1. Avatar (2009) $2,728,713,460
2. Titanic (1997) $1,848,201,268
3. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) $1,119,110,941
4. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest (2006) $1,066,179,725
5. Alice in Wonderland (2010) $1,014,078,021
6. The Dark Knight (2008) $1,001,921,825
7. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (2001) $974,733,550
8. Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End (2007) $960,996,492
9. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007) $938,212,738
10. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009) $933,959,197
11. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002) $925,282,504
12. Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace (1999) $924,317,558
13. Shrek 2 (2004) $919,838,758
14. Jurassic Park (1993) $914,691,118
15. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005) $895,921,036
16. Spider-Man 3 (2007) $890,871,626
17. Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs (2009) $884,784,626
18. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002) $878,643,482
19. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) $870,761,744
20. Finding Nemo (2003) $867,893,978
Not one of these features can be considered a purely “adult” film. They have been enjoyed by grown-ups, of course, but the target audience was a young one. With good reason. A recent survey by the Morgan Cinema Network measured moviegoing by age. Of those in the 14–17 category, 54 percent had been to the cinema during the previous month. During the same time period, the percentages declined by age cohort. Of those 18–24, 48 percent saw a movie during the previous month, those 25–34, 31 percent, 35–49, 29 percent. Of the filmgoers 50 and over, only 24 percent had seen a film during the previous four weeks.
Small wonder, then, that producers keep coming up with products that border on the puerile—and with boy-men to star in them.
Truth be told, though, in their rush to please the crowds, they have overlooked the obvious. Enormous political, ethnic, and psychological shifts in the U.S. population have occurred since Humphrey Bogart’s final performance, but his unique amalgam of integrity and rue has not gone out of style. It has just gone out of American cinema. This disconnect is one of the main reasons why adults go elsewhere for emotional and aesthetic satisfaction.
The current vulgarity of American dialogue and conduct has become a favorite subject of sociologists and historians. On occasion, they cite Humphrey’s rough-hewn persona and barroom misbehavior as early signs of the disintegration to follow. Actually, everything we know about him indicates that he would be dismayed by the present-day Hollywood products, by the headline-grabbing stars who trash hotel rooms, and by the starlets who manage to make scurrilous headlines just before the opening of their newest films. The big gap between the professional and the bum was very clear to him, and he wanted above all to be considered a pro. Unlike too many A-list celebrities, he aimed his barbs at the prominent; his kindnesses went to the powerless. He helped Fatty Arbuckle and Peter Lorre when they were in extreme need, defiantly hired people on the studio blacklist, aided Joan Bennett and Gene Tierney when they were in distress, and quietly donated to a long list of charities. He was courteous to women and straightforward to men, and when he made a promise he kept it. The latter was a rare thing in Hollywood; no wonder that a sense of disappointment registered so strongly in his performances and in his life.
Those in search of the Bogart style will have a hard time finding it in movie theaters. Today it flourishes elsewhere: in the principled action of individuals uncomfortable with compromise and conformity, in classic fiction, in the theater. And, of course, in old films—the kind that are still being bought and rented, or shown on channels like Turner Classic Movies, where Humphrey Bogart festivals attract millions of viewers every year.
From time to time columnists dub some young actor the new Clark Gable, the new Jimmy Stewart, the new Marlon Brando. No one claims to have discovered the new Humphrey Bogart. With good reason. There was nothing like him before his entrance; there has been nothing like him since his exit. In one of the great show business paradoxes, Humphrey vanished more than five decades ago, and yet audiences have never allowed him to fade away. Even now—perhaps especially now—we need the genuine article too much to let him out of our sight.
THE CREDITS
During the 1920s and ’30s, most leading actors got their starts in the theater. But few could approach Humphrey Bogart’s long apprenticeship. As we have seen, he began working on Broadway in 1922, broke away for an unsatisfactory try at a film career in 1930, resumed stage work in 1931, and continued until 1936, when his cinematic career finally gained traction.
BROADWAY PLAYS
1922
Drifting. Playhouse Theater; limited engagement.
Up the Ladder. Playhouse Theater; limited engagement.
Swifty. Playhouse Theater; limited engagement.
1923
Meet the Wife. Klaw Theater; 232 performances.
1924
Nerves. Comedy Theater; 16 performances.
1925
Hell’s Bells. Wallack’s Theater; 120 performances.
Candle Searchers. Music Box; 332 performances.
1927
Saturday’s Children. Booth Theater; 310 performances.
Baby Mine. Chanin’s 46th Street Theater; 12 performances.
1928
A Most Immoral Lady. Cort Theater; 106 performances.
1929
The Skyrocket. Lyceum Theater; 11 performances.
It’s a Wise Child. Belasco Theater; 378 performances.
1931
After All. Booth Theater; 20 performances.
1932
I Loved You Wednesday. Sam H. Harris Theater; 63 performances.
Chrysalis. Martin Beck Theater; 23 performances.
1933
Our Wife. Booth Theater; 20 performances.
The Mask and the Face. Guild Theater; 40 performances.
1934
Invitation to a Murder. Masque Theater; 37 performances.
The Petrified Forest. Broadhurst Theater; 181 performances.
HOLLYWOOD FEATURES
1930
A Devil with Women. Fox.
Up the River. Fox.
1931
Body and Soul. Fox.
Bad Sister. Universal.
Women of All Nations. Fox.
A Holy Terror. Fox.
1932
Love Affair. Columbia.
Big City Blues. Warner Bros.
Three on a Match. Warner Bros.
1934
Midnight. All-Star Productions.
1936
The Petrified Forest. Warner Bros.
Bullets or Ballots. Warner Bros.
Two Against the World. Warner Bros.
China Clipper. Warner Bros.
Isle of Fury. Warner Bros.
1937
Black Legion. Warner Bros.
The Great O’Malley. Warner Bros.
Marked Woman. Warner Bros.
Kid Galahad. Warner Bros.
San Quentin. Warner Bros.
Stand-In. Walter Wanger Productions.
1938
Swing Your Lady. Warner Bros.
Crime School. Warner Bros.
Men Are Such Fools. Warner Bros.
The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse. Warner Bros.
Racket Busters. Warner Bros.
Angels with Dirty Faces. Warner Bros.
1939
King of the Underworld. Warner Bros.
The Oklahoma Kid. Warner Bros.
Dark Victory. Warner Bros.
You Can’t Get Away with Murder. Warner Bros.
The Roaring Twenties. Warner Bros.
The Return of Dr. X. Warner Bros.
Invisible Stripes. Warner Bros.
1940
Virginia City. Warner
Bros.
It All Came True. Warner Bros.
Brother Orchid. Warner Bros.
They Drive by Night. Warner Bros.
1941
High Sierra. Warner Bros.
The Wagons Roll at Night. Warner Bros.
The Maltese Falcon. Warner Bros.
1942
All Through the Night. Warner Bros.
The Big Shot. Warner Bros.
Across the Pacific. Warner Bros.
Casablanca. Warner Bros.
1943
Action in the North Atlantic. Warner Bros.
Thank Your Lucky Stars. Warner Bros.
Sahara. Columbia.
1944
Passage to Marseille. Warner Bros.
To Have and Have Not. Warner Bros.
1945
Conflict. Warner Bros.
1946
Two Guys from Milwaukee. Warner Bros.
The Big Sleep. Warner Bros.
1947
Dead Reckoning. Columbia.
The Two Mrs. Carrolls. Warner Bros.
Dark Passage. Warner Bros.
1948
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. Warner Bros.
Key Largo. Warner Bros.
1949
Knock on Any Door. Columbia.
Tokyo Joe. Santana; released by Columbia.
1950
Chain Lightning. Warner Bros.
In a Lonely Place. Santana; released by Columbia.
1951
The Enforcer. Warner Bros.
Sirocco. Santana; released by Columbia.
The African Queen. United Artists.
Deadline—U.S.A. Twentieth Century Fox.
1953
Battle Circus. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
1954
Beat the Devil. Santana-Romulus; released by United Artists.
The Caine Mutiny. Columbia.
Sabrina. Paramount.
The Barefoot Contessa. United Artists.
1955
We’re No Angels. Paramount.
The Left Hand of God. Twentieth Century Fox.
The Desperate Hours. Paramount.
1956
The Harder They Fall. Columbia.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Humphrey Bogart has been gone for more than fifty years. Today the job of measuring his influence falls more to the social historian than to the interviewer. For most of his contemporaries are no longer with us, and those who remain are likely to have clouded or guarded memories. So for the most part I relied on the guidance of librarians at the Sterling Library at Yale; the 42nd Street Library, the Lincoln Center Library, and the Century Association Library in New York City; and on the collections in private libraries in Los Angeles and San Francisco.
Still, there were a few people on both coasts kind enough to answer questions about show business past. The late Daniel Melnick recollected the personalities, places, and events of old Hollywood. The late Chuck Jones, responsible for some of the greatest Warner Bros. cartoons in the heyday of the studio, recalled Jack Warner “in all his two dimensions.” During the years when I was Time’s cinema reviewer, I was able to glean information from John Huston, Bob Evans, and Bette Davis, who had much to say about moviemaking in the golden era of American film. In more recent times I was aided by Warren Adler, Dick Cavett, Christina Davidson, Josh Greenfeld, Miles Kreuger, Diane Ladd, Paul Maslansky, Jeff Melvoin, Will Shortz, Harry Stein, Elaine Stritch, Priscilla Turner, and Michael York, as well as the late Henry A. Grunwald, Ike Pappas, David Scherman, Alan Schneider, and Frank Scioscia. Jess Korman, a friend since our undergraduate days at NYU, has been extraordinarily knowledgeable and heartening. Elie Wiesel has always taken time from his crowded schedule to advise and encourage, as has my wise adviser and copain Myron Magnet. My colleagues at Time and afterward, Gerald Clarke, Paul Gray, John Leo, Lance Morrow, Roger Rosenblatt, Christopher Porterfield, and R. Z. Sheppard, provided unfailing wit and counsel, as well as lunch.
The sharp-minded editors of publications to which I contribute—notably Brian Anderson and his colleagues Paul Beston and Benjamin Plotinsky of City Journal, Myron Kolatch of the New Leader, and Erich Eichmann of the Wall Street Journal—aided me on more occasions than I can count.
Again, as in so much of my previous work, Christopher Stephens, proprietor of the Riverrun bookstore in Hastings-on-Hudson, was able to furnish all sorts of obscure magazines, rare volumes, and printed ephemera.
Invaluable research for Tough Without a Gun was done by John Bennett of the Sterling Library and Villette Harris, both of whom have been with me on prior books, and Karen Marston, a new and gifted colleague.
None of this would have been possible without the persons who are also tough without a gun, among them Peter Gethers and Claudia Herr, my alert and demanding editors at Knopf, and Kathy Robbins, a most percipient adviser and representative.
As always, my immediate family—May, Lili, and Ethan, Andy and Daniela, Lea and Aly—have been models of forbearance and support. Added to their contributions is the encouragement given by a very special person, Lynn Henson, who has paid her dues in overplus. Limitless gratitude and love to all.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
PRIMARY SOURCES
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Barbour, Alan G. Humphrey Bogart. Pyramid Publications, 1973.
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Brooks, Louise. Lulu in Hollywood. Alfred A. Knopf, 1982.
Cahill, Marie. Humphrey Bogart: A Hollywood Portrait. Smithmark, 1992.
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Cooke, Alistair. Six Men. Arcade, 1995.
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Hyams, Joe. Bogart & Bacall: A Love Story. Warner Books, 1975.
———. Bogie: The Biography of Humphrey Bogart. New American Library, 1966.
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Thompson, Verita, and Donald Shepherd. Bogie and Me: A Love Story. St. Martin’s, 1982.
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———. Agee on Film: Five Film Scripts. Beacon, 1964.
Astor, Mary. A Life on Film. Delacorte, 1977.
Basinger, Jeanine. The Star Machine. Knopf, 2007.
Baxter, John. Hollywood in the Thirties. Paperback Library, 1970.
Behlmer, Rudy. Inside Warner Bros. (1935–1951). Simon & Schuster, 1985.
Berryman, John. The Dream Songs. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1969.
Bishop, Jim. The Mark Hellinger Story: A Biography of Broadway and Hollywood. Appleton, 1952.
Bogdanovich, Peter. Who the Hell’s in It?: Conversation with Hollywood’s Legendary Actors. Ballantine, 2004.
Christopher, Nicholas. Somewhere in the Night: Film Noir and the American City. Free Press, 2007.
Clarke, Gerald. Capote: A Biography. Simon & Schuster, 1988.
Comery, Douglas. The Hollywood Studio System. St. Martin’s, 1986.
Deutsch, Armand. Bogie & Me: And Other Friends & Acquaintances from a Life in Hollywood & Beyond. Putnam, 1991.
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Eco, Umberto. Travels in Hyperreality. Trans. William Weaver. Harcourt, 1986.
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Friedrich, Otto. City of Nets: A Portrait of Hollywood in the 1940’s. Norton, 1997.
Goldman, William. Which Lie Did I Tell?: More Adventures in the Screen Trade. Vintage, 2000.
Goodman, Ezra. The Fifty-Year Decline and Fall of Hollywood. Simon & Schuster, 1961.
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