Radio Recap: Bold Venture

"Adventure, intrigue, mystery, romance, starring: Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall together in the sultry setting of tropical Havana and the mysterious islands of the Caribbean! Bold Venture!"

Bold Venture was a syndicated radio adventure series produced by Ziv that appeared from 1951-1952. The series starred the Hollywood couple Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, which was a pretty big deal. Bogart had tried to create his own radio series in 1949, resulting in an audition recording of him in "Dead Man" but it didn't result in a series. I blogged about "Dead Man" last Halloween.

The successful launch of Bold Venture with Bogart and Bacall demonstrated how syndicated radio was reliable enough that two major Hollywood stars could record more than a year's worth of programs while continuing their film careers. It used to be that Hollywood stars had to scramble to fit in live radio appearances and struggle to show up for the rehearsals.

In the series, Bold Venture was the name of the boat owned by Bogart's character, Slate Shannon. Shannon also ran the hotel Shannon's Place and was aided by Sailor Duval (Bacall), a young woman who was the daughter of an old friend. Slate was supposed to be looking out for her even though, as the series would demonstrate time and again, Duval was perfectly capable of taking care of herself (even when Duval would occasionally be held at gunpoint her voice never changed register; she and Shannon were perpetually sober and sardonic regardless of circumstances).

The series was definitely drawing from Bogart and Bacall's first film together - Howard Hawks' To Have and Have Not (1944), which was also set in the Caribbean and in which Bogart was also a chartered boat owner who engaged in romantic banter with Bacall. To Have and Have Not was not really a very good movie but Bogart and Bacall's chemistry in the film is so good that I've watched it many, many times. Similarly, Bold Venture is a pretty average adventure series but the banter Bogart and Bacall indulged in keeps renders it very pleasant to listen to.

I recall when I worked for my hometown newspaper (the Mountaineer) and accompanied another (much older) employee in delivering the paper to all the local shops and post office, that one day the two of were discussing old movies because I'd mentioned to him that I was becoming a classic film buff. For some reason he took a moment to complain about "all those movies" Bogart and Bacall made together. It was only later that I looked it up and saw they only really made four films together: To Have and Have Not may not have been that great, but two of the others - the Big Sleep (1946) and Key Largo (1948) are still considered all-time great films. I'm very fond of Dark Passage (1947) too (it's the one where the opening scenes are shot from Bogart's POV). But consider this: Bogart and Bacall's 26+ hours worth of Bold Venture episodes is considerably greater than the runtime of those four films!

The duo of Slate and Sailor were joined by King Moses, portrayed by Jester Hairston. King Moses would engage in calypso music on the guitar, sometimes to open an episode but frequently he would drop in on the middle of the episode, recapping the plot of the first half of the story through song - he seldom had much to do with the actual plots on Bold Venture other than comment on what Slate and Sailor were doing.

The series was written by Morton Fine and David Friedkin. Fine and Friedkin had a long association together as writers, including scripts for the Philip Morris Playhouse, Gunsmoke, the Line-Up, Suspense, Crime Classics and Escape. Aside from Bold Venture, their other great long run together was writing Elliott Lewis' police program Broadway Is My Beat - in fact their writing for those two shows overlaps. The series was directed by Henry Hayward, who also directed the Ziv syndicated program I Was a Communist for the FBI.

Fine and Friedkin were great radio writers, but I do wonder if Bold Venture pushed their faculties a little too far; so many episodes of Bold Venture sound alike. In fact, I don't recommend Bold Venture so much as a series as to say it's worth hearing a few episodes of the program - they're pretty much the same quality but none are above average.

Maybe the most unusual episode is titled "Russian Roulette." It opens with Slate and Sailor taking care of a wandering heiress; there are two criminals trying to cheat her out of her family fortune, so Slate and Sailor take her out aboard the Bold Venture to avoid them. The two criminals pursue them; so far, a very familiar premise for a radio adventure drama. Then, about halfway through the premise changes entirely; they run aground on a reef and find themselves on the island of a man who is basically running a version of "the Most Dangerous Game" and forces them to participate in a game of Russian Roulette with him each day. The sudden shift feels so bizarre - like Fine and Friedkin were each working independently on two different scripts then somehow wrote them into a single production.

There are 57 episodes of Bold Venture currently circulating and you can hear them all in this YouTube playlist! The other 21 episodes should appear sometime later this year.

Halloween Week, Day 1: "Dead Man"

I have an annual tradition on this blog of revisiting some scary old-time radio shows around Halloween, and I try to keep from spotlighting shows that have appeared on the blog in previous years. This year I'm going to look at 7 programs in the week leading up to Halloween.

We begin with the drama "Dead Man" starring Humphrey Bogart, which was created as a pilot for a radio series that was never picked up. It's not technically a horror program, but it has a unearthly vibe; it concerns a drifter named Lucky who accidentally causes the death of a railroad detective. Thereafter, Lucky is "haunted" by the dead man - or, rather, his conscience causes him to imagine the dead man's voice in his mind.

"Dead Man" was a 1936 short story written by James M. Cain. Bogart had already had some success with Cain on the radio - he starred in an adaptation of Cain's novel Love's Lovely Counterfeit on Suspense. Post-war, Cain's books were becoming hot properties as successful movies such as the Postman Always Rings Twice, Double Indemnity and Mildred Pierce had already been in cinemas prior to Bogart's version of "Dead Man."

Although this very impressive pilot did not result in a series, two years later Bogart would launch his own syndicated radio adventure series - Bold Venture - which he starred in with his wife, Lauren Bacall.

"Dead Man" was recorded as an audition program on September 17, 1949. You can download it from the Internet Archive here.

Tomorrow: "By the time they arrive my people will have prepared something quite shocking!"

R.I.P.: Lauren Bacall

Back in the 1990s, I once began a conversation about Humphrey Bogart films with a co-worker. He was an older man, having easily 40 years over me. He more-or-less liked Bogart's pictures but complained about "all those movies he made with Lauren Bacall." I didn't have a retort prepared for him because I could only recall three pictures Bogart & Bacall made together (Dead Reckoning, Key Largo & the Big Sleep). In fact, there were only four Bogart-Bacall pictures.

Still, there was some kind of backlash against Bacall, a perception from outsiders that she had profited on her marriage to Bogart and Bogart's legacy, rather than being a talented actress in her own right. That was certainly how many critics reacted to her 1994 performance in Pret-a-Porter. Personally, I haven't much effort into seeing Bacall's roles outside of the four she made with Bogart (the only non-Bogart picture from her filmography I've seen is Harper).

Now that Bacall is dead, everyone is free to praise her again - just as the public originally loved her in To Have and Have Not (the fourth Bogart-Bacall film I couldn't think of in the earlier anecdote). There is very little about the film which is memorable, but for those moments when Bacall smoulders her way into the scenes. It fits perfectly with director Howard Hawks philosophy: "A good movie consists of three good scenes and no bad ones."

As an OTR fan, I should also make mention of Bacall's appearances in radio comedy & drama (almost always at Bogart's side). Although she and Bogart had their own syndicated show - Bold Venture - I can't really recommend it. It's okay, but every episode tends to sound alike. Instead, check out this fun episode of Jack Benny (mp3 at archive.org) where Bacall guest stars (naturally with Bogie tagging along).

Lauren Bacall will be remembered primarily as Bogart's better half, but she seemed to serve the role admirably (certainly better than his previous wives). One more piece of Hollywood's great past has been lost.

Unearthed: Bogie by Claude-Jean Philippe & Patrick Lesueur

One curious aspect in the world of comic books is how much attention we devote to what has been; certainly when it comes to genre material, there are copious indexes, reviews and assorted appreciations found in texts and websites; if the genre material is published by one of the leading publishers, the likelihood of you easily finding material about it increases substantially. But what of non-genre works? Especially genre works which were printed through a self-publisher or defunct publishing entity? That's where you have to perform a little detective work - and since I occasionally run this blog feature "Unearthed," it's safe to assume I enjoy digging up forgotten comics.

In this instance, take the book Bogie. The only information I had about this 1989 Eclipse publication's contents were "biography of Humphrey Bogart." I didn't even know whether or not it was a graphic novel until it landed in my hands! Even then, there's nothing to be found in the item itself which explains what you're about to read or how it came to be; the creators are credited on the front and back cover (in the latter, the artist's name is misspelled) but there is no introduction, no blurbs, nada.

Very small text opposite the title page indicate it was originally published in 1984 in French and had been translated into English for this 1989 printing. So who is author Claude-Jean Philippe (his hyphen is frequently misused) or artist Patrick Lesueur? Why did they feel compelled to compose a biography of actor Humphrey Bogart using the medium of comics? How did Eclipse become interested in republishing the material? Blamed if I know. Retailers must have had fun selling this book back in the day; Res ipsa loquitur.

What we have here is a a French filmmaker (Philippe) whose interest in Bogart's career somehow led to he and Lesueur relating Bogart's story in a way they found meaningful. Having no access to the original French version, I have to assume this translated version is accurate to what they intended.

Thus: Bogie tells the story of Humphrey Bogart in Bogart's own voice. Bogart seemingly narrates this story from beyond the grave. Although the tale leads the readers through his life from start to finish, it's primarily concerned with his career as an actor; some of his childhood and personal relationships make it in, but the story is a celebration of Bogart's cinema career, taking time to visit many of the notable pictures Bogart appeared in (not just the obvious ones, but titles like the Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse and Sahara also make the cut). I'm not certain where the authors' sources on Bogart's life story came from; I've heard it said the tale of Bogart's lip being scarred by an escaped prisoner was a fiction, but Bogie presents it as fact - or, perhaps, as the anecdote originated from Bogart and he's the narrator of this biography, he would naturally keep it in.

Patrick Lusueur's art shows tremendous photorealistic detail, appropriate to the work. Many scenes from Bogart's films are presented on the pages; it could have almost been assembled as a fumetti, but Lusueur adds distinctive touches (notably an infant Bogart depicted with fedora & lit cigarette) to break from reality.

Having recently read Eric Lax's biography Bogart, it's a nice refresher to revisit some of the same material, but through very visual means. There's also a little bit of content found here which links Bogart back to the creators' France. At only 56 pages it's a slim number, but as someone with an interest in the cinema of Humphrey Bogart and the medium of comics, Bogie is the point at which those two graph lines meet. It's a fun little number.

Warner Bros. remakes; the rise of Bogart, the fall of Raft

I've blogged before about my interest in viewing Humphrey Bogart's filmography; as I delved through those films, it soon gave way to a general interest in the output of the Warner Bros - especially their 1930s pictures. At one early point in the Bogart-athon, I viewed Kid Galahad (1937) by director Michael Curtiz.

In this film, a boxing promoter (Edward G. Robinson) takes a novice fighter (Wayne Morris) under his wing, but gradually turns against his protegee after finding out he's in love with his younger sister (Bette Davis). After suffering a change of heart, the promoter is killed by a gangster (Humphrey Bogart) while shielding his fighter.

Many weeks later, I began watching Bogart in the Wagons Roll at Night (1941), directed by Ray Enright and found it... strangely familiar!

In this picture, a circus owner (Humphrey Bogart) takes a novice lion tamer (Eddie Albert) under his wing, but gradually turns against his protegee after finding out he's in love with his younger sister (Joan Leslie). After suffering a change of heart, the circus owner is killed by a lion (played by itself) while shielding the lion tamer.

Why, here I'd come across two films featuring Bogart and identical plots! As I learned more about Warner Bros., I discovered they were notorious for recycling their scripts (it seems especially from the late 30s to early 40s). This latter film proved to be the end of Bogart's career doldrums (as most of his career at Warner had been up until then), falling right between two of his star-making features: High Sierra and the Maltese Falcon.

This is not the only time Bogart had been plugged to fill a role in a Warner Bros. remake - many of his pictures were hand-me-downs, such as King of the Underworld (1939) where he took over the part played by Paul Muni (then Warner's top male star) in Dr. Socrates (1935). This case is unusual, however, in that Bogart went from the tertiary part of the gangster in Kid Galahad to the primary role of the circus owner in the Wagons Roll at Night. And yet, everything about the Wagons Roll at Night points to it being an inferior picture, as so many of the remakes were. Ray Enright had been a steady hand at Warner, but he wasn't exactly Michael Curtiz! Joan Leslie & Eddie Albert were just beginning their acting careers - hardly veteran stars such as Robinson & Davis in the earlier picture. If Bogart had been given Robinson's part in Kid Galahad, it would have been a huge career-booster - but taking the lead role in the remake kept him at the b-movie level.

These films aren't the ones I truly want to talk about, however. A few weeks ago, I watched Howard Hawks' Warner Bros. picture Tiger Shark (1932).

A Portuguese fisherman (Edward G. Robinson) is nearly killed by sharks while saving his best friend (Richard Arlen). After another fisherman dies, Robinson tends to the man's daughter (Zita Johann), eventually convincing her to marry him for protection even though she admits she doesn't love him. The real trouble begins when Robinson's wife falls for Robinson's friend, precipitating a tragic finale.

This past week, I tuned into Raoul Walsh's Warner picture Manpower (1941).

A power line operator (Edward G. Robinson) is nearly electrocuted while saving his best friend (George Raft). After another operator dies, Robinson tends to the man's daughter (Marlene Dietrich), eventually convincing her to marry him for protection even though she admits she doesn't love him. The real trouble begins when Robinson's wife falls for Robinson's friend, precipitating a tragic finale.

Once again we have identical plots and a shared actor (Robinson). However, Robinson plays the same role in both pictures, changing only his character's ethnicity and occupation. Both films are also gifted with top Warner directors (Hawks & Walsh). The latter film also has an improved supporting cast, with George Raft (a top Warner star), Marlene Dietrich (something of a has-been by 1941, but always popular) and great Warner stock players such as Alan Hale and Frank McHugh.

Where Manpower fascinates me is the casting of its third-billed player: George Raft. This picture came out during a series of poorly-judged career decisions Raft made; essentially, Walsh's They Drive by Night (1940) served as Raft's last truly fine picture for Warner Bros. Up until this time, Raft was considered a bigger star than Bogart, but Manpower seemed to be his fall from grace - and not only because he'd been given third-billing.

There are well-circulated anecdotes relating how Raft passed up High Sierra to Bogart because Bogart tricked him into thinking it was just another gangster picture. The two stars are also entangled in the mess surrounding Manpower and the Maltese Falcon. Bogart was cast in Manpower while Raft was sought for the Maltese Falcon, yet - in possibly his single greatest blunder - Raft refused to appear in the Maltese Falcon because John Huston was a first-time director (whereas Walsh was a veteran Raft had worked with before - albeit, Walsh found him an extremely difficult actor). At the same time, Raft demanded Bogart be flung out of Manpower; the Warners complied and cast Edward G. Robinson instead - an actor who commanded a higher billing than either Bogart or Raft. Therefore, Bogart had been made free to appear in the Maltese Falcon and Raft gave up top-billing in what proved to be one of the finest, most influential and best-remembered pictures of the 1940s so he could take third-billing in a quickly-forgotten remake.

And yet, the Maltese Falcon itself was another remake, the Warners having produced it in 1931 & 1936 (the latter instance as Satan Met a Lady). The difference Huston brought to this third attempt was to seek closer fidelity with the source material, rather than tricking audiences into thinking they were seeing new material (as was the case with Manpower). On the face of it, Raft had chosen between two remakes with no reason to suspect either one would be talked about 70+ years later.

I can only imagine why Raft made such a stink about Manpower; he didn't work well with Walsh, he openly fought with (and disparaged) Robinson... perhaps he really wanted to work with Dietrich? Or perhaps having missed out on Walsh's High Sierra and seen how it benefited Bogart's career he didn't want to risk passing up Walsh's next picture?

The Warners' top five male stars were said to be Paul Muni, Edward G. Robinson, James Cagney, George Raft & Humphrey Bogart. Bogart is considered one of the most legendary actors to ever live; Cagney is a Hollywood legend as well; Robinson is still remembered; Muni and Raft have been consigned to the dustbins of history, recollected only by aficionados (such as I).

Suppose Raft had taken the part of Sam Spade in the Maltese Falcon - would it have enlivened his career? Or would his performance have tarnished the picture? One can certainly understand why the Warners would have wanted him to be their star - he'd already appeared in another adaptation of author Dashiell Hammett's work in the Glass Key (1935) for Paramount. If Raft had starred in another Hammett adaptation perhaps we'd have Dashiell Hammett/George Raft themed DVD box sets on Amazon today.

Ultimately, how did I find Manpower? Eh. Tiger Shark proved to be the more interesting picture, albeit not as interesting as the poster I inserted above makes it seem. Manpower has an extremely oddly-cast Dietrich behaving as an average Warner supporting lady (the type of character Ann Sheridan usually played), which is kind of fascinating on its own. And Robinson? Heck, he's always good. Pity about Raft...

8 Odd Bogart Pictures

One fascinating thing about the "classic" film era is how the studio-controlled casts would cross into virtually every type and kind of movie produced on the lot. A typical supporting player like Sam McDaniel could appear in more than 200 films in their career, then be forgotten. Films were made so quickly, practically on an assembly line; it meant a lot of performances were instantly forgettable, but occasionally true classics emerged, if only to appease the law of averages. In such circumstances, some bit players gradually worked up to claim lead roles - a few even became stars. It's utterly amazing to look back on some actors known for particular film roles or types of performances, then see what the rest of their filmography was like.

Such a person is Humphrey Bogart, being indelibly linked to Warner Bros. films for most of his career. He started out in bit parts, proved he had screen presence in the Petrified Forest (1936), then languished in repetitive "gangster" parts until the one-two-three punch of High Sierra (1941), the Maltese Falcon (1941) and Casablanca (1942) built his stardom.

So far as Bogart's Warner career goes, histories usually invoke the aforementioned four films and likely touch upon To Have and Have Not (1944), the Big Sleep (1946), Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948), possibly even citing his appearances alongside James Cagney in the Roaring Twenties (1939) and Angels With Dirty Faces (1938) as representative of his gangster roles; true Bogart aficionados will bring up Black Legion (1937). But what did the rest of Bogart's output look like?

I bought the recent DVD collection Humphrey Bogart: the Essentials which offered a decent overview of the actor's career at Warner from the Petrified Forest to Treasure of the Sierra Madre, but I noticed a lot of his career was skipped over - particularly the period during the 1930s where he was floundering. It makes sense for Warner to put forward the best of Bogart from their catalog, but what, I wondered, was being overlooked? Eventually, I delved into all of Bogart's Warner movies; many of them featured the actor in dull gangster parts, such as Racket Busters (1938). However, from the full range of Bogart's Warner career prior to High Sierra, there are eight films which I think are particularly unusual in terms of Bogie's performances; they're what I'd like to share with you:

Three on a Match (1932), directed by Mervyn LeRoy

This was early in Bogart's career and he ultimately made such a small impact on Warner that when he returned to them for the Petrified Forest (1936), many on the lot didn't remember his earlier work for them, even though this film was one of the biggest Warner pictures of the year. Bogart's part in the film (a gangster) is small, but he still managed to rank above Edward Arnold in the credits (Arnold's appearance is essentially a cameo). Three on a Match is known today as one of those "pre-code" movies where characters could engage in drug use and extra-marital sex without being nixed by the censors. Looking past the "racy" material, it's very odd for a modern viewer to look back and see how much of the cast is squandered; the "three" referenced in the title are Ann Dvorak, Joan Blondell and Bette Davis; Dvorak is almost forgotten today, but she carries most of the film; Blondell is somewhat remembered today, but her role peters out quickly; Davis is better-known now than either actress, yet her part is muted and her presence is almost invisible; the "three" aren't treated as equals by the film.

It's very late in the film when Bogart finally puts in his appearance. By this time, Dvorak's character has become addicted to cocaine and involved with a man who owes a lot of money to the mob; Bogart gets exactly one standout scene when he meets Dvorak: Dvorak angrily confronts the gangsters, then rubs her nose in the manner of an addict. Bogart glances back at his men, humourously rubs his own nose and declares through a sideways grin, "Uh-oh." It's the one moment which suggests an excellent actor was lurking beneath the paint-by-numbers gangster he'd been hired to play.

The Great O'Malley (1937), directed by William Dieterle

This film... boy, this film. Here's a movie which is pretty hard to define, at least by the typical genre conventions of movies. By Warner's standards, it's once of their "social" pictures, a movie about life and trouble during the Great Depression with a fairly strong left-wing message. But whereas a social picture like I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932) could be called a "prison movie," what exactly is the Great O'Malley? It's the tale of a police officer played by Pat O'Brien who believes in upholding the letter of the law, memorizing every piece of city ordinance and enforcing them on the populace, to the point of becoming a local nuisance but technically, being a good cop.

The problems begin when O'Brien stops Bogart to give him a ticket for his noisy muffler; consequently, Bogart is late for his new job and loses the position; ergo, he robs a store for money; thusly, he is arrested and, believe it or not, O'Brien's involvement in this chain of events is seen as an embarrassment to the department, causing O'Brien to be demoted to working a crosswalk at a school. Coincidence of coincidences, he befriends a little girl who turns out to be Bogart's daughter; through caring for her, he learns to become flexible about the law.

Then we reach the unbelievable climax: Bogart gets out of prison and hears O'Brien wants to see him; it's just so O'Brien can secretly deliver some gifts to Bogart's family, but Bogart panics, pulls a gun and shoots O'Brien. Before he passes out, O'Brien takes the gun from Bogart. The police capture Bogart and bring him before O'Brien's gurney bed to identify him as the shooter, but O'Brien insists he accidentally shot himself. Bogart is so grateful he winds up giving O'Brien a blood transfusion to make up for what was spilled.

Warner films of the late 30s got pretty lefty, but this takes the cake; it's so leftist, it might've inspired Ayn Rand to punish society by inflicting Objectivism upon it. The journey of a man from abiding by the letter of the law to its spirit is a decent enough premise - O'Brien's character is essentially reformed like Ebenezer Scrooge. But reforming to the extent of refusing to press charges after someone shot him with intent to kill? It would be like A Christmas Carol ending with Scrooge at first pretending to be the same old humbug as before the spirits visited him, only for Bob Cratchit to explode and bash him in the head with the coal scuttle; Scrooge responds by refusing to punish Bob and gives him gifts besides. On the one hand, you could read the Great O'Malley as portraying a very good Christian message about placing others before yourselves; on the other hand, you'd never buy Pat O'Brien as the Christ of the Depression.

Marked Woman (1937), directed by Lloyd Bacon

This film is notable mainly for pairing Bogart with Davis following the Petrified Forest (this time as more or less equals, albeit Davis in the lead). Davis' own career followed a path not dissimilar to Bogart's as she rose up the ranks (although she had to make her film Of Human Bondage (1934) with a different studio in order to finally get Warner's attention). Davis works in a nightclub which is being taken over by the mob; this time, Bogart is one of the good guys - a crusading district attorney who wants to get the mob and needs Davis' testimony to do so; unfortunately, their first attempt to go after the mob fails and leads to Davis becoming the titular "Marked Woman" when the mob disfigure her; steeled by this and Bogart's encouragement, eventually they get the mob. Although Bogart is something of a hero in the film, he has an interesting shade to his character in how heedless he seems of the danger Davis is being placed in by helping him; it's only after the mob have been broken that he seems to realize what a mess he's made of Davis' life. It isn't a performance you'd recognize as "typical" Bogart, but it's a very interesting stop along the journey.

Swing Your Lady (1938), directed by Ray Enright

Bogart considered this his worst film, which it might be (but see the next entry before you decide). It's a hillbilly musical-comedy, but I'm sorry to report, Bogart does not sing and dance. Rather, Bogart is a wrestling manager who brings his client to the Ozarks where the wrestler falls in love with a tough-as-nails hillbilly gal. Bogart at least received top billing for this picture, but at what price? AT WHAT PRICE?!

The Warners' musicals were only ever engaging when directed by Busby Berkeley; one wonders what a Busby musical featuring Bogart would have been like. Perhaps it would have been close to...

Men Are Such Fools (1938), directed by Busby Berkeley

...THIS.

Here is my nominee for the worst picture Bogart ever appeared in, a comedy-romance featuring Wayne Morris and Priscilla Lane, with Bogart causing complications as the third member of a love triangle. You might suppose the problem with this film lies in Bogart being in a comedic love triangle - surely if Bogart is in a love triangle it should be played for tragedy, right? This film is a tragedy - a tragic footnote in Berkeley's career.

The premise has Lane as a career-minded gal determined to climb the corporate ladder through hard work and initiative; Morris portrays a boor who determines he's in love with her and wants to give up her career and marry him (basically in that order). To force her to become engaged, he parks his car on train tracks until she complies. You might wonder (not without reason) why we should find this funny.

It feels as though everything Busby knew about romance and comedy from his earlier musicals was forgotten by the time he made this movie. It's not as though one character badgering another until they fall in love with them can't be played for laughs - it's certainly a staple of the romantic comedy genre. But here? Take the scene in Bringing up Baby (1938) where Katherine Hepburn steals Cary Grant's clothes while he's in the shower, all to force him to remain with her instead of rushing off to his wedding; with his clothes missing, Grant has to don a frilly nightgown belonging to Hepburn. That's funny because it undermines Grant's dignity. Compare this to the scene in Men Are Such Fools where Morris wants Lane to marry him so he dunks her under water until she agrees. There might be an angle to playing this latter scene for laughs but if there is, it eluded Busby. All we're left with is an unsettling sense the filmmakers want us to laugh at domestic abuse.

Bogart is far from the worst thing about the film; he gets some fine sardonic dialogue, although he's never credible as a romantic interest for Lane's character. Blessedly, his part keeps him off the screen for most of the picture. Swing Your Lady was just a simple, silly musical; I think it's far worse to appear in an unfunny comedy.

Men Are Such Fools has fallen into obscurity but it deserves to have its profile raised, for more people to be talking about it; above all, it deserves to be on more people's worst movies of all time lists.

The Oklahoma Kid (1939), directed by Lloyd Bacon

This wasn't Bogart's only western - it was followed by Virginia City (1940) - but even though the latter picture depicts Bogart (improbably) as a Mexican, I'm much more fascinated by this film. Here, Bogart is the villain to James Cagney's hero, as was typical for films they shared. The very idea of casting these two in a western is a small part of why I love going through the lesser-known studio pictures of the 30s; later on, you had actors who worked primarily in westerns or part-time in westerns, but actors appearing in genre films seldom criss-crossed between them. In 1939 the thinking seemed to be, "Westerns? Aw, they're just gangster pictures on horseback!"

It's actually a pretty good 1930s western picture (this coming from someone who doesn't typically like the western genre). Cagney and Bogart's presence is a little distracting but I never felt they were miscast. Cagney essentially plays his "I may be an outcast, but I won't work for the mob" character while Bogart is a mob boss with a fancy hat. It's as good as a Cagney-Bogart western could possibly be.

Dark Victory (1939), directed by Edmund Goulding

I'm cheating a little by including Dark Victory because it's a fairly well-known movie, considered one of Bette Davis' finest pictures. Here, she's a spoiled rich woman who loves horseback riding; Bogart is her Irish (yes, Irish) stable manager. Tragically, Davis comes down with a case of Hollywood Illness and begins reexamining her life, even dallying with the idea of romancing Bogart. Ultimately, she settles on the less-interesting doctor played by George Brent.

Bogart wasn't bad as a romantic lead, definitely feeling here like a credible rival for Davis' affections (whereas I couldn't see Priscilla Lane falling for him in Men Are Such Fools). The Irish accent was an odd choice which hindered his performance, but he did all right with the material; ultimately, it was Davis' picture and she carried it. The real impact of the film was the attention it brought Bogart at Warner Bros., as they finally saw his range and began seeking better roles for him. First, however...

The Return of Doctor X (1939), directed by Vincent Sherman

Ah, this film. When you think of the studios which produced the "classic" horror films you think of Universal (Dracula, Frankenstein, the Mummy); RKO (Cat People, I Walked With a Zombie); MGM (Mad Love, Mark of the Vampire); Paramount (Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde, Island of Lost Souls). But although the Warners made a couple of chillers in the early 30s (Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933), Doctor X (1932)), by the late 30s they weren't involved in the genre; indeed, the horror genre was mostly dormant in Hollywood.

And so it was Humphrey Bogart became cast in a sequel to Doctor X... except, it's a sequel in name only. Bogart felt like he was being punished to appear in this film, where he was a mad scientist who'd learned the secret of bringing the dead back to life; being a dead man himself, Doctor X needed fresh blood to sustain his existence. It's all depicted in the clean, sanitary environment you expect to see in a 1939 Warner Bros. picture. Crisp black & white photography with warm, familiar character actors; it's too pleasant to be terrifying, not that the picture really attempts to mount any suspense until the end, when Bogart kidnaps the leading lady for her blood.

What better place to end my look at Bogart's less-notable work than one of the actor's own least favourite performances? The Return of Doctor X is available on DVD, believe it or not; for Bogart's only horror film role, you might expect more from it. Rather than a mad scientist, I think he'd have made a swell mummy. Or perhaps a mad strangler? I need to put more thought into this.

Thank you for reading; if this list entertained you, then please seek out some of the referenced pictures for your own viewing pleasure!