Director: Kathryn Ferguson
Writers: Eleanor Emptage, Kathryn Ferguson
Stars: Lauren Bacall, Ingrid Bergman, Humphrey Bogart
Synopsis: Explores the iconic actor’s journey to stardom through his relationships with his mother and four wives, including Lauren Bacall, using rare footage and his own narration to offer an intimate portrait of a deserving star.
“Funny, I considered myself never particularly well-liked. I really never knew before how many friends I did have.” For the first time, a full-length feature documentary about legendary actor Humphrey Bogart was made with the support of his estate, led by his surviving son, Stephen Bogart. Being protective of his parents – including his mother Lauren Bacall – Stephen most likely had full control of how director Kathryn Ferguson put together this montage of Hollywood history. However, being a sucker for something of Hollywood’s Golden Age made it easy for me to give it a fair shot.
The documentary follows Bogart’s life, starting from when he was born to wealthy parents in New York City. His father was a doctor with a very successful practice, while his mother, Maud Humphrey, was a famous illustrator. Maud used baby Humphrey for her illustrations in ads in newspapers and magazines all over the country. However, the lack of affection for him plays a role in his social development and he rebels against his parent’s expectations in school, so Humphrey joins the Navy. By the time he gets out of there, Bogart takes an interest in being an actor and starts to work on Broadway, first as a stagehand, then gets his shot at acting. He would marry his first wife, Helen Menken, a successful actress on stage, but it didn’t last because her career came first. It’s a theme that would affect Bogart in the next two marriages he would go through. “If you’re not married or in love,” Bogart says, “then you’re on the loose. And that’s not comfortable.”
Due to the Depression, Bogart went westward to Hollywood like other stage actors and got his first studio contract with Fox Studios. Some of those first films tell how young Bogart was at the time being in his early ‘30s. Warner Brothers then signed him and Bogart’s standout performance in The Petrified Forest opposite Leslie Howard confirms his stay in California. His third wife, Mayo Methot, was an established actress whose career began to decline when the Hays Code began, but still helped Bogart’s career. It was a fiery marriage, called “the Battling Bogarts,” by the press, with pervasive arguments, a shooting, and Bogart being stabbed. All of this before he met Lauren Bacall on the set of To Have and Have Not. Bogart’s stardom only came to fruition with John Huston directing The Maltese Falcon, the start of film noir. Soon afterward, Casablanca.
The entire film is a mix of archive footage, home movies from the Bogart estate, and clips of movies he was in. Voiceover of his words is being read out by a soundalike (Kerry Shade) and accompanied by audio interviews with those who knew Bogart, including Huston, Bacall, Bogart biographer Eric Lax, and Howard Hawks, among others. Bogart’s love for smoking and drinking is highlighted; he died of esophageal cancer in 1957 with footage of his funeral played at both the start and the end of the documentary. In between, Bogart’s words reveal his opposition to censorship and resented the intrusion of one’s personal views, as well as his dislike for the new method of acting of actors like Marlon Brando. “These actor studio types, they mumble their lines…This scratch-your-ass mumble school of acting doesn’t please me.”
Bogart: Life Comes In Flashes doesn’t give enough to go deep into the rest of his career, but gives enough to satisfy the casual Hollywood fan. Bogart is part of the high standard of stardom and hearing his thoughts being said, even from a voice actor, is different. It would have been better to go into depth with his major films. This isn’t a docuseries, but a 1-hour-and-38-minute movie that brisks through each moment key to his life like flashes, as the title says.
Follow me on BluSky: @briansusbielles.bsky.social
