Martha Vickers – the starlet who dared to upstage Lauren Bacall

2017-06-22 By aenigma

Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall and Martha Vickers in The Big Sleep — Marlowe (Humphrey Bogart) and Vivian (Lauren Bacall) discuss what to do with the delinquent Carmen (Martha Vickers) in The Big Sleep (1946).

Martha Vickers was one of the most tantalizing actresses of the 1940s. Today, she’s remembered for her firecracker portrayal of Carmen Sternwood in The Big Sleep and for her turn as the third of Mickey Rooney’s eight wives.

The story of Martha Vickers’ early career is told in an article published in the October 1945 issue of Pic magazine – available for you to read as a separate, illustrated article on aenigma.

What’s so intriguing about Martha is what might have been. In The Big Sleep (1946) – Howard Hawks’ great film noir based on Raymond Chandler’s novel of the same name, she is fabulously slutty as Carmen Sternwood, Lauren Bacall’s out-of-control, drug-addicted, nymphomaniac little sister.

Indeed, according to Martha’s brief biography on Turner Classic Movies, Raymond Chandler claimed that she gave such an incredible performance that she upstaged Lauren Bacall. Since the movie was intended as a vehicle to promote the Bogart Bacall chemistry that had been such a success for Warner Bros with audiences of To Have and Have Not (1944), many of Martha’s scenes ended up on the cutting-room floor.

Martha Vickers, pin-up

1945. Martha Vickers' costume, a kind of cross between a bustier and a swimsuit, and the setting carry overtones of...

Martha Vickers, dream girl

Around 1945. Dream, baby, dream. Martha Vickers gets into the zone for Jack Woods, as the caption on the back...

Martha Vickers, bathing beauty

Around 1945. Martha Vickers models a lurex bathing suit that might be suitable for sunbathing but might not survive a...

Martha Vickers, babe

Around 1944. For some reason, photographers seem to have a penchant for shooting Martha Vickers supine – which with a...

Martha Vickers, cover girl

Around 1946. That made-to-measure, body-hugging, ruched top that Martha Vickers is modelling is quite something. It's the perfect foil for...

Martha Vickers, tomb maiden

1944. Seated in a tomb and flanked by a pair of Egyptian statues, could Martha Vickers be an offering to...

Martha Vickers, porn star

1945. Martha Vickers as Carmen Sternwood in The Big Sleep sits beneath a lowering Buddha. She’s come for a pornographic...

Martha Vickers, menace

1945. Martha Vickers' character in The Big Sleep, Carmen Sternwood, is a loose cannon. Here, pistol at the ready, she...

Martha Vickers, baby doll

1945. Martha Vickers is irresistibly cute in a sequined and feathered costume. The caption on a variant of this photo...

Martha Vickers, blonde bombshell

Around 1947. It looks like Martha Vickers has been on the receiving end of a decision by Warner Bros that...

So how did an apparently unremarkable, albeit very attractive, ingénue come to threaten to steal the show? The anecdotes that swirl around the making of The Big Sleep offer some revealing insights. In Hawks on Hawks, the director recalls:

We had a great start for that little girl, where Bogart said, “Somebody ought to housebreak her.” I made her sit around almost a day trying little things, taking a piece of hair and bringing it down and looking at it, you know. Because I didn’t want her to be Stella Stevens or somebody like that. I wanted her to be a well-dressed little girl who just happened to be a nymphomaniac.

1. Marlowe meets Carmen

In the opening scene of The Big Sleep, private detective Philip Marlowe (Humphrey Bogart) arrives at the mansion of General Sternwood where he meets his provocatively flirtatious daughter, Carmen (Martha Vickers).

2. Carmen off her head

Marlowe breaks into the house of Arthur Gwynn Geiger, where he finds Carmen doped up to the eyeballs with a corpse at her feet. The quality of the video doesn't do justice to the quality of the scene.

3 The eye of the Beholder

In The Eye of the Beholder (1953), Richard Conte plays Michael Girard, who is viewed by the other characters as everything from a philanderer to a murderer, and we see the story played out from each of the character’s point of view. It’s worth a watch but if you’re pressed for time, fast forward to 21:40 to see Martha Vickers in the dénouement. Don't be put off by the lip sync!

It must have been quite an experience for the inexperienced Martha Vickers, as this anecdote related by Sheila O’Malley reveals:

Howard Hawks had an idea for one of the scenes – where Marlowe (Bogart) comes into the house, and finds Vickers sitting, all dressed up in the empty house – drugged out, sexed up, in the aftermath of some sexual event. Marlowe can immediately tell that obviously some kind of porno photo shoot had been going on. And Marlowe comes upon her, she is high on drugs, and completely out of it. Anyway, Hawks had an idea for this scene (which ended up not making it into the movie – no wonder, with the censorship of the day!): He wanted Vickers to simulate an orgasm, as she sat there, looking up at Bogart. He wanted her to be in that quivery zone where you basically don’t even need physical contact to “get there” – he wanted her to be the kind of woman who lives in that state.

So Hawks asked her to do so. He gave her this piece of direction in front of Bogart, Regis Toomey (who plays the DA – wonderful stolid character actor), and a couple of other people, members of the crew, etc. You know, moviemaking has a mystique about it but there is also a no-nonsense quality to it that I find refreshing.

Hawks said, “Sweetheart, what we want here is for you to simulate that you’re having an orgasm.”

Martha Vickers asked, “What’s an orgasm?”

Nobody spoke. Nobody knew what to do. They all just stood there, awkward as hell, stunned to silence. Hawks, Bogart, and Toomey – grown men – standing there with a teenage actress – who was asking them (in all innocence) what an orgasm was. Dead silence. Hawks called a 10-minute break. (hahahaha) I mean – what else could you do? Hawks then pulled Toomey aside and asked Toomey to please go and “explain to Miss Vickers what an orgasm is”. I love that Howard Hawks, supposedly the most macho guy in the universe, couldn’t bring himself to go explain it to her – he had to have someone else go do it.

Toomey, who apparently was a good-natured fellow, married with a bunch of kids, the product of a strict Irish Catholic upbringing, gamely went over to Martha and explained to her what an orgasm was. (Wish I could have been a fly on the wall for that one.)

Toomey said later to Bogart, “The girl didn’t know anything. I asked, ‘Are you a virgin?’ ‘Uh yes.’ ‘Do you know what an orgasm is? Mr. Hawks wants you to be having an orgasm here.’ ‘No, I don’t know what it is.’ ‘You don’t know what an orgasm is?’ ‘No.’ And so, dammit, I explained to her what an orgasm was. And she got the idea all right. Howard liked the scene very much.”

Martha Vickers and Louis Jean Heydt in The Big Sleep — Carmen (Martha Vickers) threatens Joe Brody (Louis Jean Heydt), a gambler who has been blackmailing her father in The Big Sleep (1946).

How embarrassing was that? Still, judging by her performance, Martha was a quick learner. But perhaps only on quite a superficial level. She would go on to make another 11 movie appearances including in three more noirs, but in none of them would her performance come anywhere close to what she achieved in The Big Sleep. Luck and the vagaries of the Hollywood studios no doubt played their part but it seems that Martha Vickers needed a great director to conjure a great performance from her. That is certainly the impression given by Hawks in an interview with John Kobal:

Now … in The Big Sleep I used a little round-eyed girl to play a nymphomaniac … Martha Vickers … I think she married Mickey Rooney at one time … Lovely. And I made her cut her curls off and gave her … a kind of close … boyish haircut and I taught her two or three things. She played a nymphomaniac, and the studio signed her for a long-term contract with more money than she’d ever gotten. … Okay, she got her first salary check and went down and bought a lot of girly dresses with a lot of … little bows and ruffles and … She started playing a nice girl, and they fired her after six months. And she came to me and said, “What happened?” I said, “You’re just stupid. Why didn’t you keep on playing that part?” “Well, that was a nymphomaniac.” “Look, it’s only a nymphomaniac because I told you so. They liked you on the screen. And you did such a great job of it because you weren’t trying to get sympathy or anything. You were a little bitch. Why didn’t you keep doing that?”

Too bad Martha Vickers didn’t get to work again with Howard Hawks and we never get to see more of her undoubted talent.

Want to know more about Martha Vickers?

The two Howard Hawks quotes are from Hawks on Hawks by Joseph McBride and People Will Talk by John Kobal. You can find the orgasm anecdote at The Sheila Variations. The best source for the reported facts of Martha Vickers’ life is Glamour Girls of the Silver Screen and there’s a nice appreciation by Jake Hinkson of her performance in The Big Sleep at criminalelement.com.

Martha Vickers – a good bet for stardom

2017-06-15 By aenigma

Martha Vickers, like many other starlets, came to the attention of the Hollywood studios because of her looks.

With her cascade of brown-blonde tresses, blue eyes and svelte figure, she had no problem turning heads, as evidenced by the photos here.

An article about Martha Vickers in the October 1945 issue of Pic magazine, no doubt promoted by Warner Bros as part of their publicity drive for their upcoming movie, The Big Sleep, predicts great things for her. It also charts her early career.

The caption under the leading photo (not reproduced here) reveals that Martha “has long been a favorite subject with photographers the country over and the reasons here are obvious. Typical of America’s young womanhood, she is 5 feet 4 and weighs 104 pounds.”

Martha’s A Good Bet For Stardom

Little Miss Vickers Has Stepped Boldly From Being an Artists’ Model to Top-Flight Movies BY DON ALLEN

The career of Martha Vickers is perfect evidence that the “if at first you don’t succeed—” method is still a good one. After a couple of unsuccessful starts in Hollywood, Martha is now under contract to Warner Bros. studios where she is considered to be an excellent bet for stardom.

Her first picture at Warners was “The Big Sleep” under the guiding hand of Director Howard Hawks. The picture, as yet unreleased, stars the famous team of Bogart and Bacall. Miss Vickers played the part of the schizophrenic young sister, a highly dramatic part that gave her a fine opportunity for emotional acting. Studio executives who have seen it are very enthusiastic over her work.

Miss Vickers has completed one picture since “The Big Sleep” and is currently working in a third, so there is a possibility that she will have completed three films before the public gets a glimpse of her on the screen. Her second picture is called “The Time, the Place and the Girl” in which she has the leading feminine role opposite Dennis Morgan and Jack Carson. She is currently working in the picture called “The Man I Love” in which she will have featured billing along with such other important players as Ida Lupino, Robert Alda and Andrea King.

Martha got her first start in pictures through her work as a photographer’s model. When she was 15 she was sitting in a drive-in in Long Beach and a famous cover photographer saw her. He asked her if she would pose for him. She did, and the result was a cover picture on Liberty. After that she worked for most of the well known Hollywood cover and fashion photographers such as Hurrell, Hesse and Engstead.

Martha Vickers, innocent abroad

1944. Martha Vickers, 19 years old and still under her birth name. A caption on the back of the photo...

Martha Vickers, ingenue

1944. Martha Vickers, RKO promotional photo for Marine Raiders. Marine Raiders was Martha's second credited appearance (the first being in...

Martha Vickers, starlet

1944. Martha Vickers poses demurely in front of a zebra-print background. A caption on another photo from the same shoot...

Martha Vickers, fashion model

Around 1945. Martha Vickers models a printed cotton day dress with padded shoulders and belted waist. In September 1945 her...

Martha Vickers, sweetheart

1945. Martha Vickers smoulders in a fitted lamé bodice. Seaman Cal Kerry clearly has a lot to look forward to,...

Martha Vickers, European traveller

Around 1945. In this "leg art" shot, Martha Vickers poses in a skimpy ensemble in front of a map of...

Martha Vickers, Mexican heroine

1944. Martha Vickers, Warner Bros promotional photo for The Falcon in Mexico. No wonder that she worked as a model...

Martha Vickers, pin-up

Around 1946. Martha Vickers flirts with the camera in an outrageous ensemble that pairs black velvet gloves with a diaphanous...

A color photograph of her was seen by David Selznick, who forthwith signed her. Selznick gave her drama and diction lessons for a year without casting her in a picture, and when option time came up her contract was dropped. That, naturally, was a great disappointment to her, but she went back to modeling and it wasn’t long before a well-known Hollywood agent took her under his wing and got her a contract at R-K-O studios. Here again she took lessons but did little actual work. However, she did play small parts in two pictures, but again when option time came up her contract was not renewed.

This was disappointment No. 2 and Martha was beginning to feel she could not make a career of the movies. She returned again to modeling and did considerable work for Tom Kelley the well-known cover artist. One day Howard Hawks called Kelley and asked him if he knew any girls who might be good possibilities for a part in his new picture. Kelley suggested Miss Vickers and, as a result, Hawks tested her and finally assigned her to the part. The result is history.

Miss Vickers was born in Ann Arbor, Mich., on May 28, 1925. Her father worked for the Ford Motor Co. and, consequently, Martha spent her early years in Chicago, Miami, St. Petersburg, Detroit and Dallas before going west with her family in 1940.

Want to know more about Martha Vickers?

You can see a scan of the original article, complete with photos, at Old Magazine Articles. The big question, though, is: could she act? Find out in Martha Vickers – the starlet who dared to upstage Lauren Bacall.

Lauren Bacall – a dream come true

2016-09-05 By aenigma

engstead bacall hands on head — Around 1943. Lauren Bacall poses for John Engstead. The sultry expression and moody lighting suggest a woman who knows her mind and how to get her own way rather than an inexperienced teenager. Could this be from her first shoot, which took place at Howard Hawks’ house?

Lauren Bacall’s incendiary debut on screen in To Have and Have Not brings to pulsating life a fantasy of legendary Hollywood director, Howard Hawks.

He has created a new kind of heroine – one who is every bit the equal of her leading man. At the same time he has launched the career of a movie legend and lit the touch paper to one of Hollywood’s most celebrated off-screen romances. But even as the chemistry between Bogart and Bacall begins to fizz, it threatens to derail Hawks’ ambitions for his new star.

After a slow start, Lauren Bacall’s life is careering along at breakneck speed.

Lauren Bacall, lost girl

Rewind the clock a couple of years to 1942, and Lauren Bacall (then Betty Joan Perske, 17 years old, ambitious and totally unknown) is sitting in a movie theatre with her Mother and an aunt:

One Saturday morning in 1942, Mother and Rosalie took me to the Capital Theatre to see a movie called Casablanca. We all loved it, and Rosalie [Lauren’s aunt] was mad about Humphrey Bogart. I thought he was good in it, but mad about him? Not at all. She thought he was sexy. I thought she was crazy. Mother liked him, though not as much as she liked Chester Morris, who she thought was really sexy – or Ricardo Cortez, her second favorite. I couldn’t understand Rosalie’s thinking at all. Bogart didn’t vaguely resemble Leslie Howard. Not in any way. So much for my judgment.

She’s determined to be an actress (she has the stage rather than the screen in mind though she worships Bette Davis) and has been doing some pretty unglamorous modeling for the garment trade to earn a few cents. She’s had little success but things are about to change…

This year she has been introduced to Diana Vreeland, the fashion editor at Harper’s Bazaar, who organized a test shoot with Louise Dahl-Wolfe, one of the leading fashion photographers of the day. It was the first of a series of sessions for Bazaar, including a tricky one with George Hoyningen-Huene.

The following year (1943) Lauren’s career ignites:

In January I posed in a blue suit with an off-the-face hat, standing before a window with “American Red Cross Blood Donor Service” lettered on it. It was a color picture and would be a full page.…

About mid-February Diana called my mother to tell her there were stacks of letters on her desk asking who I was and where I could be reached. She said, “Listen, Mrs. Bacall, I think Betty’s too young to make these decisions, so I’m sending it all on to you.” Diana was always terrific to me and about me. She was so smart, had such wisdom. Also it turned out that the Blood Donor picture was going to be on the March cover. The cover! I couldn’t believe it when I heard; there’d be no living with me now.

Inquiries flood in. Lauren is invited to meet the head of David O Selznick’s office in New York. Columbia Pictures want her to be the Harper’s Bazaar cover girl in Cover Girl – an offer enthusiastically endorsed by Diana and Carmel Snow (the editor at Bazaar). Howard Hughes expresses an interest (well, there’s a turn up for the books!). But it is an invitation from Howard Hawks that Lauren accepts on the advice of her uncle Jack. So, age 18, she boards the train with her mother and heads for the West Coast.

Lauren Bacall, dream girl

To prepare for her screen test, Howard Hawks takes Lauren Bacall to see Perc Westmore.

He walked me over to make-up so that Perc Westmore could have a look at me and said, “You know, Perc, the test is tomorrow morning, see what color Betty will need, and that’s all.” Westmore took me into his room, sat me before his make-up mirror, and examined my face. He said, “Umm-humm” and pushed my hair back. “We can pluck your eyebrows and shave your hairline, straighten your teeth.” I was terrified and very upset. I said I’d like to call Howard, which I did practically in tears and repeated it all. I said, “You don’t want that, do you?” He said absolutely not and spoke to Westmore, saying, “I want her exactly as she is, nothing changed, a light natural make-up for tomorrow.” Perc understood, he only thought some of those touches would be an improvement. But no, Howard had chosen me for my thick eyebrows and crooked teeth and that’s the way they would stay.

[As an aside, this is a perfect example of how the studios, even back in the 1940s, were geared up to manufacture identikit stars – Lauren Bacall’s graphic eyebrows are one of her most distinguishing features.] Then there’s a portrait session with John Engstead, a photographer who works for the Hollywood studios and for various fashion magazines:

John Engstead arrived with cameras, and my first portrait sitting began. … He was marvelously easy to work with—not unlike Dahl-Wolfe. … The portraits were the best I’d ever had, and still are.

Out of the unknown

1944. Lauren Bacall emerges from obscurity into the limelight. She's modelling the vermillion dress she wears in some of the posters for To Have and Have Not. Photo by John Engstead.

Best foot forward

1944. In this publicity shot for To Have qnd Have Not, both the tilt of her head and the spotlight are designed to highlight 'The Look' that will become Lauren Bacall's trademark. Photo by John Engstead.

Sitting pretty

1946. The geometry of the lighting in this portrait of Lauren Bacall is quite superb. She's modelling the fabulous metallic jacket she wears in The Big Sleep.

Full metal jacket

1946. Another shot portrait of Lauren Bacall modelling the fabulous metallic jacket she wears in The Big Sleep.

The sleeve

Around 1945. Is it too far-fetched to conjecture that the photographer might have been inspired by Titian's portrait of a man with a quilted sleeve? Whatever. With the sleeve itself slightly out of focus, the eyes definitely have it. Photo by Eugene Robert Richee.

Girl with a pearl earring

Around 1945. Lauren Bacall is quite the classy dame pairing a pearl necklace and earrings with an off-the-shoulder black gown.

Glossy image-making

Around 1944. The make-up team (headed perhaps by Perc Westmore) haven't stinted on the lip gloss for this portrait of Lauren Bacall. Photo by Bert Six.

Returning the look

1946. A caption on the back of the photo reads:

RETURNING
Lauren Bacall, here demonstrating that “look” which made her famous, returns to the screen this September in Warner Bros.’ romantic mystery thriller, “The Big Sleep.” In it Humphrey Bogart portrays the man she’s after, just as in their original triumph, “To Have and Have Not.”

Howard can see Lauren’s potential to become his dream girl and offers her a personal contract.

I learned much later that he had always wanted to find a girl from nowhere, mold her into his dream girl, and make her a star—his creation. He was about to begin. … Howard’s idea was always that a woman should play a scene with a masculine approach—insolent. Give as good as she got, no capitulation, no helplessness. … A perfect example of Howard’s thinking was His Girl Friday, which was a remake of The Front Page, but changing the star reporter to a woman – Rosalind Russell. And it couldn’t have worked better.

Howard doesn’t go for shrinking violets. To complement the look and the attitude he has in mind, he tells Lauren to cultivate a lower, more throaty voice, which she does by finding a spot on Mulholland Drive where she can read The Robe aloud, keeping her voice lower and louder than normal (the smoking probably helps too). So Lauren’s voice becomes what Howard calls “a satisfactorily low guttural wheeze”. He insists that in future she should always speak naturally and softly. Above all, she should ignore suggestions for “cultivating” her voice.

Hello, soldier

1944. Lauren Bacall and soldiers in a scene from To Have and Have Not.

Chemistry lesson

1944. Harry approaches "Slim" in a scene from To Have and Have Not. Photo by Max Julian.

Taking the lead

1944. Lauren Bacall acting as Howard Hawks' dream girl in the notorious whistle scene from To Have and Have Not. The caption on the back reads:

On your mark! Apparently, Lauren isn't afraid of Bogart, the Bogie Man.

Making all the right moves

1944. Bogart and Bacall are totally in synch on the set of To Have And Have Not. The caption on the reverse reads:

STRONG ARM METHOD – If this picture is any indication, there's nothing very subtle about Humphrey Bogart's love making to Lauren Bacall in Warner Bros. "To Have and Have Not." The bewitching Bacall, former model, makes her film debut in the Bogart starrer.

It all comes together in her screen debut opposite Humphrey Bogart in To Have and Have Not. In one of the movie’s most memorable scenes, Lauren’s character says to Bogart’s:

You know you don’t have to act with me, Steve, you don’t have to say anything, and you don’t have to do anything. Not a thing. Oh, maybe just whistle. You know how to whistle, don’t you, Steve? You just put your lips together and blow.

Her acting, with its insinuating sexuality and offhand independence, causes a sensation. For Howard, it’s a dream come true. The Big Sleep will follow.

What to do with Carmen?

1946. Private detective, Philip Marlowe (Humphrey Bogart) and his client's daughter, Vivian Rutledge (Lauren Bacall) confer about the antics of her nymphomaniac little sister (Martha Vickers) in this scene from The Big Sleep.

Banter

1946. Vivian (Lauren Bacall) gives Marlowe (Humphrey Bogart) a cheque in an attempt to get him off the case he's investigating. But business quickly turns to flirtation in this classic scene from The Big Sleep.

Dénouement

1946. Marlowe (Humphrey Bogart) and Vivian (Lauren Bacall) prepare for the final showdown in this scene from The Big Sleep.

Lauren Bacall, gone girl

bogart bacall wedding cake — 21 May 1945, Malabar Farm, Lucas, Ohio. “Then all hell broke loose with the press. Cameras were whipped out, the outsiders were let in, the cake was brought out – three beautiful tiers, with a bride and groom standing under an arbor on top – and we were photographed from all angles – cutting the cake…”

Lauren’s first encounter with Bogie, set up by Howard, is unpromising.

He wanted to use Humphrey Bogart as the male lead. Bogart was making a film called Passage to Marseille at the time and Howard said, “Let’s go down on the set and see what’s going on.” Not a word about the possibility of my working. … He introduced us. There was no clap of thunder, no lightning bolt, just a simple how-do-you-do. Bogart was slighter than I imagined—five feet ten and a half, wearing his costume of no-shape trousers, cotton shirt, and scarf around neck. Nothing of import was said—we didn’t stay long—but he seemed a friendly man.

Perhaps that’s not surprising. Bogie is 25 years Lauren’s senior and married to Mayo Methot, a stage and screen actress but also an alcoholic and a depressive. Their relationship is, to put it mildly, stormy.

As filming gets underway for To Have and Have Not, Bogie and Bacall begin to fall for each other, they organize surreptitious rendezvous and they share private jokes in their scripted exchanges. Indeed their very real palpable mutual attraction is one of the factors that contribute to the film’s success with audiences.

Their happiness alternates with despair. Howard becomes increasingly jealous and warns Lauren not to risk ending her career just as it is taking off. He can see that Bogie does not want her to be actor first and wife second. Meanwhile, Bogie returns to Mayo several times, leaving Lauren in desperate suspense. All this is going on during the filming of The Big Sleep, with Bogie drunk, depressed and missing days on set.

Finally, he makes up his mind, and as his divorce edges forward, he sends Lauren a wire: “Please fence me in Baby – the world’s too big out here and I don’t like it without you.” The couple are married on 21 May, 1945 at Malabar Farm in Lucas, Ohio, the home of Bogie’s close friend, the writer Louis Bromfield.

Angry and resigned, Howard accepts that he’s lost his dream actress and sells Lauren’s contract to Warner Brothers.

Lauren Bacall on the silver screen

In To Have and Have Not and The Big Sleep, Bogie and Bacall played some of the greatest scenes of the era (and arguably in movie history). The atmosphere is electric, the dialogue sizzles. This is the stuff of Hollywood legend, as recognised at the time by Warner Brothers’ spoof, Bacall To Arms.

1. The whistle scene

In this notorious scene from her debut movie, To Have and Have Not, Bacall is all over Bogart. She's 100 percent vamp, totally in control and the realisation of a dream for director, Howard Hawks. Watch this and then the parody, Bacall To Arms.

2. Bacall To Arms

A re-edit of the 1946 Warner Bros cartoon Bacall To Arms, directed by Bob Clampett. This is just a superb parody of the "whistle" scene in To Have and Have Not.

3. Restaurant repartee

If you want a quick insight into what made the Bogart-Bacall onscreen partnership so fantastic, take a look at this scene from The Big Sleep: 0:00–0:20 Bacall makes her entrance. 0:20–0:45 She greets Bogie and they make their way to a table. 0:45–1:45 They talk business – highlight at 1:14–1:20. 1:45–3:00 They flirt, with Bacall in the driving seat. 3:00–4:05 Bogie turns the tables. 4:05 Electric moment as she's knocked into his arms.

Postscript

Had she not married Bogart, Lauren told The New York Times in 1996, her career would probably have flourished, but she did not regret the marriage.

I would not have had a better life, but a better career. Howard Hawks was like a Svengali; he was molding me the way he wanted. I was his creation, and I would have had a great career had he been in control of it. But the minute Bogie was around, Hawks knew he couldn’t control me, so he sold my contract to Warner Bros. And that was the end.

Want to know more?

The quotes are from Lauren’s autobiography, Lauren Bacall By Myself. For an overview and appreciation of her life and work, there are obituaries worth reading in The Guardian, The Telegraph, The New York Times and Variety. There’s also a fascinating article about The Big Sleep on Cinephilia & Beyond.