The African Queen (1951)

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105 min – view video trailer

Director: John Huston
Starring: Humphrey Bogart, Katharine Hepburn, Robert Morley

IMDB 8.0 / Amazon 4.4 / MRQE 87% / Decent Films A-

Genres: Adventure, Thriller

Oscars: nominated for 4, won 1 (Best Actor)

Ranked #31 Greatest Movies Through 1960, a Zagat Top Movie

In Africa during WW1, a gin-swilling riverboat owner/captain is persuaded by a strait-laced missionary to use his boat to attack an enemy warship. IMDB 8.0 ranking from over 41,252 users

John Huston made better, more powerful films, but none so universally beloved, on first appearance and over the decades since. In this adaptation of the C.S. Forester novel, Humphrey Bogart (who would win the best-actor Oscar) and Katharine Hepburn costar as an unlikely pair thrown together in German East Africa during the First World War. Amazon 4.4 stars from over 262 users

Crocodiles, tsetse flies, mechanical difficulties, African rains and burning sun, sickness, an erratic helmer — all these and more plagued the shooting of The African Queen. Other than the absence of hostile German troops in Africa circa 1950, the harrowing journey of the eponymous tramp steamer was mirrored by the legendary hardships faced by the production filming on location in the Congo. Decent Films A-

MRQE 87% from over 55 reviews

Madison Public Library

The Big Sleep (1946)

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114 min – rated PG – view video trailer

Director: Howard Hawks
Writers: William Faulkner, Leigh Brackett
Starring: Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, John Ridgely

Genres: Crime, Film-Noir, Mystery

IMDB 8.2 / Amazon 4.5 / MRQE 92% / Decent Films A

Oscars: none

Ranked #56 Greatest Movies Through 1960, a Zagat Top Movie

Private detective Philip Marlowe is hired by a rich family. Before the complex case is over, he’s seen murder, blackmail, and what might be love. IMDB 8.2 rating from over 38,595 users

Legendarily complicated (so much so that even Chandler had trouble following the plot), the film is nonetheless hugely entertaining and atmospheric, an electrifying plunge into the exotica of detective fiction. Amazon 4.5 stars from over 163 users

The dialogue is hard-boiled and crackles with wit, the plot is fast-paced and nearly impenetrable, and Humphrey Bogart is coolly unflappable in Howard Hawkes’s stylish noirclassic The Big Sleep, based on the Raymond Chandler novel. Read full Decent Films review (rated A, Superior artistic-entertainment for Teens & Up)

MRQE 92% from over 45 reviews

Madison Public Library

To Have and Have Not (1944)

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100 min – rated G – view video trailer

Director: Howard Hawks
Starring: Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Walter Brennan

Genres: Adventure, Romance, Thriller

IMDB 8.0 / Amazon 4.5 / Decent Films B+

Oscars: none

Ranked #135 Greatest Movies Through 1960, a Zagat Top Movie

Expatriate American Harry Morgan helps to transport a Free French Resistance leader and his beautiful wife to Martinique while romancing a sexy lounge singer. IMDB rating: 8.0 from over 15,082 users

It strongly resembles Casablanca: French resistance fighters, a piano-playing bluesman (Hoagy Carmichael) and a Martinique bar much like Rick’s Cafe Americaine. But first and foremost, it showcases Bogart and Bacall, carrying on with a passion that smolders from the tips of their cigarettes clear through to their souls. Amazon 4.5 stars from over 117 users

To Have and Have Not, Howard Hawks’s more or less in-name-only adaptation of Ernest Hemingway’s “worst novel,” has more in common with Casablanca (including nearly half a dozen players) than with its ostensible source material. Its real claim to fame, though, is the first pairing of Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, who appeared together in only three other films but remained ever after linked off the screen. Read full Decent Films review: rated B+, Well Made artistic-entertainment for Teens & Up

MRQE – over 27 review links

Madison Public Library

Casablanca (1943)

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102 min – PG – view video trailer

Director: Michael Curtiz
Starring: Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Claude Rains

Genres: Drama, Romance, War

IMDB 8.7 / Amazon 4.5 / MRQE 95% / Decent Films A+

Oscars won (3 of 8): Best Picture, Best Director (Michael Curtiz), Best Writing/Screenplay (Julius Epstein, Philip Epstein, Howard Koch) / nominated: Best Actor (Humphrey Bogart), Supporting Actor (Claude Rains), Cinematography B&W (Arthur Edeson), Film Editing (Owen Marks), Music (Max Steiner)

Ranked #2 Greatest Movies Through 1960, in 36 of 41 best movies lists, a Zagat Top Movie

Set in unoccupied Africa during the early days of World War II: An American expatriate meets a former lover, with unforeseen complications. IMDB rating: 8.7 from over 222,004 users

Casablanca: easy to enter, but much harder to leave, especially if you’re wanted by the Nazis. Such a man is Resistance leader Victor Laszlo (Paul Henreid), whose only hope is Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart), a cynical American who sticks his neck out for no one, especially Victor’s wife Ilsa (Ingrid Bergman), the ex-lover who broke his heart. Amazon 4.5 stars from over 769 users

Among the many happy accidents that make Casablanca what it is, perhaps the most ironic is this: Humphrey Bogart wouldn’t meet his ultimate leading lady, Lauren Bacall, until the following year, on the set of Casablanca knockoff To Have and Have Not… Bogart has such a strong screen persona — tough-minded, jaded, a flawed protagonist with tarnished principles — that it’s tempting to see Rick Blaine as a variation on the characters Bogie plays in, e.g., Key Largo or To Have and Have Not… The problems of three little people may not amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world, but they can sure make for a great film. Read full Decent Films review (rated A+, Superior artistic-entertainment for Teens & Up)

MRQE 95% with over 128 reviews linked

NOTES: Quite possibly more words have been written about Casablanca than about any other movie.  It is in the top ten of most lists of the greatest movies and half of those lists place it in the top three! Here’s looking at you kid!

Madison Public Library

The Maltese Falcon (1941)

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100 min – view video trailer

Director: John Huston
Starring: Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, Gladys George

IMDB 8.3 / Amazon 4.6 / MRQE 93% / Movie Mom A+

Genre: Crime, Film-Noir, Mystery

Oscars: nominated for 3, won 0

Ranked #30 Greatest Movies Through 1960, a Zagat Top Movie

A private detective takes on a case that involves him with three eccentric criminals, a gorgeous liar, and their quest for a priceless statuette. IMDB 8.3 rating from over 67,453 users

Still the tightest, sharpest, and most cynical of Hollywood’s official deathless classics, bracingly tough even by post-Tarantino standards. Humphrey Bogart is Dashiell Hammett’s definitive private eye, Sam Spade, struggling to keep his hard-boiled cool as the double-crosses pile up around his ankles.  Amazon 4.6 stars from over 252 users

One of the most interesting aspects of this classic movie is the way that Sam Spade thinks though the moral dilemmas. When he is deciding whether to tell the police about Brigid, he is very explicit about weighing every aspect of his choices. It is not an easy decision for him; he has no moral absolutes. BeliefNet Movie Mom A+

MRQE 93% from over 69 reviews

Madison Public Library