'Unleashed'
A place to talk about movies--old and new, good and bad, high art and high cheese. It's the place to place your kittens on the award winners, gossip about upcoming fims and discuss DVD releases and extras. Spoiler policy: White font all plot-related discussion until a movie's been in wide release two weeks, and keep the major HSQ in white font until two weeks after the video/DVD release.
I lied. I voted for "I like most/all of these films," cuz YEAH.
Maltese Falcon, African Queen, Key Largo, Treasure of the Sierra Madre...
I think what surprised me was that there was more than one that I hadn't seen: Across the Pacific, In This Our Life, and Beat the Devil.
Time to see if I can find those movies, and watch them.
I almost voted for Sierra Madre but at the last moment I admitted to myslef that I like The Maltese Falcon best.
Beat the Devil is CRAY-ZEE.
CRAY-ZEE good or CRAY-ZEE bad, Frank?
Humphrey Bogart was involved in a serious automobile accident during production of this film, which knocked out several of his teeth and hindered his ability to speak. John Huston hired a young British actor noted for his mimicry skills to rerecord some of Bogart's spoken lines during post-production looping. Although it is undetectable when viewing the film today, it is Peter Sellers who provides Bogart's voice during some of the scenes in this movie.
CRAY-ZEE good or CRAY-ZEE bad, Frank?
Yes. Seriously, Huston and Capote were totally taking the piss out of the adventure movie genre. Unfortunately, they didn't tell Bogie for some reason, and it shows. The rest of the cast is having a riot, though. It's been forever since I've seen it, but my big reaction was "WTF?".
Although it is undetectable when viewing the film today, it is Peter Sellers who provides Bogart's voice during some of the scenes in this movie.
OK, that I didn't know.
more fun with Bogey trivia
There is an inordinate amount of smoking done by the main actors in this film. That was deliberate. Studio head Jack L. Warner had decreed that smoking should be kept to a minimum in all films, so pranksters Humphrey Bogart and Peter Lorre thought it would be fun to annoy Warner by smoking as often as possible, and they got their fellow actors to go along with it. According to then-studio employee Jerome Stuart, John Huston ran interference for his cast by convincing the studio that the smoking added the right amount of atmospheric tension to the story.
Although it is undetectable when viewing the film today, it is Peter Sellers who provides Bogart's voice during some of the scenes in this movie.
Wow. That's cool.
Yes. Seriously, Huston and Capote were totally taking the piss out of the adventure movie genre. Unfortunately, they didn't tell Bogie for some reason, and it shows. The rest of the cast is having a riot, though. It's been forever since I've seen it, but my big reaction was "WTF?".
Huh. Didn't know Capote was involved. Still, sounds intriguing. I'll have to check it out.
Treasure of the Sierra Madre has long been a favorite of mine. My dad showed it to me when I was maybe pre-teen. Somewhere in there. Anyway, it was definitely at an age where I was not terribly inclined to be interested in black and white movies.
I *loved* it. Gold prospecting! Dangerous banditos (We don't need no stinking badges!)! An American down on his luck (I finally get the Bugs Bunny joke!)!
As S pointed out when we were discussing this just now, it is a very "boy" movie
I remember a story from Kate Hepburn's biography, I think, about how Bogey and Kate used to tease Huston about never washing/changing his clothes, even though he insisted that he did daily, he just had several of the same shirt.
At the beginning of the shoot in Africa for African Queen, Kate marked Huston's safari shirt with a pencil. At the end of the shoot in Africa months later - she showed him the mark still on the shirt. They checked for it everyday and everyday - SAME SHIRT.