BOGEY: The Good-Bad Guy

Bogey never faltered, he slapped the broads and hustled them to taxis, sent them packing...As a star, he bloomed late and when the big kiss-off came for Bogey, he was at the peak of his career. Through the Thirties he seems to have been as Edward G. Robinson remembers him: an insecure, faintly bitter, unhappily married player of second-level gangster roles. The culmination of his phase of his career was his role as Duke Mantee in The Petrified Forest. Then he was daringly cast as a strong-willed good guy in The Maltese Falcon and opposite a mature actress (Ingrid Bergman) in Casablanca, and with these he grew personally and as an actor. After the war he gave his fine performances as Fred C. Dobbs the prospector, Charlie the alcoholic boat pilot, Captain Queeg of the Caine, and a handful of rounded characterizations..Ezra Goodman interviewed Bogey for several months for a Time cover story. He also interviewed Bogey's wife, Lauren Bacall, agent, manager, fellow actors and so on; Time used almost none of his material but he kept his notes. He recently re-interviewed several of these same film folk. The results, as presented here, are an utter shambles, cynical, repetitious and badly, boorishly written. Still, Bogey emerges and plays this lousy script like a pro.