Tonight's Bruckner is #5, conducted by von Karajan. I just started listening a minute ago, and it sounds like he is back with the brass. He sure likes those huge, pounding horn riffs. Well, I will keep listening as I write and see how it progresses.
We were back with Bogart once again this evening, in "The Wagons Roll At Night" (1941). In the '40s, especially in film noirs, you would get titles that were statements, like this one or last night's "You Can't Get Away With Murder". So tonight you are told, before you even watch the film, that "The Wagons Roll At Night". You can't say you were unaware, haha.
By now, I think it is safe to say that Bogie can do it all. We've seen him as a crook (numerous times), as a District Attorney, a War Hero, a wrestling promoter, an Air Force test pilot, and tonight as the owner/manager of a traveling circus. It's on the low end of the circuit, barely more than a carnival, but he's got Sylvia Sidney as his fortune teller, and a lion tamer show. He's just hanging in there.
His lion tamer is his biggest draw, but is also a drunk. One day, the guy is passed out and his most fearsome lion escapes. "Caesar" is his name. Caesar is running through the streets of the town the circus is encamped in, and he enters a small grocery store. A young Eddie Albert (later of "Green Acres" fame) is behind the counter helping a customer when the lion moseys in. Terrified, he nevertheless manages to hold Caesar off with a pitchfork until help arrives. Bogart shows up soon after, and having an eye both for talent and for the bottom line, he realises that his problem with the drunken lion tamer is solved. On the spot, using his considerable sales technique, he convinces Albert to ditch his grocery job and come to join his circus as the new lion tamer. Bogie will make him a star!
It does work out this way, because as it turns out, Eddie Albert has a natural aptitude with the big cats. In addition to Caesar, there is also one named Satan. I just thought I should mention that. Albert is a little timid at first, but once he gets a feel for the show he grows into his role as the star. Now Bogie's circus is moving up in the world, playing bigger cities.
There is a side plot involving his younger sister, which will turn out to be important. Bogie has told his entire staff never to mention his sister, let alone interact with her. She is played by the beautiful Joan Leslie, and she has just graduated from a Convent School. Bogie has paid her way and kept her sheltered her entire life, away from what he perceives as the scum of carnival life. Sylvia Sidney, who was an excellent actress and who has a major role, begs to differ. She is a good and decent person, intelligent too. She is secretly in love with Eddie Albert, but when she finds out that Albert, in turn, is in love with Joan Leslie - Bogie's sequestered sister - she goes the altruism route and teams up with the couple to stave off Bogart's rage.
Eddie Albert is injured during a fight with the former lion tamer; Sidney and a couple of crewmen take him to the Bogart family farm out in the country. There, as he recovers, he meets Joan Leslie. Soon they are in love, but everyone else is worried about how Bogie will react. He is ashamed of his profession and has put his sister on a pedestal.
The whole shebang will come to a death-defying climax when, in a dirty low down bit of scheming, Bogie challenges Eddie Albert to go one-on-one with Caesar for a sold-out show in Chicago, their first major city. "The crowds will eat it up", he tells him. "You can handle any lion", he says. "Your name will be up in lights across the country".
Eddie Albert is talented with the lions, but even the longtime circus professionals think he would be crazy to accept Bogart's challenge. Caesar will rip him to pieces.
But Eddie does accept, not knowing that Bogie has a plan to eliminate him, so that he will not be able to marry his sister. Everything will come down to Albert's final scene in the ring with Caesar, under the tent of the Big Top. ////
Humphrey Bogart is playing a similar character, in temperament, to the semi-conscientious hoodlum he played in last night's "You Can't Get Away With Murder". In both cases, he cares about the people he is working with, be they his fellow prisoners or his circus employees, but he only cares about them up to a certain point, when their problems - or what he sees as their problems - begin to impact his life.
For instance, he sees the love between Eddie Albert and his sister Joan Leslie as a problem, when of course it is not one. This is the kind of character he seems to play in these early starring roles we have seen recently, the hard driving street smart boss, or hood, who cares about his friends but pushes them into danger for his own benefit.
Two Big Thumbs Up for "The Wagons Roll At Night", with great performances by all the leads, and the lions too.
That's all I know for tonight. See you in the morning with love sent continuously as always.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
No comments:
Post a Comment