Yogi's Movie Consumption Blog

Three prison escapees invade a family's home where they wait for the getaway cash to arrive. But the money courier is arrested and the family members try to the thwart the plans of the fugitives where ever they can. Apart from being another very nice script taken on by Wyler, this is not a typical film-noir. It has a very straight ending, and it was not nail-biting suspense that sat me through the last third. Although Bogart was quite a surprise playing a heavy, devoid of moral whatsoever and the cast was  impressive, there was something artificial about the story. Most interesting aspect of the film is the caricature it draws of a "perfect family" in the 50s. This family, especially the father, Mr. Hilliard, has everything that Bogart's character wants and despises at the same time. A nice, boring job, nice, boring home, with a nice and boring wife, a clueless kid and and an adolescent teenager dating a even more boring guy in a sports car. It is hard to te...

The has-been columnist Eddie is hired by a boxing racketeer as a press agent, to jumpstart an Argentinian boxer's career through fixed fights. But Eddie gets into a dilemma when he realizes that the boxers are treated like cattle by the racketeers and one opponent dies. Bogart and Steiger are the highlights of this films - Steiger steals the show in the scenes where he tries to convince Eddie, Eddie's wife or Toro the boxer by being the impassioned salesman. His delivery makes his arguments sound somewhat honest, even though his character has just cooked them up on the fly. Why the wife is still in the story I didn't understand. I didn't feel her arguments were persuasive and generally the encounters between her and Eddie felt cold and casual. She represents some moral force, but so does Art - Eddie's assistant from the old days, now a TV celebrity - in a much more convincing way. The two characters could have been melted into one to heighten Eddie'...

Two truck-driving brothers dream of a better future and financial independence in a sea of good and bad fortune. Although the film has all the ingredients of a film noir, like the selfish femme fatale, Bogart, and many night scenes, this is something you could consider a feel-good movie. It pretty much surprised me with its turns and twists and I also wasn't prepared in the least to see Bogart as the sidekick, instead of the lead. In terms of interesting characters, Ida Lupino as the selfish wife that tries to seduce George Raft's Joe she is definitively at the most intense when she slowly sheds all the layers of sanity towards the end. Although her motives are a bit unclear - the amazing thing about her behavior is that she values love over money. In that perspective the movie feels like a tragedy, as (except for the loan shark) everybody has comparatively sophisticated understanding of emotion and life.

A boatman is forced to transport refugees in his boat from Martinique while under surveillance of the local police. The story is not of high suspense, and I wondered why. I found that it tries too hard to be a romantic story and thrilling war story at the same time, maybe trying to satisfy too many tastes at the same time. Lauren Bacall is nice, the dialogue is funny but the overall story feels a bit contrived and doesn't line up too well with the hard-boiled side of Bogart's character. The interrogation scene with the police inspector is amazing to watch - and so are the big man's other appearances in the movie. I even think he nicely managed to tie together the love story and the political aspects of the whole thing.

When an ex-lieutenant visits the father of one of his fallen soldiers he finds their home taken hostage by ruthless gangsters. The diversity of the characters in this story is breathtaking. All the actors manage to render their part with amazing depth and conflict. Robinson is a great villain, and the stubborness of the father is quite amazing to watch. The party being locked in the small space of the hotel lets everybody clash with everybody. The ending felt a bit propped on to me and a complete change of tone. When I read that Huston "borrowed" that ending from Hawks "To Have or Have Not" it came as no big surprise. The social commentary with the Indians treated as low lifes was quite amazing and the old Indian woman looked great on screen. Maybe in a more modern version more people would snap in that situation and the ending would have definitively more graphic violence. It would make way more sense to flood the hotel and let the people have it out on the ...

Two drifters set out to dig gold with an old prospector in a remote area. When they find it, the problems start. Very straightforward and still gripping - I felt that the film's pacing is very even throughout the very different chapters, which gave it a somewhat documentary or even "slice of life" feeling. Bogart goes through an interesting transformation although sometimes he was a little bit over the top, I thought. Walter Huston is amazing to watch and although his character doesn't change a lot through the movie he adds an amazing depth and reality to the prospector he's portraying. When Bogart's character is killed I was amazed by the situation before - the bandits didn't seem really dangerous (unless to the deranged mind of Bogart's character, of course) they were portrayed amazingly stupid and simple. The ending was predictable but still quite amazing.