Humphrey Bogart was one of the most prolific and widely admired actors of the Hollywood studio system, and though he is still known for the memorably rough-hewn masculinity he displayed in films ranging from The Maltese Falcon to Sabrina, the details of his life risk being forgotten 67 years after his death. Enter Bogart: Life Comes in Flashes, which was directed by Kathryn Ferguson and produced in close collaboration with Bogart’s estate, and is billed as the “first official feature documentary” on Bogart’s life. Ferguson’s approach is accordingly dutiful, presenting the fundamental events of Bogart’s life from cradle to grave with diligence and at an audience-friendly brisk pace. Ferguson relies on archival footage and photographs for the film’s visual content, and includes audio of archival interviews with friends and colleagues, new commentary from experts and Bogart’s son Stephen, and excerpts of Bogart’s own words (read by actor Kerry Shale, who suggests but does not excessively mimic Bogart’s distinctive intonations).
Ferguson’s decision to rely near-exclusively on archival content, with notes from critics and scholars used only when necessary to provide cultural and historical context, buttresses the film as a definitive cinematic document of Bogart’s life, but does entail that Ferguson’s own point of view on her subject is largely obscured. Ferguson’s most distinctive directorial choice, though, is to frame Bogart’s life around the five central women in his life: his mother, Maud Humphrey, and his four wives, Helen Menken, Mary Philips, Mayo Methot, and Lauren Bacall. While Ferguson gives some of these women more in-depth treatment than others, her emphasis on how Bogart’s personal relationships, and his views of women, shaped his life and career lend a thoughtful angle to a film that is otherwise a straightforward presentation of biographical facts.
Ferguson moves through the early chapters of Bogart’s life at a brisk clip, and as such addresses relatively briefly his relationships with his mother, a famous illustrator whose devotion to her career and apparent lack of affection colored his view of women later in life, and his first two marriages. His first wife was the Broadway diva Helen Menken, who he met while working as a stage manager for a production she starred in. Menken is a fascinating figure and her success elevated Bogart’s nascent acting career by association, but Ferguson finds little material in her and Bogart’s short marriage. Ferguson finds even less to discuss in Bogart’s second marriage to actress Mary Philips, and she largely follows Bogart’s stop-and-start ascent in Hollywood at the expense of any meaningful discussion of his and Philips’ relationship.
The most compelling stretch of Bogart, wherein Ferguson’s approach truly comes into focus, follows his third marriage to actress Mayo Methot. Like Bogart, Methot transitioned from stage to screen, but her career dropped precipitously after when the studios began enforcing the censorious Production Code. Bogart’s career was on the rise at the same time, creating a dynamic akin to the frequently-filmed A Star is Born: Bogart’s success flew past Methot’s, and Methot became progressively more hindered by alcoholism and undiagnosed schizophrenia. Whereas Ferguson struggles to pin Bogart down in his youth, in his marriage to Methot she creates a sharp image of a man who derived energy from conflict — him and Methot called themselves the “Battling Bogarts” — and who expected his romantic partners to set aside their careers for marriage, even as he poured his energy into work. The archival materials Ferguson selects portray the decline of their relationship, and of Methot’s health, through an unsettling accumulation. The images of Methot show her aging quickly over only a few years, and accounts of their marriage from friends start with descriptions of good-natured arguments, then incrementally intensify to the point of Methot routinely threatening Bogart and their friends with a revolver, setting fire to their home, and literally stabbing him in the back. Methot proves to be a compelling, complicated figure in her own right, and Ferguson takes an appropriately evenhanded and attentive approach to the struggles she faced.
More well known to general audiences is that Bogart fell in love with his 19-year-old costar Lauren Bacall on the set of Howard Hawks’ To Have and Have Not, which spurred him to divorce Methot after six years and enter the final chapter of his life. His marriage to Bacall, which became cemented in the public imagination as the gold standard for Hollywood love stories, was described in idyllic terms by both Bogart and Bacall. Ferguson’s treatment of the storied Bogie-and-Bacall marriage is thoughtful and engaging, relying on recordings of the many interviews Bacall gave about Bogart later in her life, while emphasizing how their happiness depended on Bacall’s willingness to prioritize her marriage over her career.
Overall, Ferguson’s emphasis on the women in Bogart’s life is somewhat uneven — the thin treatment of his lesser-known marriages to Menken and Philips, even if less documented or consequential than his later marriages, comes across as a missed opportunity to explore lesser-known aspects of Bogart’s life — but at least provides a reason for the film’s existence beyond its evident task to cement Bogart’s legacy. Bogart’s persona was that of a particular form of hardened and streetwise masculinity, yet he gave his most memorable roles dimension through the subdued enthrallment he portrayed toward women in films like Casablanca and In a Lonely Place. Likewise, Ferguson crafts a portrayal of Bogart as a man perpetually influenced by the women he married, even when the relationships were compromised by temperamental mismatches, struggles with mental and physical health, and his lifelong inability to accept the women in his life balancing work and marriage (a telling anecdote Ferguson includes is that, on his highly accomplished mother’s death certificate, he listed her career as “housewife.”) So while Bogart works best as a capably crafted introduction to the life and career of its subject rather than a definitive summation, Ferguson’s willingness to probe some of Bogart’s most consequential relationships thankfully allows the film to stretch beyond the simple hagiography so typical of similar films.
DIRECTOR: Kathryn Ferguson; DISTRIBUTOR: Freestyle Digital Media; IN THEATERS: November 15; RUNTIME: 1 hr. 39 min.
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