Bacall with a few mugs, Humphrey Bogart among them, in the exemplary anti-fascist film To Have And Have Not, Howard Hawks, 1944.
Here’s the thing with Lauren Bacall: she turned up on screen and there she was. Like Venus on that half-shell, she was fully formed and all that from frame one. It didn’t matter if she could act or not. There she was. I mean, look at her. In her very first movie. There’s a Warner Bros. cartoon from a couple years after this, Bacall To Arms, that depicts a big goofy zoot-suited wolf reacting to Lauren on screen; my favorite part is when he silently flops over a seat in the row on front of him, emitting a soft, hapless “woof.”
And of course she could act. Though plucked from modeldom, she took it seriously and did it well, and seemingly effortlessly.
Great movies in which she is great include the above, and The Big Sleep, Dark Passage, Key Largo, The Cobweb (THE COBWEB!), Written on the Wind, The Shootist, Birth. She wasn’t actually IN Howl’s Moving Castle, but hell, why not, that counts. Good movies in which she is great include Young Man With A Horn, How To Marry A Millionaire (c’mon, it isn’t that bad), Blood Alley, Designing Woman, Sex and the Single Girl, Harper, Murder on the Orient Express, Health, Misery, The Walker. It’s your call on Manderlay, Dogville, Pret a Porter, The Fan, and sundry. What can one say about her? She had a life full of rough patches that she bore with grace, and in her later years she impressed and sometimes terrified as an interview subject who brooked no bullshit and told it like she saw it, even to the extent of tattling a bit on her discoverer Mr. Hawks. And she was also Lauren Bacall, for heaven’s sake. She made being Lauren Bacall look pretty…heavy, actually. But also fun. How could it not have been, even if only a little bit?
Yes, yes, yes – THE COBWEB! I really like her with Widmark in that picture.
“Like Venus on that half-shell, she was fully formed and all that from frame one. ” And how. Damn.
Excellent stuff, Glenn.
Rachel Ward to Steve Martin in ‘Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid” –
“You know how to dial the telephone don’t you? You just put your finger in the hole and make tiny, little circles.”
Farewell to Lauren Bacall
I’d switch MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS and THE SHOOTIST, but yes fare well indeed.
Watched “The Big Sleep” again last night. Everything that happens after she places the call to the cops while in Bogart’s office is a delight, playful and loose and organic. That’s not to demean anything else she did in the film, but it stood out to me in comparison to other scenes. You see an ease and enjoyment there that you don’t see otherwise.
Though Hawks may have discovered her and molded her, Minnelli managed to draw her best performances from her (just as he drew career best performances from her old boyfriend, Kirk Douglas) and gave her, her favorite role, Marilla, the Designing Woman of the film’s title. The film itself isn’t perfect (there’s real callousness in the treatment of the brain damaged boxer as an object of humor,) but the film is clearly the work of a master director, and is perfectly cast, especially with Gregory Peck every bit as beautiful and sexy as Bacall. It’s remarkable that she was able to make this light hearted film about marital adjustment while her real husband was at home dying of cancer. It certainly doesn’t show in the film; but work can be a respite from suffering, and she was never far from him when filming (and it’s just possible that it took her back to the beginnings of her own marriage.) James Naremore said that he had considered dealing with this movie in his excellent book on Minnelli, but it just missed the cut. I’d be very interested to read what he had to say about it. It definitely shows Bacall off at her best. It’s pretty shameful that she had so few starring roles after it.
What became of the Self-Styled Siren? She’s posted nothing on her site since the Ruby Dee appreciation on June 12. I thought Bacall’s death would prompt a tribute, but … nothing.
George – Here Twitter feed is still active.
She’s TIRED … tired of being admired … can’t you see the lady is pooped?!
(She’s got a novel coming out this fall!)
She needs a WEEEEEEEEST …
The thing that always struck me about her early roles is how off-the-bat fantastic she is in TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT (her debut), how dreadful she is in CONFIDENTIAL AGENT (her 2nd), and then how great she is again in THE BIG SLEEP (her 3rd) and beyond. Thank God she was able to continue on with Hawks (and of course Bogie) after the Clurmann detour.
I wouldn’t necessarily say that Negulesco’s WOMAN’S WORLD is a good movie, but it’s of interest, and Bacall is the best thing in it (and looks fantastic, of course).