HERE’S LOOKING AT HIM, KID .

January 23



During his service in the Navy during WWI aboard the Leviathan, the sailor’s lower lip was injured during a shelling, and he talked with a pronounced lisp for the rest of his life. But if anyone ever made a lisp sound manly, it was Humphrey Bogart, born this day in 1899 in New York City.

If any actor comes close to the illusory, iconoclastic male heart of the American cinema, it’s Bogie. The AFI voted him #1 on their list of the Top 100 Movie Stars. But his lineage was misleading. He was raised as the son of a successful Manhattan physician, and sent to study medicine at Yale, but was discharged due to disciplinary problems. He joined the Navy during WWI, and after his discharge, found himself drawn to the theater, working his way up from office boy to stage manager to actor. When he started appearing in Off-Broadway plays, he was invariably cast as secong juvenile lead.

The struggling actor got his big break when he was cast as gangster-on-the-run Duke Mantee (at the insistence of influential star Leslie Howard) in ‘The Petrified Forest’ (1936). Thereafter, he took on a slew of secondary roles to Jimmy Cagney – who invariably killed him off before the final reel. But in 1941, director Raoul Walsh saw something special and noble in Bogart, casting him as career criminal Roy ‘Mad Dog’ Earle in ‘High Sierra’ (1941). It was Bogie’s first starring role. Suddenly, the Bogart persona was there, intact; tough but sympathetic, distant yet romantic, even tender. It remains one of his best performances, and propelled him into the A-list.

Bogart went on to other memorable performances – ‘The Maltese Falcon’ (1941), ‘The African Queen’ (1951) . . but his insightful, sorrowful turn as the noble outlaw in ‘High Sierra’ was never surpassed. Taut direction and great location photography help elevate this to one of the great gangster flicks, ever – and something more. ‘High Sierra’ also provided a breakthrough part for Ida Lupino, touching and tough as the tag-along girl who loves him.

Check out the original trailer here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7kny3itNYQ&feature=PlayList&p=C19DE0E7906A0CF7&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=22