Categorizing every Humphrey Bogart and James Cagney film I've seen

[betweensunandmoon]

(Again, to be updated as needed.)

Close To My Heart

All Through the Night
Angels With Dirty Faces
The Big Sleep
The Caine Mutiny
G-Men
Key Largo
The Maltese Falcon
White Heat

Not My Favorite, But Still Good

The Barefoot Contessa
The Harder They Fall
The Oklahoma Kid
The Petrified Forest
The Public Enemy
The Roaring Twenties
Sabrina
The Strawberry Blonde
We're No Angels
Yankee Doodle Dandy

It's Okay, I Guess

The African Queen
High Sierra
Lady Killer
To Have and Have Not
Virginia City

Would Re-Watch If I Were Desperate

Casablanca
In a Lonely Place
Smart Money
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre

Thumbs Down

Dark Passage
Dead End

(James Cagney was also an uncredited extra in Mutiny on the Bounty, but I'm not including it here for obvious reasons.)

Comments

[igenlode]

I'm interested that you rate "Treasure of the Sierra Madre" (which I remember as nasty, but very good) and "Casablanca" below "The Barefoot Contessa" (got under my skin, but not objectively great) and "Strawberry Blonde" (amusing, but lightweight).
And "The African Queen" so low?

[betweensunandmoon]

I did wonder whether I was being a bit unfair to The African Queen while making this list. It's been an awfully long time since I saw it and the ending is the only part I really remember. I might need to refresh my memory.

No, I don't like Casablanca. It has a top-notch cast and an objectively happy ending, but it's far too much of a downer. (Though it will forever amuse me that Conrad Veidt, who got blacklisted in Germany for refusing to divorce his Jewish wife and support the Nazi party, was cast as Major Strasser.)

The Strawberry Blonde is among those rare comedies I find cute and funny rather than obnoxious and cringe-worthy. Comedy and me tend not to mix, no matter what era it's from.

How about you? What would you name as the best and worst of Bogart and Cagney?

Made any headway on that pesky Plot Point Fifteen yet?

[igenlode]

Hollywood Germans tended to be anti-Nazis in real life (e.g. Paul Henreid, who played a villain in the 1940 "Night Train to Munich" ) for obvious reasons :-)

Casablanca is deservedly famous for its script; I'm glad they didn't go for the easy Hollywood ending, as I think would almost certainly happen if the story were made today, but I'm not sure it was meant to be seen as a 'happy ending', just as doing the right thing.

It's been too long since I saw most of the Cagney or Bogart films for me to retain a very clear idea of most of them (it's a very long time since I saw "The Barefoot Contessa", which was one of the first 'vintage' films I happened across) or to be able to rank them well. I did like "The African Queen" very much, as a story of the heroic little boat and the loyal companions making it through against all obstacles -- I confess I like the film version of the story better than C.S.Forester's original, which is tinged with his habitual bitterness and irony (if you think Hornblower is self-flagellating, you should see the author's other stuff, which specialises in downbeat endings).

I know what you mean about comedies; there are few that I find actually funny, given that I don't enjoy slapstick or humiliation as entertainment. (Have you come across "Champagne for Caesar"? I remember finding Vincent Price hysterically funny in that.) What I enjoy is wordplay and taking the viewer unawares, so that you're set up to expect one thing and then the unexpected happens.

I like most of the "Ealing comedies", although they're not all that ha-ha funny; more comedy as in 'not serious realistic gloomy drama', where they take an improbable premise (the London Borough of Pimlico declares independence, or a Ruritanian monarchy wins a war by mistake) and take the side of the little man against the system.

---

I scrapped an entire chapter-and-a-bit's worth of Plot Point Fifteen, including a lot of Raoul-suffering (what I believe is known technically as 'whump'). I've rewritten it up to the point where Christine comes bursting in and Erik collapses, having scrapped the sub-plot that was supposed to keep her credibly occupied while Raoul had an improbably prolonged struggle with Erik, and then on impulse restored a very short struggle with Erik instead.

Rewriting is hell. The only bits I vaguely enjoy are the bits where I'm introducing some previously unthought-of inspiration (which would be an argument for discarding the entire scene and doing something different, except for the trivial matter that this is a pivotal part of the entire plot -- so, no pressure, then).