You Know How to Whistle Don't You Steve

"You Know How to Whistle, Don't You, Steve?" The Eternally Fabulous Lauren Bacall

Diana Vreeland was one of the greatest mag editors of all time, editing Harper's Bazaar and later Vogue. Anjelica Huston described Vreeland's approach to magazine publishing this way: "Other magazines at that time had manufactures on how a adult female could become along with her hubby or how to make a pie. Diana'south attitude was: 'Pie? Who cares about pie?'"

"Style is everything," Vreeland said once. "Information technology helps y'all get up in the morning, and go down the stairs... It's non the clothes you lot wear. It's the life you're living in that dress."

While Vreeland was editor of Harper's Bazaar she discovered a captivating and self-possessed 17-yr-erstwhile Jewish girl from the Bronx named Betty Joan Perske, who was a student at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York. (One of Betty'southward classmates was Issur Danielovitch, who later changed his name to Kirk Douglas and became, well, Kirk Douglas.)

Vreeland put Betty on the cover of Harper'southward Bazaar in 1943, right around the time that she decided to change her name from Betty Joan Perskie to Lauren Bacall. (She was also a distant cousin of Szymon Perski, who would after change his name, too. He became Shimon Peres and went on to be the 8th Prime number Minister of Israel.)

That's non the end of our tale of Lauren Bacall'south path to stardom, which incidentally involves four famous authors, ii way magazine cover models, and John Lennon. The 2nd cover model was Nancy Hawks, a beautiful young woman from Salinas, California, the hometown of Nobel Prize-winning novelist John Steinbeck (writer 1). She moved to New York to work as a model and she was all-time friends with a young writer named Truman Capote (author two). She, similar Bacall, appeared on the cover of Vreeland'due south Harper's Bazaar and was married to the flick managing director Howard Hawks. Nancy Hawks became entranced past Bacall's March 1943 Harper'southward Bazaar cover and arranged for Bacall to meet her hubby.

Hawks was developing a flick based on a novel past Ernest Hemingway (third author), To Have and Have Not, and he was immediately convinced Bacall was perfect for his movie. He told her the male person lead would be either Cary Grant or Humphrey Bogart. Lauren'south preference was Cary Grant, of course. But Bogart ended up getting cast. And thus one of the great screen partnerships—and Hollywood marriages—was born.

Bogart and Bacall married in 1945 when she was 21 and he was 47. It was, past all accounts, a happy wedlock. Bogart died in 1957 of lung cancer, but Bacall continued on equally a mother, actress, political activist, and fabulous person. She made dozens of movies after Bogart's death, married Jason Robards, had a son with him, and later on divorced him. She even had a voice acting role in the English language version of a Miyazaki motion-picture show (Howl'southward Moving Castle, 2004). She died a month shy of her 90th altogether in 2014.

There is a certain timeless quality to Bacall. She is beautiful in an unconventional and cocky-assured style, with intelligent eyes and an ironic, husky vocalism that is pitch-perfect for every setting, from a smoky saloon on the Peruvian waterfront to the art-filled drawing room of an apartment in The Dakota (her building in Manhattan where ane of her neighbors was John Lennon). Though she was incessantly stylish and elegant, it was never nearly the wearing apparel that Lauren Bacall was wearing. It was, equally Diana Vreeland would say, about the life she was living in that dress.

Hither are my six favorite Lauren Bacall movies. Don't miss a single 1 of them.

A loosely-adjusted version of the Ernest Hemingway novel of the aforementioned proper name. The director, Howard Hawks, was friends with Hemingway and told him he wanted to make a film "out of your worst book." (I have to beg to differ with Howard Hawks hither; Hemingway's 1950 novel Across the River and Into the Copse is far worse.) Exist that as information technology may, this motion-picture show is marvelous.

Bacall was nineteen when she made this movie most the romance between a fishing outfitter and a mysterious but cute American out-of-stater in Martinique as World State of war Ii was setting in. This was her commencement film and she played opposite Humphrey Bogart, ane of the biggest stars in Hollywood at the time. The result is pure screen magic. The moving picture has a scene between the two of them that is 1 of the most famous in Hollywood history: "You know how to whistle, don't you, Steve? You just put your lips together and blow." The script was written by Jules Furthman and William Faulkner. Yes, that William Faulkner (our fourth writer). Why have you not seen this picture yet?

2 years afterward To Have and Have Not (1944), Hawks, Bogart, and Bacall reunited to brand this classic film noir version of the gritty Raymond Chandler novel. Bacall plays the fiery girl of a wealthy family who hired private detective Phillip Marlowe (Bogart) to resolve a blackmail attempt on her family. The web that unfolds is as tangled as any woven since deception was invented. This is a great mystery movie, and it will accept y'all off-residuum the whole time you are watching it. The screenplay was past Furthman and Faulkner again, with added credit to Leigh Brackett. Brackett was a highly-regarded science fiction writer who wrote an early on draft of The Empire Strikes Back (1980). The score was composed by Max Steiner, who also scored, among his 300 movies, Casablanca (1942), Gone With the Wind (1939), The Searchers (1956), and A Summer Place (1959).

Another motion-picture show noir classic, this one is set in San Francisco. Bacall plays Irene Jensen, a young woman who randomly picks up a hitchhiker, Vincent Parry (Bogart). Parry has but escaped from San Quentin prison, which is on the far finish of the San Francisco Bay from the City (every bit we call it here). Parry had been convicted of killing his wife, but Irene, who happened to have followed the case closely, believes him to be innocent. She shelters him and nurses him back to health subsequently he gets plastic surgery to reshape his face.

Is this all a fleck of a ridiculous premise? Yes. No question. Does it work? Admittedly. The chemistry between Bacall and Bogart is what makes this movie work. You wouldn't believe this preposterous story but for the clear and undeniable attraction these two have for each other. I have enjoyed this movie every time I have watched it. Practise they end upwardly in a dive bar in Peru? Of course. Would you expect anything less?

Before we dig into this movie, I have to ask a favor of all of you lot. Please do not agree the music video of the song Key Largo past Bertie Higgins against this marvelous movie. That video is so aggressively horrible that it gave me middle palpitations. Or at least I recollect that'southward what I had. Information technology might have just been a family unit of ants in my shirt, just perhaps they were seeking shelter in my shirt from that abomination.

Anyway, this motion picture was the final on-screen pairing of Bacall and Bogart. And information technology'due south a good ane. State of war-weary veteran Frank McCloud (Bogart) stops by a rundown hotel in Central Largo, FL, to pay his respects to the family of George Temple, who served under him during World War Two. Temple's young widow, Nora (Bacall) runs the hotel. The summertime season has ended and a massive hurricane is barreling down on the boondocks and the hotel. Only vi guests are staying there, including some thugs who piece of work for the notorious gangster Johnny Rocco (Edward K. Robison).

It's fabled. It was directed and co-written past John Huston, adapted from Maxwell Anderson'southward 1939 stage play. The cinematography was done past was the keen German cinematographer Karl Freund, who has the near disparate credit listing I've ever seen. He shot the brilliant and outrageous German Expressionist movie Metropolis (1927) as well every bit the television series I Love Lucy (1951-57). Television historians consider his work on that show a masterpiece. I highly recommend you hire all four of these movies and have a Bogie and Bacall Motion picture Festival at your house.

In the 1950s, women were ordinarily portrayed in American picture show every bit wives or women looking to be wives. It'southward a pretty stark modify from how they were portrayed during the 1930s and 1940s. I mean, expect at Bacall'southward career. She fabricated four movies in the 1940s in which she played sophisticated and independent women. Then the 1950s come along, and suddenly she makes this movie in which she and her ii on-screen partners (Betty Grable and Marilyn Monroe) play a trio of track models looking to marry a millionaire. What the…? I read a theory in one case many years agone that this change in how women were portrayed in American film was part of a cultural effort to discourage women from working outside the house. Why? Because they would be competing for jobs with men returning from the state of war and finishing higher on the GI Pecker. There are so many things that are so utterly incorrect with this movie there is no mode a decent person in 2020 can possibly scout it without being completely… charmed and amused? I'm pitiful; I was. I like this picture. It's full of way show sets and orchestras and sexual double entendres. It'due south like a really good chocolate eclair. Should you lot be eating it? No. But it'south fun to eat a chocolate eclair every in one case in a while. Get ahead. Have one. Just don't tell yourself it was dinner.

Hither'southward what you demand—a good, old-fashioned melodrama. They used to make a lot of melodramas: At present, Voyager (1942), An Affair to Remember (1957), Mildred Pierce (1945), Imitation of Life (1959). Nowadays, not so much. The best melodrama I've seen recently was a British series chosen Medico Foster (2015), which was about a village doctor and her failing marriage to a philandering existent estate developer. What makes a proficient melodrama? Well, adultery always works. Biting accusations of betrayal. Tempestuous emotions freely spoken. Swelling choruses of violin music. Fancy nightgowns in the moonlight. Martinis are always a good ingredient. And the occasional dial thrown to the jaw. This movie has all of this and more than.

Hither, we have Bacall, Rock Hudson, Dorothy Malone, and Robert Stack involved in a series of messy relationships. Bacall's career had sort of stalled out past the mid-1950s and this movie resuscitated information technology. She plays Lucy Hadley, married woman of the heir to a Texas oil fortune, Kyle Hadley (Stack). She tells her husband she is meaning, simply he believes she'south get pregnant by his friend Mitch Wayne (Hudson) because he knows he has a low sperm count and couldn't maybe have gotten her meaning. So he lashes out, hits her, and causes a miscarriage! Meanwhile, Kyle'southward nymphomaniac sister, Marylee (Malone) is having sexual practice with simply virtually any man she can get her hands on. All of the actors do a great chore with this incredibly soapy material, and Stack probably should have won the Oscar for Best Role player. The film was directed by the master of 1950s melodramas, Douglas Sirk. Information technology'south one of Bacall's finest performances. I recommend watching it on the burrow with a pint of gourmet ice cream while wearing a housecoat and slippers. A box of Kleenex nearby wouldn't hurt. And maybe take the only light be a candle. At to the lowest degree that'due south how I watched it.

David Raether is a veteran TV writer and essayist. He worked for 12 years as a television sitcom writer/producer, including a 111-episode run on the ground-breaking ABC one-act "Roseanne." His essays take been published past Salon.com, The Times of London, and Longforms.org, and have been lauded past The Atlantic Magazine and the BBC Globe Service. His memoir, Homeless: A Picaresque Memoir from Our Times, is awaiting publication.

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