Washington Post Book Reviews
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Monday March 7, 2011
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TOUGH WITHOUT A GUN: The Life and Extraordinary Afterlife of Humphrey Bogart
Stefan Kanfer
Knopf
ISBN 978-0307271006
288 pages
$26.95
Reviewed by Carl Rollyson
In 1997, the American Film Institute named Humphrey Bogart the "Greatest Male Star" in cinema history. The same year, Entertainment Weekly christened him the "Number One Movie Legend" of all time. He is on a postage stamp. Woody Allen produced a hit play and film, "Play it Again, Sam" (1972), based on the Bogart mystique, and Albert Camus -- no less -- was flattered when told of his resemblance to Hollywood's king.
Stefan Kanfer acknowledges these accolades as well as recent biographies by David Thomson, Jeffrey Meyers, A. M. Sperber and Eric Lax and memoirs by Lauren Bacall and Stephen Bogart. If anyone has debunked this steadily accruing fame for an actor who died in 1957 after more than 30 years of performances on stage and screen, Kanfer does not let on. He aims, instead, to offer a cogent narrative and analysis of Bogart's appeal that is shorter than the tomes by Sperber and Lax or Meyers, but more expansive than Thomson's brief portrait in his "New Biographical Dictionary of Film."
Or at least that seems to be Kanfer's purpose; he does not really say. He mentions working in the archives of Sterling Library at Yale and in "private libraries" that are not otherwise identified. His book contains no notes, and his peculiar bibliography lists as "primary sources" other books about Bogart and as "secondary sources" everything else, such as books about Hollywood in the 1930s, film noir, stardom and so on. If Kanfer has done any interviews -- usually a staple of serious biographies about contemporary figures -- he is silent on who said what.
As a readable work dealing in moderate depth with a world-famous movie star, Kanfer's awkwardly titled book is serviceable.
But if you have read his predecessors, then "Tough Without a Gun" is dispensable -- unless, perhaps, the nuances of Bogartiana appeal to you.
Did George Raft really pass up the part of Rick, the role of a lifetime, in "Casablanca"? Kanfer says this story is a myth.
Thomson may be closer to the truth in suggesting that lots of names get thrown around when a film is coming together for production, implying that Raft never really had the opportunity to turn the part down. Sperber and Lax, wading through studio files, found that producer Hal Wallis never seriously considered Raft, although others seemed to think he was a contender. He lobbied for the role, according to Aljean Harmetz in "Round Up the Usual Suspects," a comprehensive study of the making of "Casablanca."
So what Kanfer offers is nothing new, just a distillation of secondary sources.
In general, Kanfer seeks to split differences. Many critics consider "Casablanca" a mess that came together only at the last minute; in Thomson's inconoclastic view, however, "Casablanca" was a thoroughly professional job not all that differently made from other Hollywood products of the period. But that begs a question, doesn't it? How did an efficient product become a classic? Its stars, especially Ingrid Bergman, thought the film was a muddle and were astonished when it came to be ranked as a great film.
Kanfer takes the traditional route, describing the hectic script consultations, the different writers, the rewrites even as the film neared the end of its shooting schedule -- but then he shuts down discussion of all the shenanigans, saying that, in the end, "Casablanca" triumphs because of Bogart. And, according to Kanfer, Bogart succeeds not only because of his impeccable performance, but also because of the persona he perfected in earlier films like "The Maltese Falcon." Here Kanfer shines, getting all of Bogart in an evocative, inventive phrase: "wounded, cynical, romantic, and as incorrodible as a zinc bar."
What makes Bogart great is the oxymoronic nature of his appeal. The greatest legends, the supreme myths, are founded on an amalgamation of opposites. How can one person be both cynical and romantic? But this mix is exactly what Bogart embodies in "Casablanca," where he plays Rick Blaine, a soured anti-fascist who seems not to care, and yet cares so deeply that he will suppress his feelings of betrayal to serve a larger cause -- aiding the escape of Bergman's freedom-fighter husband from the Nazi-controlled city. Bogart only has to look at Bergman, his sunken eyes revealing his anger and sorrow because she abandoned him in Paris, and deliver his sentimental lines with deft understatement. His heroism emerges unheralded and is all the more powerful because subtlety is not what Hollywood typically had to offer in Bogart's heyday.
Consider Kanfer's biography, then, as a sort of confirmation and consolidation of the Bogart mythos, an elegant, if not especially challenging evocation of the man and his work.
Carl Rollyson is the author of "Marilyn Monroe: A Life of the Actress."
Copyright 2011 Washington Post Writers Group
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THE NATURAL NAVIGATOR: A Watchful Explorer's Guide to a Nearly Forgotten Skill
Tristan Gooley
The Experiment
ISBN 978-1615190294
296 pages
$16.95
Reviewed by Timothy R. Smith
Before GPSes, people navigated by the stars, the wind and shadows on the ground. Tristan Gooley, an English adventurer, shows how it's done in "The Natural Navigator."
This fascinating book is filled with surprising facts, including one that will eventually spell the end to the single bit of knowledge that most people have about natural navigating. In 10,000 years, Polaris, the old reliable compass of the night, will have moved out of position and no longer be the north star. That job will go to Deneb. Elsewhere, Gooley points out that deciduous trees in the northern hemisphere often have a southern tilt to their canopies.
He likens the "heaviness" to a checkmark. The tilt reflects the tree's effort to have its leaves capture more of the sun's rays.
The book is so full of helpful tips that some paragraphs will need a second read; otherwise, one could get lost trying to figure out east from west, follow sea currents and decipher sand-dune shapes. The planet Venus once saved Gooley from being lost in the woods by appearing in the southwest. It "gave me the confidence to cut through some dark woods," he writes. "Finding directions from the stars is great, but the beacon-friendliness of Venus on a night like that, announcing itself through even the tangled black yew branches, was joyous."
Timothy R. Smith can be reached at smitht(at symbol)washpost.com.
Copyright 2011 Washington Post Writers Group
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