberta. The dialogue is witty, fast, and peppery. For example:

Alberta: “I can do without money.”
Rick: “Stick with me and you’ll get plenty of practice.”

Rick notices Alberta’s comparatively skimpy cruise garb:
Rick: “I never saw anybody like you. You never have any clothes on.”
Alberta: “Well if anyone heard you complaining about it, they would put you in a psychopathic ward.”  (Note: Alberta’s so-called skimpy sea togs just looked like nice bathrobes and skirts to me, but this was 1942, so Astor’s fashions may well have seemed racy at the time!)

According to the TCM Web site, John Huston and many other Hollywood actors and filmmakers accepted commissions to become a lieutenant in the U.S. Army Signal Corps after the attack on Pearl Harbor.  Huston was called into service just before AtP wrapped.  Vincent Sherman (Mr. Skeffington; The Young Philadelphians; and one of my favorites, All Through the Night) took over.

Um, this guy is just here to put
a refreshing mint on Rick's pillow, right?

Huston and his cast work together as beautifully as they did in their previous hit. Astor has always been deft at drama (The Great Lie, for which she won her 1942 Best Supporting Actress Oscar), but she’s also always had a flair for comedy, too (The Palm Beach Story being a delightful example).  Astor and Bogart are an engaging onscreen couple, whether they’re playful or serious.  In one running gag (literally), Astor’s Alberta Marlow makes a prim, hilarious victim of seasickness: “Even if I live, I’ll never be the same again.”  And don’t get her started on the ship’s bread pudding!  The action goes from sea to land, from New York City (where Alberta insists on Rick buying a new suit. Guess she never heard that line from The Spanish Prisoner: “Beware of all enterprises which require new clothes.”), and finally, from Cristobal to Panama where the action gets red hot.  No wonder Crowther had more to say about AtP: “It’s like having a knife to your ribs for an hour and a half.”  That’s in a good way, I assure you!

Careful who you drink with, Rick! Remember when you drank with that Gutman character who slipped you a Mickey in San Francisco?

Don't mind me, Mr. Leland, I'm just looking for my cufflinks!

Anyone got a compact?  My lips are delightfully schmeared after all this gunplay!

"Mine's bigger than yours." Actual dialogue from the movie!

Alberta tells Rick that passenger T. Oki is not okey-dokey! So much for all Japanese looking alike!

Not a finger!

"Hey, hon, if we have a great time on this cruise, let's make a date at the Empire State Building a year from now!"

A great cast is worth repeating! Sydney Greenstreet, Humphrey Bogart, Victor Sen Yung, Mary Astor

ALL THROUGH THE NIGHT: The Continuing Adventures of Annabelle's Husband

Here’s a high concept for you: “Damon Runyon Kicks Nazi Heinie in NYC.” That’s the clever premise of first-time “A” picture director Vincent Sherman’s 1941 Warner Bros. wartime comedy-thriller All Through the Night (ATtN). Don’t you love it already? And what a cast — it’s Character Actor Central, and all in their prime! The good guys’ corner includes a dazzling array of funny, colorful sidekicks and associates in addition to Humphrey Bogart himself: William Demarest; Jackie Gleason (then billed as Jackie C. Gleason); Phil Silvers as a nearsighted but patriotic waiter; the lovely Kaaren Verne (Kings Row, The Seventh Cross); Barton MacLane (whose many films with Bogart included The Maltese Falcon and The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, though TV fans may remember him best as General Peterson on I Dream of Jeannie); Edward Brophy (who Team Bartilucci knows best as Joe Morelli in The Thin Man, and who the young Disney fans in our lives know best as the voice of Timothy Mouse in Dumbo); Wallace Ford (billed as “Wally” here) and Charles Cane from Dead Reckoning; Frank McHugh, in the role that endeared him to Team Bartilucci and earned him the affectionate nickname “Annabelle’s Husband” (more on that shortly); and of all people, The Grapes of Wrath Oscar-winner Jane Darwell as Bogart’s mom (doesn’t sound like it should work, but it does, trust me!). The bad guys they’re up against are no slouches, either: Conrad Veidt; Dame Judith Anderson, Martin Kosleck, and Peter Lorre (who ended up married to co-star Verne for several years, ironically enough). There’s gonna be a rumble in Manhattan tonight!

Sunshine explains how to catch
the Nazis with their Panzers down.

This fast, funny, suspenseful adventure gives Bogart one of his most entertaining roles as Alfred “Gloves” Donahue, a dapper New York City “sports promoter.” Translation: gambler and bookie. I should know; that was what my dear old dad did when he wasn’t managing his Italian restaurant in the Bronx when I was a little tyke. My favorite euphemism for Gloves’ line of work comes from a radio bulletin when he’s wrongly accused of murder, describing him as a “man about town and well-known figure in the sporting world.” But I’m getting ahead of myself! The film opens with Gloves’ “boys,” Sunshine (Demarest), Starchy (Gleason), and waiter Louie (Silvers) using toy soldiers and such to map out a campaign against the Nazis. Our guy Gloves joins Sunshine and their cohort Barney (McHugh) at the restaurant. Gloves is a rough-and-tumble but essentially decent guy who’s good to his lovable mother (Darwell). He’s more interested in the sports page than the war news on the front page, until Mom seeks out Gloves for help. Mr. Miller (Ludwig Stossel) is missing. This is a crisis, as Mrs. Miller (Irene Seidner) is Mom Donahue’s BFF, plus Mr. M. is Gloves’ favorite cheesecake maker! We viewers had just seen Pepi (Lorre), a pianist (no, not Adrien Brody) and generally slimy so-and-so, slinking around Miller’s store, eating candy he hasn’t paid for and making veiled threats — not a good sign! Well, Mom Donahue has even sharper “women’s intuition” than Grace Kelly did in Rear Window, and her never-wrong “funny feeling” is once again on the money, alas; Mr. Miller is found murdered in his basement.

Gloves picked a fine time to
accidentally leave his calling card!

Speaking of cheesecake, the lovely German-accented singer Leda Hamilton (Verne) drops by wearing a picture hat and a worried look. Turns out Pepi is Leda’s accompanist. Now Gloves is the one with the funny feeling, first with his attraction to the mysterious yet endearing Leda, then the growing realization that Pepi and Leda are involved with a bunch of mugs even tougher than Gloves and his cronies. When Mom tries to get info out of Leda at The Duchess Club, the nightspot run by Gloves’ rival Marty Callahan (MacLane), Gloves steps in, and before he knows it, shots are fired and he’s framed for the murder of the obnoxious Joe Denning (Brophy). Joe only gives Gloves one clue before dying: he lifts his hand. The chase is on, and soon Gloves and Company realize they’re dealing with “Fivers”— Fifth Columnists, headed by smooth antiques dealer Franz Ebbing (Veidt)! Leda seems to run hot and cold, first knocking Gloves out, then helping him and Sunshine escape. Turns out there’s a terrible hold over her: her father’s in the Dachau concentration camp, and Ebbing and company have been keeping Papa’s death from “natural causes” from her so she’d keep working with them. (I wonder what those Nazi creeps defined as “natural causes”?) Now that Gloves and Leda are joining forces, they’ve got to find out what those Nazi scum are up to over at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Will Gloves get himself and Leda out of this mess? Will Barney and his brand-new bride Annabelle (Jean Ames) get to enjoy any action on their wedding night that doesn’t involve chases and clobbering? You bet — with a little help from their cronies, of course! Native New Yorkers rule!

Congrats & good luck to Barney & Annabelle,
married to the mob!

George Raft, notorious for turning down roles that wound up turning his replacements into stars, was offered the role of Gloves Donahue first. Thank goodness Humphrey Bogart landed the role instead, because Bogie was a tough guy with a knack for comedy! As wonderful as the whole cast is, McHugh is our favorite among the supporting cast. Indeed, we affectionately call him “Annabelle’s Husband.” He gets lots of the best lines, too, like these:

Drake on the move! Perry Mason’s
William Hopper in his first film role.

Barney: “Annabelle’s waiting for me…after all, I’m a married man. I got obligations.”

Gloves: “All right, send her flowers.”

Barney: “Well…that wasn’t my idea.”

Talking to Madame (Anderson) at the auction house after Gloves and Sunshine are knocked out and tied up:

Barney: “Lookit, lady, when we started out tonight, there were three of us. Twenty minutes later, there was only two. Now there’s only one. One of us isn’t enough to leave here alone!”

A portrait's worth 1000 words: fiendish Fivers afoot!

The screenplay by Leonard Spigelgass and Edwin Gilbert (story by Spigelgass), and Leo Rosten writing as Leonard Q. Ross is fast and funny, blending comedy, action, and suspense effortlessly. I especially got a kick out of the breezy, sometimes punny dialogue (like Gleason’s “The first one of those (Nazi) guys I tag, I’m gonna kick him right in the swastika!” and Bogart’s “Hey, there’s more here than meets the FBI!”). I was also tickled when I spotted Hedda Hopper’s son DeWolfe Hopper in an uncredited role as a reporter in the background of the film’s last scene; of course, we Perry Mason fans know him better as William Hopper, who played Perry’s private investigator Paul Drake, as well as starring in the films 20 Million Miles to Earth, The Deadly Mantis, and The Bad Seed, among others!

Considering ATtN ends with Gloves’ Mom rushing to him in the middle of a press conference to tell him that now the milkman is MIA, it would have been so cool if Warners had made a sequel, and/or maybe even a new movie series! But alas, at that time, the attack on Pearl Harbor was still too fresh in 1941 audiences’ minds for them to embrace a quasi-realistic World War 2 spy thriller with broadly humorous overtones. Happily, ATtN is available on DVD and TCM (as it was during Conrad Veidt Day recently on TCM’s Summer Under the Stars) so we modern movie lovers can enjoy this entertaining genre blend guilt-free!

Hmm, wonder which cheesecake Peter Lorre liked best? Miller's cheesecake?

Or then-wife Kaaren Verne? ;-)

It’s double jeopardy for Gloves and Leda as
they unravel the evil Fifth Columnists' plot.

 Poor little pooch! It’s not the dog’s fault his owner is Nazi scum!