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Here’s Looking at You Kid

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“Round Up the Usual Suspects”

It was appropriate on this Valentine’s Day to see Warner Brothers 1942 classic Casablanca for the umpteenth time. As TV host Ben Mankiewicz said when he introduced the film for tonight’s Turner Classic Movies (TCM) showing, it was the most perfect film produced by the Hollywood studio system.

As a love story, one is not sure until the end whether Rick (Humphrey Bogart) will give the letters of transit for Lisbon to Victor Laszlo (Paul Henreid) and his wife Ilsa Lund (Ingrid Bergman). And will Captain Renaud (Claude Rains) arrest Rick and turn him over to Major Strasser of the Third Reich (Conrad Veidt)?

I have seen Casablanca so many times in my life that it is almost like Holy Writ. Even when Ilsa Lund pleads, “Victor, please don’t go to the underground meeting tonight,” I forgive the clunky line because it is an integral part of a film that I love as is. I even like all the recurrences of “Here’s looking at you kid.”

Sometimes I think one of the things that makes the film great are all the actors from Mitteleuropa that were in the cast, including Peter Lorre, Conrad Veidt, Leonid Kinsky, S. Z. Sakall, Ludwig Stössel, Hans Heinrich von Twardowsky, Trude Berliner, Ilka Grünig, and Wolfgang Zilzer. And don’t forget Hungarian director Michael Curtiz and Austrian music director Max Steiner. It gives the whole “stuck refugee” theme a major boost, with the daily plane to Lisbon and freedom as its ultimate desideratum.

The End of Coat and Tie

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What Ever Happened to Men’s Coat and Tie Fashions?

Up until the 1960s, the wearing of coat and tie, and usually a white shirt, was de rigeur for American men. When I started working on my first full-time job around 1968, I noticed for the first time that men were no longer 100% certain to wear a coat and tie to the office. What happened?

From the point of view of Los Angeles, I noticed the weather slowly started heating up, such that the traditional wool men’s uniform tended to be on the uncomfy side during warm weather.

When I started working in an accounting office in 1992, we were all required to wear a coat and tie every day. It was only a few years later that it was no longer required, even when clients were due to visit our offices. By the 2000s, I rarely had to wear a tie, except perhaps when I had to visit a client’s premises.

I watch a lot of noir films of the 1940s and 1950s, which makes me particularly aware of changes in the way men dress today as compared to then.

This evening I watched two Humphrey Bogart films that showed the star in a flashy dark suit in both The Maltese Falcon (1941) and The Big Sleep (1946). Whether playing Sam Spade or Philip Marlowe, Bogie looked ready for the big time even as he was supposed to be a cheap detective in a not-too-swank office. In the latter film, he even carried a pocket flask full of rye.

Was it climate change that doomed the wool suit? Or was it the swinging 1960s and 1970s that made casual a viable option? Probably it was a combination of the two.

Eleven Bogies

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Bogart and Bacall in The Big Sleep (1946)

Today I finally broke down and purchased a DVD of Casablanca (1942), surely one of the greatest American films ever made. It set me on a train of thought about its star, Humphrey Bogart, always one of my favorites. I thought I would give you a list of my eleven favorite Bogie films in the order they were filmed:

  1. High Sierra (1941), directed by Raoul Walsh, one of the greats. Co-starring Ida Lupino in one of her best roles.
  2. The Maltese Falcon (1941), directed by John Huston. With Mary Astor. A classic.
  3. Casablanca (1942), directed by Michael Curtiz. Co-starring Ingrid Bergman. One of the best-loved American films of the 1940s.
  4. To Have and Have Not (1944), directed by Howard Hawks. Co-starring Lauren Bacall. Based on the Hemingway novel.
  5. The Big Sleep (1946), directed by Howard Hawks. To my mind Bogie’s best starring role, with Lauren Bacall. Based on the Raymond Chandler novel.
  6. Dark Passage (1947), directed by Delmer Daves, with Lauren Bacall. Based on a great novel by David Goodis.
  7. Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948), directed by John Huston.
  8. Key Largo (1948), directed by John Huston. Co-starring Lauren Bacall.
  9. In a Lonely Place (1950), directed by Nicholas Ray. Co-starring Gloria Grahame.
  10. The African Queen (1951), directed by John Huston. Co-starring Katherine Hepburn.
  11. Beat the Devil (1953), directed by John Huston. Co-starring Jennifer Jones. A rare offbeat comedy.

Now I am going to sit down and see Casablanca again … and I will, I am sure, love it again.