BOGART & BACALL: A Love Story

Replay it again, Joe. That Lauren (Betty) Bacall is the only person who's qualified to write about her eleven-year marriage to Bogart is beside the point. That the author Hyams has seen fit to lift a substantial amount of this ""love story"" from his own Bogie (1966) isn't. For the benefit of short-memoried fans, Bacall was an unknown model and Bogart was regretfully married to his boozing, bruising third wife Mayo Methot when they first hit it off on the set of To Have and Have Not. A true romance developed despite their 25-year age difference--""He had grown up with all the advantages of wealth, education and a WASP background, while Betty was a Jewish girl from the Bronx. These two people prove the truth of the old saw that opposites attract."" What's gleaned from their life together consists of familiar family scenes--whether tending to their two children, yachting aboard the Santana, or holding court at Romanoff's. Whatever the reason, their union both prospered and endured. Bogart--described as ""supremely self-confident"" in the earlier version--emerges here as ""a man full of private fears."" And ""Betty was his buffer against the world."" A blatant rip-off.