Lauren Bacall Movies
Following study at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and subsequent stage and modeling experience, legendary actress Lauren Bacall gained nationwide attention by posing for a 1943 cover of Harper's Bazaar magazine. This photo prompted film director Howard Hawks to put her under personal contract, wanting to "create" a movie star from fresh, raw material.For her screen debut, Hawks cast Bacall opposite Humphrey Bogart in To Have and Have Not (1944). The young actress was so nervous that she walked around with her chin pressed against her collarbone to keep from shaking. As a result, she had to glance upward every time she spoke, an affectation which came across as sexy and alluring, earning Bacall the nickname "The Look." She also spoke in a deep, throaty manner, effectively obscuring the fact that she was only 19-years-old. Thanks to the diligence of Hawks and his crew -- and the actress' unique delivery of such lines as "If you want anything, just whistle..." -- Bacall found herself lauded as the most sensational newcomer of 1944. She also found herself in love with Humphrey Bogart, whom she subsequently married.
Bogie and Bacall co-starred in three more films, which increased the actress' popularity, but also led critics to suggest that she was incapable of carrying a picture on her own. Bacall's disappointing solo turn in Confidential Agent (1945) seemed to confirm this, but the actress was a quick study and good listener, and before long she was turning in first-rate performances in such films as Young Man With a Horn (1950) and How to Marry a Millionaire (1953).
Bogart's death in 1957 after a long and painful bout with cancer left Bacall personally devastated, though, in the tradition of her show-must-go-on husband, she continued to perform to the best of her ability in films such as Designing Woman (1957) and The Gift of Love (1958). In the late '60s, after Bacall's second marriage to another hard-case actor, Jason Robards Jr., she received only a handful of negligible film roles and all but dropped out of moviemaking. In 1970, Bacall made a triumphant comeback in the stage production Applause, a musical adaptation of All About Eve, in which she played grand dame Margo Channing, a role originally played by Bette Davis in the film version.
Her sultry-vixen persona long in the past, Bacall spent the '70s playing variations on her worldly, resourceful Applause role, sometimes merely being decorative (Murder on the Orient Express, 1974), but most often delivering class-A performances (The Shootist, 1976). After playing the quasi-autobiographical part of a legendary, outspoken Broadway actress in 1981's The Fan, she spent the next ten years portraying Lauren Bacall -- and no one did it better. In 1993, Bacall proved once more that she was a superb actress and not merely a "professional personality" in the made-for-cable film The Portrait, in which she and her Designing Woman co-star Gregory Peck played a still-amorous elderly couple.
During the filming of The Mirror Has Two Faces (1996), Bacall traveled to France to accept a special César Award for her lifetime achievement in film. For her role in Mirror, which cast her as Barbra Streisand's mother, Bacall earned a Golden Globe award and an Oscar nomination. She continued to work on a number of projects into the next decade, including Diamonds, in which she appeared alongside Kirk Douglas, with whom she last co-starred in the 1950 romantic drama Young Man with a Horn. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Humphrey Bogart plays Harry Morgan, owner-operator of charter boat in wartime Martinique. Morgan's right-hand man is Eddie (Walter Brennan), a garrulous alky whose pet question to anyone and everyone is "Ever get stung by a dead bee?" While in port, Harry is approached by Free French activist Gerard (Marcel Dalio), who wants to charter Harry's boat to smuggle in an important underground leader. Adopting his usual I-stick-my-neck-out-for-no-one stance, Morgan refuses. Later on, he starts up a dalliance with Marie Browning (screen newcomer Lauren Bacall), an attractive pickpocket. In order to help Marie return to America, Harry agrees to Gerard's smuggling terms. He uses his boat to bring resistance fighter De Bursac (Walter Molnar) and De Bursac's wife Helene (Dolores Moran) into Martinique. The Vichy police, suspecting that something's amiss, hold Morgan's pal Eddie hostage, tormenting the poor rummy by denying him liquor. Predictably, Morgan comes to Eddie's rescue and manages to escape Martinique, with the delectable Marie as cozy company. In the hands of director Howard Hawks and screenwriters Jules Furthman and William Faulkner, the end result bore only a passing relation to the original story by Ernest Hemingway: instead, it was a virtual rehash (but a good one!) of the recently released Casablanca, replete with several of that film's cast members. The film's enduring popularity is primarily -- if not solely -- due to the sexy chemistry between Bogart and Bacall, especially in the legendary "You know how to whistle, don't you?" scene. The most salutary result of To Have & Have Not was the subsequent Bogart-Bacall marriage, which endured until his death in 1957. It's widely believed that Lauren Bacall's singing voice was dubbed in by a pre-puberty Andy Williams; this is not true. For the record, a more faithful-to-the-source cinemadaptation of the Hemingway original was filmed in 1950 as The Breaking Point. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Humphrey Bogart, Walter Brennan, (more)
- 1945
A Graham Greene novel was the source of the Warner Bros. espionage thriller Confidential Agent. Charles Boyer stars as Denard, a former concert musician operating as anti-Fascist secret agent in the Spanish Civil War. While negotiating with the neutral British for some much needed fuel supplies, Denard falls in love with gorgeous Rose Cullen (Lauren Bacall) Sympathetic to his cause, Rose helps Denard contend with such backstabbing villains as Contreras (Peter Lorre) and Mrs. Melandy (Katina Paxinou, who'd ironically won an Academy Award for her sympathetic potrayal in another Spanish Civil War drama, For Whom the Bell Tolls). Critics in 1945 liked Confidential Agent but trounced leading lady Lauren Bacall, suggesting that she was merely a pretty amateur who'd coasted to stardom via her associations with actor Humphrey Bogart and director Howard Hawks. At this point in her career, Bacall was inclined to agree with her detractors-though in time, she certainly proved them wrong. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Charles Boyer, Lauren Bacall, (more)
The definitive Humphrey Bogart/Lauren Bacall vehicle, The Big Sleep casts Bogart as Raymond Chandler's cynical private eye Philip Marlowe. Summoned to the home of the fabulously wealthy General Sternwood (Charles Waldron), Marlowe is hired to deal with a blackmailer shaking down the General's sensuous, thumb-sucking daughter Carmen (Martha Vickers). This earns Marlowe the displeasure of Carmen's sloe-eyed, seemingly straight-laced older sister Vivian (Bacall), who is fiercely protective of her somewhat addled sibling. As he pursues the case at hand, Marlowe gets mixed up in the murder of Arthur Geiger (Theodore von Eltz), a dealer in pornography. He also runs afoul of gambling-house proprietor Eddie Mars (John Ridgely), who seems to have some sort of hold over the enigmatic Vivian. Any further attempts to outline the plot would be futile: the storyline becomes so complicated and convoluted that even screenwriters William Faulkner, Leigh Brackett, and Jules Furthmann were forced to consult Raymond Chandler for advice (he was as confused by the plot as the screenwriters). When originally prepared for release in 1945, The Big Sleep featured a long exposition scene featuring police detective Bernie Ohls (Regis Toomey) explaining the more obscure plot details. This expository scene was ultimately sacrificed, along with several others, in favor of building up Bacall's part; for instance, a climactic sequence was reshot to emphasize sexual electricity between Bogart and Bacall, obliging Warners to replace a supporting player who'd gone on to another project. The end result was one of the most famously baffling film noirs but also one of the most successful in sheer star power. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, (more)
- 1946
If Paramount could rake in the bucks by teaming singer Bing Crosby and comedian Bob Hope in a series of Road pictures, then Warner Bros. could do the same. Lacking a Crosby or Hope, Warners paired Dennis Morgan and Jack Carson (who like Crosby and Hope were good buddies off-screen) and came up with the Two Guys series--which lasted two pictures. Two Guys From Milwaukee cast Carson as a wisecracking cabdriver and Morgan as a likable Balkan prince. Anxious to learn the "American way," Morgan joins Carson for a night on the town. Along the way, the boys fall in love with Joan Leslie and Janis Paige (Warners wasn't satisfied with just one Dorothy Lamour counterpart); and if you keep your eyes open, you'll see Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall in a closing-scene cameo. Two Guys From Milwaukee had its premiere showing in the "beer city" of the title--which happened to be the childhood home of both Dennis Morgan and Jack Carson. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dennis Morgan, Jack Carson, (more)
Robert Montgomery's 1946 film Lady in the Lake attempted to tell the entire story with a "subjective camera": shooting the film from the point of view of the main character, with the camera acting as his "eyes". The first hour or so of Dark Passage does the same thing--and the results are far more successful than anything seen in Montgomery's film. Humphrey Bogart heads the cast as an escaped convict, wrongly accused of his wife's murder. After being forced to beat up a man (Clifton Young) from whom he's hitched a ride, Bogart hides out in the apartment of Lauren Bacall, while recovering from plastic surgery, and tries to set about locating the actual murderer. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, (more)
Richard Brooks and John Huston's screenplay for Huston's Key Largo eschews the lofty blank verse of Maxwell Anderson's original play, concentrating instead on the simmering tensions among the many characters. Humphrey Bogart plays Frank McCloud, an embittered war veteran who travels to Key Largo in Florida, there to meet Nora Temple (Lauren Bacall), the wife of his deceased war buddy. Arriving at a tumbledown hotel managed by Nora's father-in-law James Temple (Lionel Barrymore), McCloud discovers that the establishment has been taken over by exiled gangster Johnny Rocco (Edward G. Robinson) and what's left of his mob. Also in attendance is Gaye Dawn (Claire Trevor), Rocco's alcoholic girlfriend. While the others bristle at the thought of being held at bay by the gangsters, the disillusioned McCloud refuses to get involved: "One Rocco more or less isn't worth dying for." As he awaits a contact who is bringing him enough money to skip the country, Rocco is responsible for the deaths of a deputy sheriff and two local Indian youth. Unwilling to take a stand before these tragedies, McCloud finally comes to realize that Rocco is a beast who must be destroyed. To save the others from harm, McCloud agrees to pilot Rocco's boat to Cuba through the storm-tossed waters. Just before McCloud leaves, Gaye Dawn slips him a gun -- which leads to the deadly final confrontation between McCloud and Rocco. His resolve to go on living renewed by this cathartic experience, McCloud heads back to Nora, with whom he's fallen in love. Claire Trevor's virtuoso performance as a besotted ex-nightclub singer won her an Academy Award -- as predicted by her admiring fellow actors, who watched her go through several very difficult scenes in long, uninterrupted takes. While Key Largo sags a bit during its more verbose passages, on a visual level the film is one of the best and most evocative examples of the "film noir" school. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Humphrey Bogart, Edward G. Robinson, (more)
- 1950
Bright Leaf, a sprawling saga of the tobacco industry in North Carolina, began as a novel by Foster Fitzsimmons, a native Carolinian who for many years taught at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill's theatre department. The film version of Bright Leaf has been simplified and reshaped to serve as a traditional Gary Cooper vehicle. Cooper stars as tenant farmer Brant Royle, who after being driven from his home town by autocratic tobacco tycoon Major Singleton (Donald Crisp) returns in triumph with a revolutionary cigarette-making machine. Royle's streamlined techniques soon drive Singleton out of business. Margaret Singleton (Patricia Neal), Royle's old flame, agrees to marry him to save her father from ruin--whereupon the Major commits suicide. The vengeful Margaret then does everything she can to destroy Royle. The question remaining: can Brant Royle save himself and find ultimate happiness with his true love, Sonia Kovac (Lauren Bacall)? Also appearing in Bright Leaf are Jack Carson as Royle's flamboyant business partner Chris Malley and Jeff Corey as John Barton, the inventor of the "miracle" cigarette-making apparatus. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gary Cooper, Lauren Bacall, (more)
The life of tragic jazz great Bix Beiderbecke is given the "a clef" treatment in Warner Bros. Young Man With a Horn. Kirk Douglas plays the Beiderbecke character, here named Rick Martin. An ace trumpter player, Martin is one of the few white musicians to flourish in the black-dominated jazz scene of the 1920s. Chafing against the dullness of the "respectable" orchestras for whom he works, Martin finds at least two kindred spirits in the forms of torch singer Jo Jordan (Doris Day) and piano player Smoke Willoughby (Hoagy Carmichael). He rises to popularity with his own group, and along the way falls under the spell of wealthy jazz patroness Lauren Bacall. After marrying Bacall, Martin begins neglecting his music and turns more and more to alcohol. When he skips one of her fancy parties to attend the funeral of his mentor Juano Hernandez, Bacall angrily smashes all his jazz records, effectively ending what was never a very solid relationship. Crawling into a bottle, Martin loses his touch with the trumpet-a heartbreaking sequence, in which he goes to pieces in the middle of the pop standard "With a Song in My Heart". Unlike the real Beiderbecke, who died of alcoholism at the age of 28, Rick Martin is rescued by his faithful friends Day and Carmichael. Kirk Douglas' trumpeteering in Young Man with a Horn was effectively dubbed by Harry James, while jazz pianists Buddy Cole and Jimmy Zito make uncredited soundtrack contributions. The film was adapted by Carl Foreman and Edmund H. North from a novel by Dorothy Baker. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Kirk Douglas, Lauren Bacall, (more)
A remake of 1933's The Greeks Had a Word for Them, as well as a retread of 20th Century-Fox's favorite plotline, How to Marry a Millionaire was the first Hollywood comedy to be lensed in Cinemascope. Lauren Bacall, Betty Grable and Marilyn Monroe play three models of modest means who rent an expensive Manhattan penthouse apartment and pose as women of wealth. It's all part of a scheme hatched by Bacall to snare rich husbands for herself and her roommates. The near-sighted Monroe is wooed by an international playboy, but ends up settling for the tax-dodging fugitive (David Wayne) who owns the girls' apartment. The knuckle-headed Grable goes off on an illicit weekend in the mountains with a grouchy married executive (Fred Clark), but falls instead for a comparatively poor--but very handsome--forest ranger (Rory Calhoun). And Bacall very nearly lands an aging millionaire (William Powell), but has a sudden attack of conscience and opts instead for the supposedly poverty-stricken chap (Cameron Mitchell) who has been pursuing her since reel one. It turns out that she has actually landed one of the richest men in New York--and upon learning this, our three luscious heroines faint dead away. Before the opening credits roll in How to Marry a Millionaire, we are treated to a "live" orchestral rendition of Alfred Newman's "Street Scene" overture, conducted by Newman himself. In addition to its being the first wide-screen comedy, Millionaire was also the first-ever presentation of the weekly NBC series Saturday Night at the Movies, premiering on the small screen on September 23, 1961. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Betty Grable, Marilyn Monroe, (more)
- 1954
In this subtle 1954 comedy with feminist overtones, Clifton Webb plays Gifford, an executive with a large automobile manufacturer who is having trouble deciding who to hire as his chief sales manager. His three candidates are equally competent, so he brings their wives with them to New York headquarters, planning to hire the one whose wife is most suited to be an executive's wife. Elizabeth (Lauren Bacall) is the wife of Sid (Fred MacMurray), a company man. Elizabeth knows that Sid is such a workaholic that she will never see him if he gets the new job, but she is loyal to her husband and impresses the hiring team with her competency. Bill Baxter (Cornel Wilde) is handicapped in the competition by his wife Katie (June Allyson), a clumsy but sweet small-town girl from the Midwest. Katie dutifully tries to impress the big boss but proves inept at handling the social responsibilities. She would prefer to stay in Kansas City anyway. Jerry (Van Heflin) is married to Carol (Arlene Dahl), a seductive gold-digger who sexually teases various executives in the hopes that her assets can help land Jerry the job. Instead, her out-of-bounds behavior gets Jerry eliminated from the list, at least until Jerry tells Gifford that he doesn't sanction his wife's behavior. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Clifton Webb, June Allyson, (more)
John Wayne teaches those dirty Commies yet another lesson in Blood Alley. Wayne plays a veteran seaman who comes to the aid of Lauren Bacall, the daughter of a missionary doctor killed by the Red Chinese. It takes no little persuasion, but Bacall finally convinces Wayne to smuggle a group of villagers past the Communist forces and into the safe harbor of Hong Kong. Though there are many close calls, Wayne proves to be a shade smarter and more resourceful than the minions of Mao. Lauren Bacall plays her stock character with cool professionalism, though this sort of fare isn't really her cup of tea. Far better within the framework of the film are Paul Fix, Berry Kroeger, and Anita Ekberg, who aren't the most convincing "Chinese" in the world but who seem to fit right in with the blood-and-thunder proceedings. A. S. Fleischman adapted the screenplay of Blood Alley from his own novel. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Wayne, Lauren Bacall, (more)
- 1955
William Gibson's novel The Cobweb was brought to the screen by MGM with an impressive, hand-picked cast. Richard Widmark plays the head of a posh psychiatric clinic. Widmark's wife Gloria Grahame jockeys for the honor of selecting new drapes for the hospital's library. One wouldn't think that such a trivial decision would spark so much melodrama; but thanks to those drapes, we are allowed to probe the disturbed psyches of martinet business affairs director Lillian Gish, philandering doctor Charles Boyer, lonely activities director Lauren Bacall, and suicidal patient John Kerr. Oscar Levant, who spent most of his life in and out of "little white rooms", is ideally cast as a neurotic musician, while Fay Wray has a superb cameo as Boyer's long-suffering wife. Cobweb served as the screen debuts for both John Kerr and Susan Strasberg. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Richard Widmark, Lauren Bacall, (more)
Perhaps the definitive Douglas Sirk production, Written on the Wind is based on the novel by Robert Wilder. The story revolves around the Hadleys, a wealthy but thoroughly debauched family of Texas oil millionaires. Robert Stack is self-destructive alcoholic Kyle Hadley, while Dorothy Malone won an Oscar for her equally vivid potrayal of Kyle's nymphomaniac sister Marylee. Kyle manages to win beautiful, level-headed advertising executive Lucy Moore (Lauren Bacall) away from his best friend, virile Hadley Oil geologist Mitch Wayne (Rock Hudson), but Lucy soon comes to regret her decision to marry into the hell-on-earth Hadley family. When Lucy becomes pregnant, Kyle assumes that Mitch is the father, leading to a maelstrom of fever-pitch emotionalism and stark tragedy. Before he quite knows what is happening, Mitch is on trial for murder; the one person who can clear him is the craven Marylee, who demands Mitch's sexual favors as the price for her testimony. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Rock Hudson, Lauren Bacall, (more)
Vincente Minnelli directed this sophisticated comedy, which owes a debt to Spencer Tracy/Katherine Hepburn vehicles. Sportswriter Mike Hagen (Gregory Peck) and fashion designer Marilla (Lauren Bacall) are New Yorkers who meet while both are vacationing in California. It's love at first sight, and the two decide on the spur of the moment to get married. However, once they return to the Big Apple, it starts to occur to them just how different they are after Mike moves out of his sloppy bachelor lair in the Village and joins Marilla in her luxury flat on the Upper East Side. While they try to sort out their differences, Mike encounters his former girlfriend Lori (Dolores Gray), while Marilla runs into her onetime beau Zachary (Tom Helmore); given the haste with which they married, neither of their exes had yet heard that Mike and Marilla were hitched, and the notion that they could still be lured away hangs in the air. Meanwhile, Mike has written a series of articles exposing corruption in boxing, which earns him no friends among some ill-mannered Gotham mobsters. Bacall's sparkling comic performance was a remarkable display of personal strength; as the movie was being filmed, her husband Humphrey Bogart was suffering from the last stages of the cancer that would soon claim his life. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gregory Peck, Lauren Bacall, (more)
- 1958
The Gift of Love is a remake of 1946's Sentimental Journey, with Lauren Bacall in the role originated by Maureen O'Hara. Upon learning that she hasn't long to live, Bacall, the devoted wife of Robert Stack, adopts young Evelyn Rudie so that her husband will never be lonely. After his wife's death, however, the pragmatic Stack grows weary of little Evelyn, who prefers a "fantasy world" to real life. Stack returns the girl to the orphanage, whereupon Bacall's spirit intervenes to set things right. The material was maudlin back in 1946, and even more so in 1958; still, it's nice to see that Lauren Bacall could play a sweet, benign role when given the opportunity. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Lauren Bacall, Robert Stack, (more)
- 1959
Northwest Frontier was the original British title for Flame Over India. When the Moslems attack a British fortress in colonial India, it is imperative that the local Maharaja's son be taken to safety. The man for the job is commander Kenneth More, who uses a rusty old train for that purpose. Among the other fugitives is the boy's British governess Lauren Bacall and the untrustworthy Herbert Lom. A cat-and-mouse session between good and bad guys segues into a heart-pounding chase through the frontier. Welcome comedy relief is in the hands of I.S. Johar as a grizzled old engineer. It looks like a western and sounds like a western, and the original title Northwest Frontier completes the illusion that we're watching Cowboys and Indians rather than Indians and Moslems. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Kenneth More, Lauren Bacall, (more)
Helen Gurley Brown's self-help best-seller was the nominal source for this Hollywood sex romp, directed by Richard Quine, co-scripted by Joseph Heller and David R. Schwartz, and starring Tony Curtis and Natalie Wood. Tony Curtis plays Bob Weston, a writer for the scandal sheet "Dirt," who is working on an article on research psychologist Helen Gurley Brown (Natalie Wood) and her best-selling book Sex and the Single Girl. Bob needs to interview Helen, but she refuses to see him. Bob impersonates one of her neighbors, Frank Broderick (Henry Fonda), as a ruse in order to see her on the pretext of marital counseling. After several meetings, Bob attempts to seduce her; after they fall out of a boat and head back to Helen's apartment to dry out, Bob plies her with martinis. Rip-roarin' drunk, Helen confesses her love for Bob. He assures her it's fine, since he's not legally married, but Helen doesn't believe him and asks to meet his wife, Sylvia (Lauren Bacall). To fill up the breach, Bob mistakenly sends both his secretary, Susan (Leslie Parrish), and his ex-girlfriend Gretchen (Fran Jeffries) to see Helen -- both impersonating Sylvia. When the real Sylvia arrives at Helen's apartment with the two other women, Sylvia has her hapless husband Frank put in jail for bigamy. By this point, Helen has realized Bob's skullduggery and leaves town with her colleague Rudy DeMeyer (Mel Ferrer). Bob chases Helen onto the San Diego Freeway, where they also encounter Frank, who is being followed in a cab by Sylvia. A wild chase ensues as the bickering couples try to make it to their flights at the L.A. airport. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tony Curtis, Natalie Wood, (more)
- 1964
In this offbeat melodrama, a crazed gardener is relegated to a mental hospital after he goes berserk and beheads his wealthy boss. The scuttlebutt in the courtroom is that the killer has stolen over a million dollars from his former employer and has hidden it on the estate. A professional actor is hired to feign insanity to get into the home, befriend the maniac, and find out where he hid the cash. Once he is admitted, the hapless actor encounters bedlam as he meets the patients, undergoes electroshock therapy, and suffers through several injections. Eventually he finds himself falling for a manic-depressive woman. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Stuart Whitman, Lauren Bacall, (more)
- 1965
Double Jeopardy was the hour-long pilot for a potential TV detective series titled Pay the Piper. Hugh O'Brian stars as Fred Piper, a jet-setting private eye who takes on cases no one else can solve. Right now he's trying to find out what happened to a missing millionaire, a task made difficult by the millionaire's wife, Lauren Bacall. For some reason, Bacall doesn't want Piper to question her identical twin sister (note the title "Double Jeopardy"). Also featured in this mystery are Tom Poston, likewise cast in a dual role, and Zsa Zsa Gabor as Piper's private jet pilot (How'd you like to be her air traffic controller?) Double Jeopardy was originally telecast January 8, 1965, on NBC's Bob Hope Chrysler Theatre. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Screenwriter William Goldman has claimed that Paul Newman agreed to do Harper, the film that established the grateful writer's career, only because he was working unhappily on Lady L. (1965) in Europe, and was looking for something as unlike that film as possible. He stars as Lew Harper, a hip L.A. private dick whose business has gotten so bad that he's re-using his coffee grounds. At the suggestion of his friend, attorney Albert Graves (Arthur Hill), the detective takes on the investigation of the disappearance of the wealthy husband of waspish cripple Elaine Sampson (Lauren Bacall). After finding a photograph of former actress Fay Estabrook (Shelley Winters), Harper locates the alcoholic actress in a bar, plies her with booze, and takes her home to search her apartment while she's unconscious. There he takes a call which leads him to another bar to meet Betty Fraley (Julie Harris), a singer with a heroin problem. To curtail his inquisitive behavior, some large and unpleasant gentleman beat him up outside the saloon. Hoping for sympathy from his soon to be ex-wife (Janet Leigh), who has just filed divorce papers, the weary detective is much more successful than he has any right to expect. ~ Michael Costello, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Paul Newman, Lauren Bacall, (more)
Like many of Agatha Christie's mysteries, Murder on the Orient Express is predicated on an actual event, in this case the Lindbergh kidnapping. In the movie, everyone on board the Orient Express seems to have concluded that hateful financier Ratchett (Richard Widmark) was behind the abduction and murder of the infant daughter of a famed aviatrix. Thus, when Ratchett is himself found murdered, everyone is suspect. Normally, the police would handle the investigation, but the train has been stalled by a snowslide halfway between Istanbul and Paris. Thus, it's up to the insufferable but brilliant Belgian detective Hercule Poirot (an unrecognizable Albert Finney) to activate his "little grey cells" and determine who's guilty. Among the suspects are colorful characters played by Lauren Bacall, Martin Balsam, Jacqueline Bisset, Sean Connery, Wendy Hiller, John Gielgud, Anthony Perkins, Vanessa Redgrave, and Ingrid Bergman, whose performance won her a third Academy Award. (In her acceptance speech, Bergman apologized for her win, insisting that Day for Night's Valentina Cortese deserved the prize.) The first and best in a long line of contemporary Christie adaptations, the film scores on atmosphere, period detail, and richness of characterization. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Albert Finney, Lauren Bacall, (more)
About ten minutes into The Shootist, Doctor Hostetler (James Stewart) tells aging Western gunfighter John Bernard Books (John Wayne), "You have a cancer." Knowing that his death will be painful and lingering, Books is determined to be shot in the line of "duty." In his remaining two months, Books settles scores with old enemies, including gambler Pulford (Hugh O'Brian) and Marshall Thibido (Harry Morgan) and reaches out to new friends, including a feisty widow (Lauren Bacall) and her hero-worshipping son (Ron Howard). Throughout the film, Books' imminent demise is compared with the decline of the West, as represented by the automobiles and streetcars that have begun to blight the main street of Books' hometown. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Wayne, Lauren Bacall, (more)
- 1978
We're not sure who the gentlemen are in this TV movie adaptation of Nora Ephron's Perfect Gentlemen, but there's no doubt as to the identity of the ladies. The plot revolves around three convict's wives. Sandy Dennis owns a bankrupt deli; Lisa Pelikan is pregnant and broke; and Lauren Bacall (in her TV movie debut) is the wealthy wife of an incarcerated labor leader, who has just learned that her husband was cheating on her. Teaming up, the three ladies plan to steal the million dollars that was supposed to secure the release of Bacall's errant hubby. Along for the ride is Lisa Pelikan's mother-in-law Ruth Gordon, a veteran safecracker. Perfect Gentlemen sags a bit a midpoint, but overall is good underhanded fun. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1979
In the conclusion of a two-part story (originally telecast as a single "TV movie"), glamorous socialite Kendall Warren (Lauren Bacall) insists upon helping Jim (James Garner) track down the mysterious assailant who has been trying to kill her--and to find out why she has been thus targetted. This case hits a snag when the most likely suspect, gangster Tommy Minnette (Carmine Caridi), ends up murdered himself. And what has become of Princess Irene (Dana Wynter), the woman who hired Jim to protect Kendall in the first place? ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
