THE BULLETIN • MARCH 4 - 10, 2021
TV • PAGE 27
BY JAY BOBBIN
Play them again: TCM pairs two
Humphrey Bogart greats
It is, indeed, “the stuff that dreams are made of ” ... especially of you’re a Humphrey Bogart fan.
The screen icon made lots of enduring films, but two that top the list for many devotees will be paired
Friday, March 12, on Turner Classic Movies. Up first is “The Maltese Falcon” – the 1941 detective thriller
widely credited with cementing Bogart’s stardom – followed by the 1942 Oscar winner “Casablanca,” surely
one of the most popular movies made to date.
John Huston was a novice director and also relatively new to screenwriting when he tackled “The Maltese
Falcon,” Dashiell Hammett’s twisty-turny mystery that puts cynical private eye Sam Spade (Bogart) on the trail
of his partner’s killer. They weren’t particularly friends, but as Spade explains, his ethics dictate that when your
partner is murdered, “You’re supposed to do something about it.”
The trail leads him to colorful characters encompassing outright villains (Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre,
Elisha Cook Jr.) and a femme fatale (Mary Astor), plus an item that everyone seems to want to get their hands
on: a jewel-encrusted statue of a bird, hence the story’s title. Huston’s style is invaluable here, with his great use
of light and shadows giving the picture its noirish feel that still keeps the result distinctive some 80 years later.
The miracle of “Casablanca” is that it was completed at all, given its famously torturous production history
that has made for fascinating articles and books. The final product doesn’t betray those troubles, looking like a
well-planned work, rather than something that literally was made up as they went along at many points.
That likely doesn’t even matter to a good percentage of those
who are swept up in the dangerously renewed romance of nightclub
Humphrey Bogart in
owner Rick (Bogart) and his ex-love Ilsa (Ingrid Bergman), who
“The Maltese Falcon”
wants to secure passage out of wartime Casablanca for herself and her
resistance-leader husband Victor (Paul Henreid).
Rick would prefer not to involve himself in anyone else’s problems,
but that becomes impossible in the case of Ilsa ... whose entrance is
announced by the song he told singer-pianist Sam (Dooley Wilson)
never to play again, “As Time Goes By.” It takes plenty of double-
crossing and a famously unholy alliance with police captain Louis
(Claude Rains) to make things come out reasonably right, but
director Michael Curtiz, a tireless team of screenwriters and one of
the best ensemble casts ever ultimately get them there.
Humphrey Bogart admirers have a lot to look forward to, then,
as TCM puts two of his best on a relatively rare TV double bill.
However, for the true Bogart faithful, these are sure to be just the
latest of many viewings.