best film: Casablanca is the best of four masterpieces starring Bogart. Those four are (in order of quality): Casablanca, The Big Sleep, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre and The Maltese Falcon. I have In a Lonely Place as a high-end Must-See film. They’re a tear below this work— but the work with Raoul Walsh (Roaring Twenties, High Sierra and They Drive By Night) is there, too. Casablanca is often touted as the high-water mark, artistically, from the Hollywood studio system. That’s a mantle/title that’s hard to nail down as Hollywood produced so many great works and that seems to also take credit away from Michel Curtiz—who does a fantastic job behind the camera (those trademark slow dollies into a scene). The screenplay is one of the handful of the greatest of all time. In front of the camera it doesn’t get much better than Bogart and Ingrid Bergman.
best performance: Casablanca. Bogart’s “Rick” is his iconic film role and it edges out the superlative work in Treasure of the Sierra Madre and In a Lonely Place. Rick is more “even” than the obsessive characters he plays in Madre and Lonely Place—it’s a bit more of a controlled, internal performance but it’s certainly a great artist in complete command. He growls and puts on a tough peripheral of course, but has the tender break down drinking and flashback sequence. Of course the dialogue at the ending is transcendentally delivered by Bogart—both with Bergman at the plane and with Claude Rains walking off.
stylistic innovations/traits: I’m not a big believer in the actor as auteur concept—but of all the actors you could put forth with this theory—Robert Mitchum. Paul Newman, The Marx Brothers, Steve McQueen— Bogart makes the most sense. He’s so damn good from 1941 to 1955 regardless of the director or material—he elevates the level of the film he’s in by at least a grade—making bad films tolerable, good films great, and turns top films into masterpieces. There are stages of his career. Until 1941 he’s the second fiddle in gritty Warner Brothers (usually backing up Cagney but occasionally even George Raft like They Dive By Night). It’s in Walsh’s High Sierra (another “madman” role for Bogey—Caine Mutiny is another) that he takes off and becomes one of the best four actors of all-time. He’s in 29 archiveable films in 21 years. That’s ridiculous—12-13 of them warrant being in their respective year’s top 10. Bogart had a rhythm to his dialogue, often played detectives (he’s cinema’s best detective) and criminals. There were so many facets to his body of work. I mentioned the supporting/thug period in the 30’s, but you also have the Bacall films (4), the 50’s and work in color (African Queen, Caine Mutiny). Even in something like Sabrina when he’s miscast (far too old) and asked to play out of character (a business tycoon) and against type (cerebral) he pulls it off so wondrously.
directors worked with: John Huston (5), Curtiz (4), Walsh (3), Wyler (2), Hawks (2) and then once a piece with Nicholas Ray and Billy Wilder
Top 10 Performances:
- Casablanca
- The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
- In a Lonely Place
- The Big Sleep
- The Maltese Falcon
- To Have and Have Not
- The Caine Mutiny
- High Sierra
- Key Largo
- The African Queen
Archiveable films
1936- Petrified Forest |
1937- Dead End |
1938- Angels with Dirty Faces |
1939- Dark Victory |
1939- Oklahoma Kid |
1939- The Roaring Twenties |
1940- They Drive By Night |
1941- All Through the Night |
1941- High Sierra |
1941 -The Maltese Falcon |
1942- Casablanca |
1943- Sahara |
1944- Passage to Marseille |
1944- To Have and Have Not |
1946- The Big Sleep |
1947- Dark Passage |
1948- Key Largo |
1948- The Treasure of the Sierra Madre |
1950- In a Lonely Place |
1951- The African Queen |
1951- The Enforcer |
1952- Deadline USA |
1953- Beat the Devil |
1954- Sabrina |
1954- The Barefoot Contessa |
1954- The Caine Mutiny |
1955- The Desperate Hours |
1955- We’re No Angels |
1956- The Harder They Fall |
Marlon Brando, Spencer Tracy, Jimmy Stewart. Can’t wait to see the order. Robert DeNiro and Sidney Portier must be 101 and 102.
haha you were correct on 2 out of 3… Spencer Tracy and Sidney Poitier are probably somewhere between 100-110 though i didn’t go past 100— both are great actors but only once, in the entire history of cinema, going year by year did i think they gave one of the better performances of the year– for Tracy it was 1937 with “Captain’s Courageous” (he’s the the 3rd or 4th best that year) and for Poitier it’s 1967 with “in the heat of the night” where he’s 3rd or 4th– that’s it… for all the other actors in my top 10 they’re one of the best multiple times/years– as many as 5, 7, 10 times over their career
[…] Bogart had a style all his own that some consider being well ahead of his time. He was a different kind of cool and had a heart of gold. This grizzled man would go on to become one of the legends of Hollywood and then be named the most excellent male star of classic American cinema by The American Film Institute. For Bogart to not be considered one of the greatest that ever was would be an epic tragedy.[8] […]
Love Bogie! He’s still fresh and he’s been dead for over 60 years! He’s one of the top for me.
@JenA– thanks for the comment and for visiting the site. Agreed. What a great career he had. I love revisiting his films.
It sure seems like The Harder They Fall belongs in top ten, but what to bump? Maybe High Sierra or The Caine Mutiny?
@Ter — thanks for the comment and for visiting the site. Haha that’s the problem with Bogart- right? Tough to pick which one to bump!
Bogarts Performance in The Treasure of The Sierra Madre is not only his finest Performance but one of the ten best Performances in Cinema History and it’s a damn Shame he got snubbed that year by all award shows not just the Oscars.
Also Boogie’s descent into Madness is some of the finest acting ever portrayed on Screen.
I would agree with you on that one. It’s rather different from most of his other roles yet I feel Humphrey Bogart was born specifically to be Fred Dobbs. His unique voice and often-performed facial expressions seem to perfectly go along with the desperate, brusque character. There have been many incredible portrayals of greed in cinema (Daniel Plainview, Charles Foster Kane) and as many more of descending to madness (Norma Desmond and arguably Travis Bickle) and Bogart in Sierra Madre is as powerful as any among these character arc types.
When I think about the best male performances of the 1940s, I don’t think find one as great as this, and we’re dealing with Welles, Olivier, Stewart, other Bogart work, and even Walter Huston in the same movie, which isn’t easy competition (on the female side, Bergman in Notorious gets a big win).
No Actor/Actress had quite as good of a Decade as Boogie did in the 40s I mean
High Sierra
Casablanca
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
The Maltese Falcon
To Have and Have Not
The Big Sleep
Key Largo
Dark Passage
They Drive by Night
Brother Orchid
Thank Your Lucky Stars
And he was nearly in Gilda.
A superb, unimpeachable decade. That said, do yourself a favour and take a gander at Toshiro Mifune’s 1950s…
What do you think are the best voices by any performers. I love bogart’s voice so much. Very good. John wayne and jimmy Stewart’s
Are superb. Martin sheen has a good voice too. Harrison Ford, Marlon brando. De niro is a great actor but i wouldn’t say it is a very “attractive voice” to listen to. Samuel Jackson. Nicholson. As far as women hepburn has a great voice, scarlett jo. Ingrid bergman. Meryl Streep of course is good with accents but I’m talking more about distinct recurring voices.. i suppose I’d even include natalie portman. Lorraine bracco…
@D.WGriffith- interesting question. You’ve got some good ones here. Scarlett Johansson is sort of a contemporary Lauren Bacall when it comes to the lower raspy voice- so I’d add her. How about Morgan Freeman? He gets all that voice over work for a reason. I think Tom Hardy is a talent on that level as well.
Drake Morgan freeman for sure. He is certainly a great actor with an iconic voice. Come to think of it, bruce willis would be good on the list too. And I forgot pAt Stewart and Ian McClellan
I think it’s somewhat of a crime that Bogart never worked with Hitchcock, I guess timing plays a big role as Bogart died in 1957 which is right before Hitch peaked with this insane run from 1958 to 1960 with Vertigo, North by Northwest, and Psycho.
Don’t get me wrong I’m not complaining about the actors Hitchcock did use, just pointing out that I think this would have been an amazing combination.
@James – At least he made In a Lonely Place with the great Nicholas Ray which is pretty Hitchcockian.
@Zane A Schmidt – that film is a big reason why I think he would have been fascinating in a Hitchcock role, same with Treasure of Sierra Madre. Boogie could go from charming and affable to full on crazy and obsessed in a snap.
I also would have loved to see Boogie as the innocent man on the run a la North by Northwest and watching him deal with the various scenarios of which that would entail
I’m 56 years old and not that that’s relevant, but Bogart should be number one on any list. I do put Treasure of the Sierra Madre ahead of Casablanca and I also believe Key Largo should be higher up on the list. It doesn’t get any better with Bogart and Edward G
Robinson.
Crazy that bogart is # 4 (rightfully so) despite not even making it to 60. Watched In a Lonely Place (1950) again last night and man he is a force of nature in that film as Dix Steele, one of the best of all noir characters.
It also got me thinking, is there any other actor who can match Bogie in screen presence? Certainly there are actors who can disappear into their roles better (Christian Bale, DDL), as well as actors who have more emotional range (De Niro, Sean Penn), and more pure talent (Brando, Nicholson), but screen presence? Certainly Mifune has to be up there as well as Klaus Kinski and Denzel but if forced to choose just one I think Bogie is my pick.
You’re probably right, but I think Robert Mitchum is his best competitor here. There’s such world-weary, all knowing badassery in his face, and that musically trained baritone.
@Max- I like this Max. I find myself gravitating towards watching an inordinate amount of Mitchum films
The problem with Bogart is he had such an inordinate number of great performances that it seems an impossible task to accurately rank them. Nevertheless, I will complain like the bastard I am: you seem to be rather underrating his work in The Caine Mutiny: it may be the single greatest display of versatility for Bogart as he’s playing an extremely incompetent, somewhat pathetic individual, and his paranoid breakdown in the courtroom scene is a tour de force, as is his pitiable supplication for “constructive loyalty”
After rewatching these scenes, I can’t bring myself to rank it any lower than his third best.
Seen here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KekChFdIe00
and here, respectively:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dstDZ9cruiY
@Max- so what are you moving down? I think Bogart does much of the same type of work in Ray’s In a Lonely Place and that is the superior film. Third for Caine seems like a stretch given what’s in front of it.
To be clear, I mean if you’re ranking by the quality of the performance alone, and not the quality of the film. Of course, I agree that In a Lonely Place is a vastly superior film to The Caine Mutiny.
My ranking for Bogart, from the ten of his films I have seen:
1. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
2. Casablanca
3 The Caine Mutiny
4 In a Lonely Place
5. The Big Sleep
6 The African Queen
7 The Maltese Falcon
8 To Have and Have Not
9. Dark Passage
10. Sabrina
@Max- Hmm- I am of the believe that the quality of the film is plays a pretty healthy part of the equation. Certainly more than enough to split a tie between Bogart’s work in something like The Caine Mutiny and The Maltese Falcon or The Big Sleep.
@Max @Drake
Agree that quality of film matters, if it didn’t I would put Christian Bales performance in Vice as a top 10 of the decade.
I do like your list Max although I would put to be following:
1 Treasure Sierra Madre
2 In a Lonley Place
3 Casablanca
4 Maltese Falcon
5 Big Sleep
6 Caine Mutiny
7 To Have and Have Not
8 African Queen
9 Dark Passage
10 Key Largo
I realize Casablanca at only 3 may seem crazy but I should note that my top 3 are all extremely close
I guess it’s a much broader disaccord we’re having then. I just see the purpose of evaluating performances as being to… evaluate performances, not films.
Otherwise, I wouldn’t call it a “ranking of Bogart’s performances” but “ranking of performances in the uppermost tier of Bogart’s filmography” you know?.Anyways, this is a rather pedantic disagreement for me to be so vehement about, so I’ll cut myself short.
@Max- I get that. The quality of the film is vital when having a serious discussion of any actor’s best work- and we’re not talking about slouches of performances in Maltese Falcon, To Have and Have Not, The Big Sleep, In a Lonely Place, etc. Bogart’s performance in The Caine Mutiny being better than his performance in The Maltese Falcon feels like an opinion. Bogart being excellent in both and The Maltese Falcon being the far superior film does not does not feel like an opinion.
I agree with everything you said in your last comment, but I don’t think that the film being better makes the performance objectively better or even “breaks the tie” so to speak. Meryl Streep is excellent in both The Deer Hunter and Sophie’s Choice… see where I’m going here?
@Max- We are just going to have to agree to disagree here- especially on the quality of the film breaking the tie- this seems self evident.
That’s fine; it really doesn’t matter to me that much, I’m just feeling truculent and have too much free time. We will parley again on much more substantive subjects, I assure you!
@Max – ” I just see the purpose of evaluating performances as being to… evaluate performances, not films”
I hear what you’re saying I kind of feel the same way at times. I don’t think it’s an unworthy subject for a conversation though, I guess the question is how much can you isolate a performance from the film? A great auteur can certainly bring out the best of an actor/actress (think PTA directing Adam Sandler in Punch Drunk Love) Obviously Sandler is certainly no Bogie. Bogart is so great that he can carry a weaker film to a far great degree than just about anyone else and thus it could be argued that you can isolate his performances from the quality of a film to a far greater degree than just about anyone else. But does this mean you can completely disregard the quality in evaluating the performance? I still think the quality matters but with Bogie I can totally see your point. And I think he is utterly fantastic in Caine Mutiny. I think it would be a fairly mediocre film without Bogie instead of the very good film film that I think it is.
I think it also needs to be said that people value different aspects of a performance to different degrees. What is it that is most important to you:
– emotional range
– ability to disappear into the role (like DDL in Lincoln for example)
– ability to create a persona, I think of this as the complete opposite of the ability to disappear into a role so
basically an actor/actress who plays a particular role in a way that no one else (or few others) can sometimes
a director will create a role specifically for an actor/actress in mind. For example, Sofia Coppola wrote the
script for Lost in Translation with Bill Murray in mind. This is not to say that no one else could have played the
role but the fact that Sofia Coppola had Murray in mind indicates that she believed Murray could play that
particular role in a way few others could
– charisma or screen presence which I think of as an actor who can made their presence noticeable in just
about every scene they are in even scenes with limited dialogue