My all time favorite film is Casablanca, so it shouldn’t come as a complete surprise that my favorite actor from Hollywood’s golden age is Humphrey Bogart. A new feature length documentary is about to debut called Bogart: Life comes in Flashes and while it has no startling revelations it does view him through a different lens than usual: the women in his life, beginning with his domineering mother, the highly successful illustrator Maud Humphrey and continuing through his marriages to actresses Helen Menken, Mary Philips and the fractious Mayo Methot. His personality and worldview were at least in part a reflection of these women. He only found true satisfaction and happiness with his fourth and last wife, Lauren Bacall, who was unworldly and twenty-five years younger than he. Their son Stephen Bogart testifies to this in a newly recorded interview heard on the soundtrack of Kathryn Ferguson’s documentary. I am a sucker for this kind of film and I enjoyed going through the beats of Bogie’s life and career, aided and abetted by precious home movie footage. The film opens in selected theaters on Friday November 15th, before it becomes a mainstay online.
