Lauren Bacall on TCM: To Have and Have Not, The Big Sleep

Lauren Bacall ca. 1945.

Lauren Bacall on TCM: Humphrey Bogart, Gary Cooper, and Charles Boyer pairings

Lauren Bacall, hardly a top box office attraction in the 1940s or 1950s, but a major “Old Hollywood” star today, will have her Turner Classic Movies “Summer Under the Stars” day on Wed., Aug. 25.

Bacall is so prestigious nowadays that she even won an Honorary Oscar last year, a distinction hardly ever accorded to a woman. In fact, the vast majority of female movie stars of her era – and I’m referring to stars who were bigger and/or more prestigious than Bacall in her Hollywood heyday – have moved to the Great Beyond without the “career Oscar.” A handful may still be waiting for it on this planet, but chances are they won’t get it.

I’ve watched most of the Lauren Bacall vehicles to be presented on TCM tomorrow; the one exception is The Cobweb (1955).

Of the ones I’ve seen, I’d most recommend Key Largo (1948) – but not because of Bacall (or Humphrey Bogart, for that matter), for Edward G. Robinson and Claire Trevor are the ones who run away with John Huston’s noirish thriller. Robinson, as always, had me rooting for the sadistic villain, while Trevor, playing an aging, alcoholic gun moll, fully deserved her Best Supporting Actress Oscar win.

Between To Have and Have Not (1944) and its (more or less) remake, The Breaking Point (1950), I much prefer the latter, with John Garfield and (especially) Patricia Neal, while Dark Passage (1947) is the most absurd of the four Bogart-Bacall pairings. And if you can figure out what actually takes place in Howard Hawks’ The Big Sleep (1946), do let me know.

Michael Curtiz’s Young Man with a Horn (1950) exudes a certain nostalgic mood (Ted McCord’s black and white cinematography, clarinets, Doris Day), but Curtiz’s Bright Leaf (1950) is a melodramatic mess about rival tobacco growers in which even Gary Cooper and Patricia Neal flounder. (An aside: Curtiz was hardly Bacall’s favorite filmmaker.)

Richard Quine’s Sex and the Single Girl (1964) is proof positive that unfunny, infantile “risqué” comedies existed long before Adam Sandler and the like came onto the scene, while Designing Woman (1957) was a major disappointment on all counts despite Gregory Peck, Vincente Minnelli, and an Oscar win for Best Original Screenplay.

If I remember it correctly, in her autobiography, By Myself, Bacall says that her favorite line is found in Designing Woman. It goes something like this: “Open your eyes and go to sleep.”

Lauren Bacall TCM schedule (PT)

3:00 AM Confidential Agent (1945)
Director: Herman Shumlin.
Cast: Charles Boyer, Lauren Bacall, Peter Lorre.
118m

5:00 AM Dark Passage (1947)
Director: Delmer Daves.
Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Agnes Moorehead.
106m

7:00 AM Blood Alley (1955)
Director: William A. Wellman.
Cast: John Wayne, Lauren Bacall, Paul Fix, Joy Kim, Berry Kroeger, Mike Mazurki, Anita Ekberg.
115m

9:00 AM The Cobweb (1955)
Director: Vincente Minnelli.
Cast: Richard Widmark, Lauren Bacall, Gloria Grahame, Charles Boyer, John Kerr, Lillian Gish, Fay Wray, Oscar Levant.
124m

11:30 AM Key Largo (1948)
Director: John Huston.
Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Edward G. Robinson, Lauren Bacall, Claire Trevor, Lionel Barrymore, Thomas Gomez.
101m

1:30 PM Designing Woman (1957)
Director: Vincente Minnelli.
Cast: Gregory Peck, Lauren Bacall, Dolores Gray.
118m

3:45 PM Private Screenings: Lauren Bacall (2005)
Lauren Bacall discusses her life and career with TCM host Robert Osborne.
50m

5:00 PM To Have And Have Not (1944)
Director: Howard Hawks.
Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Walter Brennan, Dolores Moran, Hoagy Carmichael, Sheldon Leonard, Walter Surovy, Marcel Dalio, Walter Sande, Dan Seymour.
100m

7:00 PM Young Man With a Horn (1950)
Director: Michael Curtiz.
Cast: Kirk Douglas, Lauren Bacall, Doris Day.
112m

9:00 PM Bright Leaf (1950)
Director: Michael Curtiz.
Cast: Gary Cooper, Lauren Bacall, Patricia Neal, Jack Carson, Donald Crisp, Gladys George, Elizabeth Patterson, Jeff Corey, Taylor Holmes, Thurston Hall.
111m

11:00 PM The Big Sleep (1946)
Director: Howard Hawks.
Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, John Ridgely, Martha Vickers, Sonia Darrin, Dorothy Malone, Regis Toomey, Peggy Knudsen, Charles Waldron, Charles D. Brown, Bob Steele, Elisha Cook Jr.
114m

1:00 AM Sex and the Single Girl (1964)
Director: Richard Quine.
Cast: Natalie Wood, Tony Curtis, Henry Fonda, Lauren Bacall, Mel Ferrer, Fran Jeffries, Leslie Parrish, Edward Everett Horton.
114m

“Lauren Bacall on TCM” notes

Lauren Bacall publicity image: Warner Bros.

Lauren Bacall movie schedule via the TCM website.