Humphrey Bogart: An Actor for the Ages Quiz

'Up the River' is memorable for several reasons: it was the film set on which Humphrey Bogart met Spencer Tracy, and his only film with directing legend John Ford. Bogart and Tracy were both making their film debuts (this film debuted a week before 'A Devil With Women', the other Bogart film released in 1930). While Tracy had higher billing in the credits, Bogart's role was roughly as large, and his image was used on some of the promotional posters, as he was involved in the romantic entanglement that some posters were pushing over the dramatic aspects. It was during the filming of 'Up the River' that Spencer Tracy first gave him the nickname Bogie that was to stay with him. The two became close friends and long-time drinking companions, although they never again appeared in the same film!

As the title suggests, this movie is a combination of prison film and romantic comedy, with Tracy's character breaking out of prison to help Bogart's character, who had been released on parole before getting entangled with a scheming con artist while waiting for his girlfriend to be released from the female prison.

Bogie's lengthy stage career (starting in 1922) culminated in his appearance in the 1935 play by Robert Sherwood on which this movie was based. He and Leslie Howard appeared together, and it was only due to Howard's insistence that Bogie got the part - the studio wanted a bigger name, and were specifically looking for Edward G Robinson, who was already established in Hollywood. However, Leslie Howard had already been signed with a contract that gave him veto power, and Bogie had his big film break.

This role was no romantic lead - Duke Manatee is a notorious gangster (modelled on John Dillinger) who is holding the people in a diner hostage as he awaits the arrival of his girlfriend, who turns out to have informed the police about the rendezvous site. It does not end well.

This adaptation of Dashiell Hammett's 1930 novel was written and directed by John Ford, his directorial debut. It was also the first appearance of Sydney Greenstreet, who played Karl Gutman, the man in search of the mysterious black statue which Sam Spade (Bogie) has been hired to locate. In another case of being in the right place at the right time, Bogart was not the first choice to play Sam Space, but George Raft refused to take it on. Ford and Bogart started their lengthy collaboration, and Bogart created the archetypical Hollywood film noir detective.

In typical film noir fashion, nobody in this film is what they first seem to be, so you never know who can be trusted. Who would have thought Mary Astor ('America's Sweetheart') would be a cold-blooded murderess, or that Bogie would turn her in despite his romantic involvement with her? And is that the real statue, or a fake (as Gutman and Peter Lorre's character, Joe Cairo, believe)?

It feels a bit mean to use two films that were released as closely as 'The Maltese Falcon' and 'Casablanca', but they are such iconic films that they both forced their way into the quiz. The role of Rick Blaine saw Bogie playing his first role that was completely a romantic lead, as he struggled with the complexity of the love of his life needing his assistance to help her husband escape the Germans during World War II. Sidney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre play disreputable acquaintances, Claude Rains is an unashamedly corrupt police officer, Ingrid Bergman is in love with two men (Rick and her husband, played by Paul Henreid) - it's quite the international cast in this Moroccan city occupied by the Vichy French!

Sadly for Rick, the Motion Picture Production Code made it absolutely impossible that Ilsa could be shown leaving her husband for another man, so he and she both had to make the noble choice of sending her to support Victor and his ideals. The scene in which this is finally accomplished leads to the police officer protecting Rick by giving the instruction to his men to "round up the usual suspects" before the two men disappear into the fog, with Rick suggesting, "Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."

'To Have and Have Not' marked the film debut of Lauren Bacall, a 19-year-old girl with whom the 45-year-old (and married for the third time) Bogart fell in love; they subsequently married and remained together until his death nearly 20 years later. The film was loosely based on a novel by Ernest Hemingway (of whom director and producer was a close friend), and much of the screenplay was written by William Faulkner, making this the first film to have two Nobel Laureates in Literature involved in the screenplay. The film moved the setting from Cuba to the French colony of Martinique, using the fall of France and the presence of a Vichy French government in the Caribbean island to provide a context for the events that might increase its audience appeal. The film got mixed reviews (which is the polite way of saying that most of them found more to criticise than to compliment), but the chemistry between the two leads pulled in the audiences, and it was financially successful.

'Steve' Morgan (Bogart) runs a successful living chartering his sport-fishing boat to tourists, and wants to avoid getting entangled in the various political activities on the island. The arrival of 'Slim' Browning (Bacall) gets him involved against his will in assisting the Resistance after the Vichy authorities take away his passport and money. Of course, once he is in, he is all in.

The second film to feature the Bogie-Bacall pairing, which was filmed in 1945 and released at that time for overseas servicemen, had some scenes rewritten before the official release in 1946, to increase the emphasis on their characters' involvement onscreen. They were married shortly after the filming finished, so the studio's reluctance to emphasise what had been seen as an illicit relationship could be put aside in favor of pursuing the audience.

'The Big Sleep', based on Raymond Chandler's novel, is a classic film noir - so I am not going to try to explain the plot in all its intricacy and sense of uncertainty. Bogie is Philip Marlowe, a private detective who is employed to help sort out the debts of a woman who has become involved with the underworld. Her sister Vivian (Bacall) is aware that there is more to this than meets the eye.

This was the last of the four films featuring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall (the third being 'Dark Passage', released in 1947). Directed by John Huston, it co-starred Edward G Robinson (remember him from being the studio choice for 'The Maltese Falcon'?) as the villainous Johnny Rocco whose gang takes over the nearly-empty Hotel Largo run by Nora Temple (Bacall) and her father-in-law (played by Lionel Barrymore). Major Frank McLoud (Bogart), who had served with her late husband in Italy, is visiting them when they are taken hostage, hurricane season arrives, and people start dying.

Claire Trevor won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal of Gaye Dawn, one of the 'guests' and a former girlfriend of Johnny Rocco. One of the film's memorable scenes involves her being forced to sing an unaccompanied song ('Moanin' Low') before Johnny will give her the drink she craves; when she does so, but breaks down in the process, he insults her - then Frank quietly provides the promised drink. This scene reveals to Nora that Frank, in his own way, is just as much a hero as her dead husband had been.

When Katharine Hepburn was sent the script for 'The African Queen', she suggested that Bogie would be the ideal person to take on the role of Charlie Allnut. She must have known what she was talking about, as he won a Best Actor Oscar for his performance! About half of the film was shot in UK studios, while the balance was shot on location in Uganda and the Congo, which presented issues not only with the logistics of filming with the cameras of the day, but also with the actors' health. It is said that Bogart and director Jon Huston were the only two who did not fall ill, which they attributed to their hefty intake of whiskey instead of water.

When the Germans invade the small town where Rose (Hepburn) and her brother had been working as missionaries, Charlie and his steamboat named African Queen provide Rose with her only means of escape after her brother dies. The pair decide to use his boat to destroy a German vessel that is keeping the British from liberating the area. The film is set in World War I, based on a novella by CS Forester which actually portrayed the Germans as valiant foes, making the point that good people can be on both sides of a conflict. The pair's plan also failed - the author contending that warfare should be left to the experts, not civilians. At the time of filming, attitudes had changed sufficiently to have the Germans become definitely villainous, and the sabotage attempt successful.

Humphrey Bogart's portrayal of the increasingly-demented Lt. Commander Philip Francis Queeg earned him his final nomination for a Best Actor Academy Award, but he lost out to Marlon Brando for 'On the Waterfront'. This was one of seven Oscars for which 'The Caine Mutiny' was nominated, with no winners resulting.

The US Navy was unhappy with the way the film portrayed the service, and negotiations to gain their cooperation in producing this adaptation of Herman Wouk's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel took over a year. When the film was released, it included the following epigraph: "There has never been a mutiny in a ship of the United States Navy. The truths of this film lie not in its incidents, but in the way a few men meet the crisis of their lives."

Queeg starts his command as a strict disciplinarian, making no friends with his crew. Acts of incompetence and (at least apparent) cowardice, combined with his increasing obsession with petty disciplinary matters raise the temperature, and when he freezes in a moment of crisis two officers take over control - an act which may well have saved the ship, but which led to their court martial on mutiny charges.

'The Harder They Fall' was Humphrey Bogart's final film. When it was filmed, he was already ill with the oesophageal cancer that would lead to his death in 1957. The disease was diagnosed in January of 1956, the film was released in March.

Eddie Willis (Bogart) is hired by boxing promoter Nick Benko (Rod Steiger) to publicise a series of rigged fights involving Toro Moreno (Mike Lane), shrugging off his uneasiness because he needs the money he has been offered. By the end, of course, he achieves a higher moral understanding and sense of ethics.

One of the interesting features of this film was the use of actual boxers to portray the fighters. This started with Mike Lane as Toro, and included Max Baer and Jersey Joe Walcott. The boxer Primo Carnera sued the movie studio, contending that the character of Toro was based on him; he wanted compensation for the invasion of his privacy. Carnera had been a highly successful boxer, but with suggestions of mob connections behind his success, so this suit suggested that he saw a closer link between the two careers than just the fact that they were both extremely large men who boxed.