Listening to Bruckner's 9th (and last) symphony tonight, conducted by Leonard Bernstein. I am liking it better than the 8th, not as bombastic and more layered. He doesn't overdo it with the brass this time. Tonight's movie was called "King Of The Underworld" (1939) and you get three guesses as to who starred.
Okay forget it. You only get one guess, because you know it was Humphrey Bogart. We are on a mission to watch as many Bogie movies as we can get our hands on, so chalk another one up, and this one was really good. The gorgeous Kay Francis co-stars as a doctor whose husband, a skilled surgeon, is sought out by hoodlum Bogart, the "King" of the movie's title, after he successfully removes a bullet from the chest of one of Bogie's henchmen. Like any gang boss, Bogie needs an in-house surgeon to do occasional emergency work on his boys. He "thanks" the doctor by giving him 500 bucks. Now Bogie owns the guy, and his wife Kay Francis doesn't like it, even though they are able to move their practice from a slummy part of New York to 5th Avenue.
Tragedy then strikes in the form of a police raid on the gang's hideout. The surgeon happens to be there and is killed in a hail of bullets. Now Kay Francis is on her own. She wants no part of Bogart's gang so she moves out of NYC to go live upstate with her Aunt.
The trouble for Kay is that Bogie figures she could tip the cops off. He has escaped the police raid along with several of his men. He thinks Francis knows his whereabouts and is gonna turn him in, so he locates her in the small town where she has gone to live with her aunt, and he and his goons are on their way up there to pay her a visit.
The script, which is already unusual for a gangster flick in that it includes husband and wife doctors as main characters, now takes another detour. As Bogie and his mooks are on the highway to upstate New York, they experience a blowout. Bogie looks out the window and sees a man standing by the side of the road. Being on the run and paranoid, he thinks that the man has shot out his tire, but this is not the case. The man had only been hitchhiking. He is a Brit, an author down on his luck. One of Bogie's hoods has already shot him in the shoulder; he needs medical attention, Bogie feels bad because in this movie he is a gangster with a conscience, so they load the writer in their car and continue on to Kay Francis' town, where they locate her and force her to take the bullet out of the writer.
The next thing you know, they are boyfriend and girlfriend. Bogie had a thing for Kay Francis as well, but he doesn't mind that the writer has won her over, just so long as the two of them stay close and in his employ. Bogart has a fascination for Napoleon. He is reading a biography of the great general, and even though he is obviously a total dropout where schooling is concerned, he is nevertheless intelligent in the intuitive sense. He is reading about Napoleon to learn the fine points of being a fearless leader, and in his own case, a fearless criminal leader (and some would say the same about Napoleon).
He takes a liking to the British writer, now healed from his shoulder wound, because the writer knows all about Napoleon, and many other subjects. Bogie calls him "one a' them geniuses" and orders the man to write an "autobiography" about him. We are stuck in upstate NY now. Things are hunky dory as long as Bogie thinks Kay Francis, as his doctor, and the British writer, as his "autobiographer", are in his corner, working on his behalf, even though he knows they feel coerced.
What will happen? The writer knows he will be killed as soon as he finishes the book. Kay Francis has a bit more leverage because she is the gang's doctor. They will still need her no matter what. Can she use that as a bargaining chip to save her boyfriend? And what about the coppers? Are they still on Bogart's trail?
"King Of The Underworld", according to the notes on the back of the dvd box, was Humphrey Bogart's first "above the title" role, meaning his first big "starrer". He is 39 and very fresh looking, his energy as a wise guy and friendly but deadly crime boss is both endearing and realistic. You have no doubt he'd kill Francis or the writer if necessary, even though he likes them. Bogart has equal time onscreen, but it is still Kay Francis' picture. She was a gigantic star for Warner Brothers in the 1930s, and at one time out-earned Bette Davis by 10-1 on a dollar scale. Davis eventually became her replacement as the favored Warner's star, and it's a shame that everyone remembers Bette (and rightly so), but no one remembers Kay Francis, who was - in my opinion - every bit as talented as an actress and was also a glamour queen. Yeah, I'm a Kay Francis fan, and you will be too if you watch even one of her movies. You can start with "Trouble In Paradise" from 1932. Then you will be hooked.
Two Thumbs Up for "King Of The Underworld", which runs for only 67 minutes but has the plot of a story twice that long. ///
I've got another Bogie or two lined up for immediate viewing starting tomorrow night. I am working on my latest drawing about a "football-headed cat". If you've been following my blogs for a long time you might recall the tale of the cat and the man with the football-shaped head, who wound up on the roof of a house and got all mixed-up together. It's a true story, and now I am drawing it.
See you in the morning, with tons of love sent your way as always. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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