Action in the North Atlantic (1943) ***

Release Date: May 21, 1943

Running Time: 127 minutes

Starring: Humphrey Bogart, Raymond Massey

Directed By: Lloyd Bacon, Byron Haskin and Raoul Walsh

Action in the North Atlantic is the type of film designed to promote volunteering for active service during the ongoing World War. It is filled with daring heroics as well as patriotic sermonizing, having one character make a selfish statement about staying home and avoiding the conflict only to have several other men preach to him, and to the audience, about how conflicts like this are about more than just the individual. It reeks of propagandizing, yet it manages to not sink underneath all that veneer. Through all its rah rahing about civic duty and self sacrifice, it never skips over the very human dramas of the lives of the men doing these things.

The film begins with the SS Northern Star, an oil tanker under the command of Steve Jarvis (Raymond Massey) and his friend and first officer Joe Rossi (Humphrey Bogart). The ship is attacked and sunk by a German U-Boat and the few survivors are cast adrift for eleven days. Upon rescue, most of the survivors seek out another assignment which ends up being the SS Sea Witch, part of a convoy made up of ships from a multitude of nations bringing war supplies to the Soviet port of Murmansk. Prior to taking command of the Sea Witch, Jarvis spends some much needed time at home with his long suffering but understanding wife. Rossi, on the other hand, meets a women singing at a cafe and, against his usual inclinations, gets married. His new bride, Pearl (Julie Bishop), knows he will have to ship out soon but struggles with the idea of being alone and maybe losing her new husband. An understanding Jarvis gives Pearl the phone number to his his own wife with the understanding the two women can support and comfort each other.

While transporting the supplies on board the Sea Witch, attacks come from several U-Boats forcing the ships to scatter and leading the Sea Witch to get separated from the convoy. This leads to plenty of losses on both sides and a deadly cat and mouse game between the Sea Witch and a persistent U-Boat intent on sinking them.

There is a lot of spectacle on display here. This is evident right from the start as we get a prolonged sequence involving the sinking of the Northern Star. Oil is spilled into the ocean and fire rages everywhere, including on top of the water. Men struggle to escape, only to be killed by the very water they are escaping to. One man gives his life rescuing another who has gotten trapped in his quarters during the bombardment. The two make it off the ship and into the water but only one escapes the flames and makes it to safety. It is harrowing and a clear message about self sacrifice. Later scenes with the convoy are equally as engaging if not quite as intense.

The two leads, Bogart and Massey do good jobs at humanizing their characters in no small part thanks to their spouses at home. All the self sacrifice and courage talk would do no good if we never saw what the potential consequences were back home. It is a clever touch that should have been played out even more but is limited primarily to the few minutes in between the Northern Star and the Sea Witch. Massey portrays Jarvis as a firm, yet human Captain with genuine affection for his first officer. When he sees Rossi with Pearl, not understanding Rossi has just gotten married, he is stern and dismissive of her, thinking his friend has wasted money and time on another harbor fling. Once he sees that the two are married and in love he is immediately retentive of his reaction and warmly welcomes the women as a part of their inner circle. Bogart is a little more stiff, delivering his lines with confidence and authority but occasionally stumbling whenever he is called upon to sermonize.

What it all boils down to is a film with a very basic story that fills it out with human drama and a lot of grand standing. It goes down smoother thanks to some great performances and more than a few quirky characters that round out the crew. It plays like a propaganda film while making sure not to drown out the humanity in it all. This makes for a decent war drama if not quite a masterpiece.

The Enforcer (1951) **1/2

Release Date: January 25, 1951

Running Time: 85 minutes

Starring: Humphrey Bogart, Ted de Corsica, Everett Sloane

Directed By: Bretaigne Windust

It is perhaps a daring move to tell a story about a murder investigation and obfuscate the entire affair with flashbacks inside of more flashbacks. Yet that is exactly what director Bretaigne Windust and screenwriter Martin Rackin have done with 1951’s The Enforcer, a film determined to bleed any real joy out of an already joyless police procedural film. Some may gleam enjoyment out of seeing clues examined over and over again in a frustratingly laid out way but the average movie goer will find it at times tedious and frustrating.

The Enforcer opens with District Attorney Martin Ferguson (Humphrey Bogart) holding racketeer and career criminal Joseph Rico (Ted de Corsica) for questioning. The real man Ferguson wants is Albert Mendoza (Everett Sloane), a particularly nasty criminal known to have committed murders yet there has never been any evidence to convict him. Rico can provide that evidence but he fears that, even with police protection, Mendosa’s men will get to him anyway. In an escape attempt, Rico falls to his death leaving Ferguson no one to testify against Mendoza. This forces Ferguson to have to go back over the case files for every detail in a desperate attempt to find any possible clue that may have been missed. As he does this the film flashes back to the investigation, and flashes back again and again.

There are some good moments amongst all the flashbacks. The intimidation and breaking of “Big Babe” Lazick and the subsequent scenes of his ill treatment at the hands of his fellow gangsters is both sad and pathetic. He has a wife and child to protect and child and when the wife is threatened with jail time and the child with foster care, Lazick confesses to be a part of a troop of killers. He reveals certain code words that the gangsters use when on the phone to hide their true intent such as “contract” and “hit” as if these code words would be interpreted innocently by anyone bugging the phones. The troop are hired killers used to kill people in such a way that whomever hired them would have an alibi and be exempt from suspicion. This dates back to the one murder Rico witnessed Mendoza commit himself, the one murder Rico’s testimony could be used to send Mendoza to the chair. 

This specific murder happened many years prior but was complicated by a couple of eye witnesses who saw Mendoza and Rico at the scene. The witnesses were Angela and her father. The father was later identified and killed but until recently Angela’s whereabouts were unknown. Later, Mendoza finds out where she is and has her killed by his men. But a mix up results in the girl’s roommate killed instead. When both Mendoza and Ferguson both discover this it becomes a race to either save or kill the one person still alive that could put Mendoza in the electric chair.

Much of the investigation is straight forward and devoid of any real life. Some of it is brutal including a harrowing scene where a mass grave is located filled with dozens of bodies. We don’t see the bodies but instead get treated to rows of shoes and other items used in an attempt to identify all the victims. It is unnerving a bit but neutered by the era of the film and a workmanlike staging of the scene. It is talkie and dry with few moments to liven things up. This plays out much the same in the many other moments through the investigation, really only livening up during the finale when everyone is looking for the real Angela.

The Enforcer is not a bad film, but it is a hard film to really find much of interest. Everett Sloane is fine as the villainous Mendoza but he gets little screen time here. Bogart is almost sleepwalking through a part that doesn’t require any real stretching of his acting ability. He barely emotes here beyond looking irritated that his prize witness has gone and fallen to his death in a fruitless attempt to climb to freedom. The film has lots of story to tell and lots of wheels rolling but fails to make much of it compelling enough to bother trying to make sense of all the flashbacks and non-chronological storytelling. It ends up making the whole film suffer from a lack of energy and investment. Some might find enjoyment in the matter-of-fact storytelling but most will come away from it disappointed.

Stand-In (1937) ***

Release Date: October 29, 1937

Running Time: 90 Minutes

Starring: Leslie Howard, Joan Blondell, Humphrey Bogart

Directed By: Tay Garnett

Leslie Howard seems perfectly cast as a young up-and-comer banker dispatched to Hollywood to deal with a movie studio that appears to be bleeding money during the depression. It wasn’t based on a true story but the events here were happening to many of the studios on Poverty Row during this time and thus was topical, at least to people in the business. It tackled some serious issues for the time, yet managed to instill a level of humor to the proceedings that keeps it from bogging down in those issues. While the average audience goer of the time may not have related to the Hollywood scene, they could easily relate to the humanity behind it, a delicate balance this film manages to handle well.

Leslie Howard plays Atterbury Dodd, the aforementioned young banker. “Colossal Pictures” is in danger of folding and has an offer to be purchased from the bank and closed down but Atterbury advises against it, stating that he can turn things around by going out to the studio himself, take the human element out of things and make it profitable. What he finds upon arrival is frivolous spending all around and a crash course in what Hollywood is all about. Along the way he meets Stand-In actress Lester Plum (Joan Blondell), a former child star who now works as a stand-in for Thelma Cheri (Marla Shelton), the studio’s star actress. Lester is quirky, and quickly falls for the inexperienced Atterbury who naively misses all the signs of her infatuation. Producer Doug Quintain (Humphrey Bogart), former lover of Cheri, is struggling to bring a film, Sex and Satan, in on time thanks in large part to its actress and is feeling the heat from on top. An advanced screening of Sex and Satan doesn’t go over well and Atterbury has serious reservations over how the motion picture business can ever turn a profit without serious renovations, changes that may hurt the employees but save the studio from the chopping block. 

Stand-In takes shots at a lot of different targets, not just the motion picture industry. It also finds targets in banking, corporate greed, and the callousness of big business. Everybody in the film are painted broadly to the point that no one comes across as a real person. This plagues virtually the entire film only occasionally offering glimpses to real characters behind the facade. Perhaps this was done on purpose as a statement against vain actors and actresses and the people in charge of them. If so, it doesn’t quite work. It is just too broad. That’s not to say it isn’t interesting to watch, just not easy to invest in the plight. It can’t even be considered a farce or a screwball comedy as the subject it is tackling was a real issue that still is valid nearly ninety years later with studios buying out other studios and putting many artists out of work.

The biggest saving grace for this film is the chemistry between Lester and Atterbury. They have a witty repartee that lightens up every scene they share. Her flirtations coupled with his complete lack of understanding make for some very fun moments. Of particular note are the scenes where Lester is trying to teach Atterbury how to dance or when she gives him a demonstration of a Ju-Jitsu  move. Both scenes end with him blissfully unaware he is hurting her feelings as he remains oblivious of her feelings for him. 

A film like this can only end one way and thus has no real surprises to offer. In this case it must survive almost entirely on the journey and not the destination. Fortunately, even with few truly realistic characters in the mix, it manages to entertain enough to get by. If it weren’t for the screen presence of the two leads, specifically Joan Blondell, this film wouldn’t work as is. Humphrey Bogart is game but woefully miscast as the jilted lover of Cheri who finds himself being ousted from his position thanks to a spoiled actress and a stubborn director. He never seems comfortable here and leaves no impression whatsoever. 

Ultimately Stand-In is an awkward juxtaposition of real-life issues and broad comedy. It’s not sharp enough in its assessment of the Hollywood Studio system to qualify as satire and it’s not sincere enough to really be a message movie, either. It lies firmly in the middle and would have become completely forgettable had it not been for Howard and Blondell’s on screen chemistry. This chemistry manages to smooth out some of the rough passages making the film at least palatable.

All Through The Night (1942) ***

Release Date: January 10, 1942

Running Time: 107 Minutes

Starring: Humphrey Bogart, Conrad Veidt, Kaaren Verne, Peter Lorre

Directed By: Vincent Sherman

A cursory glance at the plot of All Through The Night will yield a poor perception of this film. It’s plot involving kidnapping, murder and undercover Nazis plotting sabotage would seem like a typical early World War II film when the Nazi scare was at it’s infancy. Yet the serious topic that makes up the backbone of this film is juxtaposed with a degree of humor not quite as dense as that of Charlie Chaplin’s The Great Dictator but at times nearly as silly. It is an odd mixture of comedy, satire and legitimate suspense that makes it hard to pigeonhole it in any way.

Alfred “Gloves” Donahue (Humphrey Bogart) is a big shot Broadway gambler who loves his cheesecake. Not just any cheesecake, though, but only that of Miller’s bakery. When Miller disappears, Gloves’s mother is suspicious of foul play and insists he look into it. A quick investigation reveals the baker has been killed. At the crime scene a nightclub singer, Leda Hamilton (Kaaren Verne) shows up looking for Miller. When she hears he is dead she disappears without explanation. When Gloves traces her back to the club it leads to more murder, this time with evidence left behind implicating Gloves, himself. The plot thickens as Gloves must hide out from the police as well as prove his innocence, leading him and his men to uncover a conspiracy involving Nazi fifth columnists, Nazis undercover with the intent to undermine the USA, and a plot to destroy a battleship in New York harbor. With no proof but his own word, Gloves cannot rely on the police to help stop these men and their deadly plots.

Based on that plot summary alone it would seem like this is just another in a long line of us vs them films. Back in the 1940’s everyone was churning out films about the evil Nazis or the Japanese, especially during the early stages of the war where the real horrors of what was going on over there were not yet fully known. Chaplin took shots at Hitler. The Three Stooges tackled both the Germans and the Japanese. Even Looney Tunes had their fair share of shorts addressing the subject. While this is nowhere near as broad as those were, it nevertheless attacks its subject with tongue firmly in mouth. This is evident from the very first scene where Bogart is sitting in a cafe enjoying his meal while the servers are stressing out over a missing delivery of Miller’s cheesecake. Gloves is accompanied by two comedic legends, Phil Silvers, who was already an established performer at this time, and Jackie Gleason who was relatively new when this was filmed. Both actors were on contract, getting paid while having no projects to work on and thus were shoehorned into this film. Neither is in top form here but Phil Silvers manages to bring in some of his manic energy into the scenes towards the end of the film. Between the two of them, Bogart and the rest of his men, there is some hilarious double-talk and witty dialogue that sets you up for what kind of a film this will be.

The tone shifts however whenever we are away from Gloves and his men. We see this when the baker, Miller, is confronted by Pepi (Peter Lorre). Pepi has a job for Miller to do and when the man refuses, Pepi kills him brutally. This is the typical slimy performance that was Peter Lorre’s bread and butter and he is sufficiently menacing here. Later we will be introduced to his boss Hall Edding (Conrad Veidt), a man who played Nazi leaders perfectly in films like Casablanca, Nazi Agent and this one. His final role the following year would see him switch sides and aid in the fight against the third reich. 

While the suspense and intrigue is genuine, so is the humor and for the most part the two coexist. That’s not to say every comedic moment hits the mark. There is an ongoing joke about one of Gloves’s men always being kept from his girl, Annabelle, and how it’s breaking up their relationship. This was funny the first couple of times it comes up but by the time Annabelle shows up in person it is no longer funny and just plain annoying. Some of the plot points such as when Gloves takes the police to the Nazi headquarters midway through the film are obvious and lack any surprises. These little stumbles are completely redeemed late in the game when Gloves and one of his men, Sunshine (William Demarest), infiltrate the Nazi’s secret meeting, knocking out two real Nazi’s who just arrived from out of state. Unfortunate for Gloves, he is asked to speak to the group about the planned explosives for the battleship and must use his wits and a lot of double talk to try and bluff his way out of the situation. It is easily the funniest moment in the entire film. In the end, the police arrive and a brawl breaks out that could have been from one of the Three Stooges shorts complete with Phil Silvers doing a bit where he heils every man knocked his way and if they salute back he conks them on the head.

The final confrontation between Gloves and Edding is a tad anticlimactic but gets the job done. Everything is wrapped up with a neat bow and they live happily ever after. It’s the type of film that would seem a little too on the nose for any other type of film but works just fine here. The only sad note is the news that Leda’s father, who was being held in a concentration camp to force her to assist the Nazi’s, has died. This motivates her to speak up now that she has nothing left to lose. 

The tones are sometimes at odds with each other and can shift from laugh out loud to genuinely suspenseful. This mostly works but not always. To help smooth out the router passages, Bogart and his men lend a level of levity and, occasional earnestness to the proceedings. These are not star making roles but, especially Bogart, they are flashy roles that would help cement many of them as solid actors and performers. Bogart would move on to his biggest role yet later the same year as Rick Blaine in Casablanca along with co-stars Peter Lorre, Conrad Veidt, the former also starred with Bogart the previous year in The Maltese Falcon. This film has a lot going for it, only stumbling when the plot becomes to obvious. Still, it’s fun and a little frenetic, making it absolutely enjoyable to watch.

Sahara (1943) ***1/2

Release Date: November 11, 1943

Running Time: 98 Minutes

Starring: Humphrey Bogart, Bruce Bennett, J. Carol Nash

Directed By: Zoltan Korda

Set against the backdrop of the British retreat during the Western Desert Campaign in World War II, Sahara presents some breathtaking visuals of the dangers of desert warfare and the heroics of the men entrenched there. The film opens with a brief historical note about the men training for desert warfare in actual battle conditions before dropping us directly into the fray. We get no scenes showing us who any of the characters were before the war and very little in the dialogue to shade these characters in, yet they don’t feel generic. There are tropes, of course, but we see throughout the action the person behind these facades and get a good solid sense of the characters of these men. 

Humphrey Bogart stars as Sgt. Joe Gunn, commander of the Lulubelle, a U.S. Army M3 Lee desert tank assigned to the Libyan desert. They have recently become separated from their unit during a general retreat after the fall of Tobruk and are headed south in hopes of reconnecting with their unit, however radio contact has been lost and they are uncertain of where to rendezvous with the rest of the group. Along with the U.S. soldiers assigned to the Lulubelle there is also a small group of British officers led by medical officer Captain Halliday who defers his command to Gunn as he commands the tank. The men are running dangerously low on water and, after running into a Sudanese Sergeant and his Italian prisoner, Giuseppe, almost leave the Italian behind rather than ration the water even further. However, Gunn has a change of heart and allows the man the travel with them rather than die out in the sand. Later they pick up a Nazi pilot after they shoot him down. Gunn shows both prisoners humanity even after the Nazi doesn’t reciprocate. 

The men eventually manage to reach a well, the last they would be able to reach before succumbing to the elements, but it is only providing a small trickle of water that may dry up at any moment. While stockpiling what little they can two German advance scouts arrive and are captured by the Americans. From one of the men information is gleamed that nearly five hundred more Germans are on their way, desperate for the water. Gunn and his men must decide whether to flee or risk sure death in a bold attempt to delay the Germans while a single man is sent ahead in an attempt to secure reinforcements. 

Nearly a third of the film takes place during the final siege. It is bloody and violent, and adequately conveys the true desperate situation both sides are in. The camera doesn’t shy away from showing the dirty, savaged faces of the men, dehydrated and exhausted, yet resolved to make a stand. This tension is broken up brilliantly with some ingenious tactics by Gunn as he schemes to show the water starved Nazis that his, Gunn’s, men have water to spare. He has two men pantomiming bathing themselves in water when they in reality have none to spare. The show is believed, yet doesn’t have the desired effect with the Nazi commander who would rather die fighting than give up all their weapons in exchange for the water. It’s a brutal standoff in which many people on both sides don’t make it.

This is a gorgeous film to look at. Watching it on a small screen in the comforts of your living room will not sufficiently convey the sheer magnitude of this production. It simply must be seen on the big screen to be completely appreciated. If you can find one without any air conditioning in the middle of August that would be even better. This is not a war movie designed to be military propaganda, pushing the glamour and heroics but ignoring the true horrors of the conflict. 

This could have been a truly dour film. What saves it from that and elevates it into the realms of classic cinema is the performers. There are a lot of interesting choices made in bringing the characters to life. We get the two men passing money back and forth between each other as the make bets on Gunn’s command decisions. We also get Frenchie (Louis Mercier) who brings a level of humor to virtually every line of dialogue he spouts. Even among the two POW’s we have an interesting dynamic. The Italian, Giuseppe (J. Carrol Naismith) is a sympathetic character, humanized by his pictures of his family and his lack of love for Mussolini. He is in the conflict because of his country, not because of any dreams of domination and prejudices. The same cannot be said for the Nazi, Captain von Schletow (Kurt Krueger). His motives are purely for the Nazi party and Germany, looking for any opportunity to turn the tide against the Americans and escape.

The story is taut, full of great performances and set pieces. During the climax it does step towards glorifying heroics in the face of sure defeat, yet it never glamorizes it. This is a dusty and dirty film and it never says away from depicting the sheer desperation both sides faced in this campaign. It is shot beautifully and convincingly and looks glorious when projected on as big a screen as possible.

Beat the Devil (1953) ***

Release Date: November 24, 1953

Running Time: 94 minutes

Starring: Humphrey Bogart, Jennifer Jones, Gina Lollobrigida, Edward Underdown, Robert Morley, Peter Lorre

Directed By: John Huston

When you pair legendary director John Huston with an all star cast that includes Humphrey Bogart, Peter Lorre, Robert Morley, and a pre James Bond era Bernard Lee, you have certain expectations. Add in a screenplay co-written by Truman Capote and based on a thriller novel by noted reformed communist author Claud Cockburn (under the pseudonym James Helvick) and those expectations hit the stratosphere. It is perhaps those lofty expectations that made Beat the Devil such a disappointment to audiences back in 1953. Upon initial screenings several minutes had to be excised, lost to time until only a few years ago when the uncut version was finally rescued and restored. The reception to this film upon initial release was bad enough that its star, Bogart, who lost quite a bit of his own money financing it, disliked it profusely. This disdain also saw the film’s copyright go without renewal leading it to drop into the public domain. Its reputation in therefore a bad one, yet to judge it so is being too harsh. The film is no Casablanca, yet there is a campiness to it that makes the proceedings a true delight to witness and the cast is clearly having a ball playing such broad characterizations amidst what should be a serious story, yet somehow is not. 

Billy Dannreuther (Bogart) and his wife Maria (Gina Lollobrigida) have fallen on rough times leading the two to reluctantly team up with four criminals: Peterson (Robert Morley), Jules (Peter Lorre), Ravello (Marco Tully) and Major Jack Ross (Ivor Barnard), who are scheming to illicitly acquire some Uranium rich land in British East Africa. The six of them are in port in Italy waiting for the ship they chartered to be repaired before they can set out for Africa. There, Billy and Maria become acquainted with another married couple, the oddly paired Harry (Edward Underdown) and his wife Gwendolen (Jennifer Jones). Harry and his wife are booked on the same ship bound for Africa. Harry is a stereotypical Englishman while his wife is flighty and prone to exaggeration. Gwendolen soon begins an affair with Billy while Maria is flirting with Harry. Gwendolen also talks up her husband in such a way that the men begin to suspect the couple may be attempting to get the land, themselves.

There are many great set pieces making up Beat the Devil, some of them technologically impressive for the time. When Peterson determines Harry may be trying to beat them to the land he abandons his fear of flying and insists on taking a plane at once. While driving to the plane their vehicle starts acting up prompting Peterson, Billy and the driver to get out and push. Unfortunately they are on a slope and the vehicle gets away from them, cruising down the road, amazingly taking corners, before finally crashing through a wall and falling into the ocean below. News of the crash gets back to the others who assume Peterson and Billy have been killed in the crash. The remaining men in turn immediately look for a way to spin this to their advantages, including Ravello who takes Harry into his confidence over the uranium scheme. 

In the original book the men never make it to Africa. That would have never worked for a film so, correctly, it was changed making the final act more cinematic. Instead, the group end up shipwrecked and captured by the Arab soldiers, the leader of whom sees right through their phony stories. Billy, through a series of lies convinces the leader to send them back to Italy right where they left off. It is just the kind of ending a film like this needs. They go around in a circle and no one gets what they really want. A letter arrives from Harry, who escaped the ship before the engines had failed, leading to the shipwreck. This letter punctuates the shaggy-dog aspect of this tale so poignantly that even Bogart’s Billy is forced into laughter, proclaiming loudly, “This is the end, the end!”

Unfortunately this film failed to find much of an audience when it originally released and was panned by critics at the time. But time has been favorable to it and a reexamination of it shows that it is actually a very well made farce, designed to string audiences along for a ridiculous ride filled with humor and oddities. From the first moments we see Peterson, Julius and Ravello walking with sole focus through Italy (Gwendolen announces they must be desperate men as none of them looked at her legs when passing by), we get the tone of this film. John Huston strikes that tone perfectly throughout. It failed to impress critics back in 1953 and audiences didn’t flock to it either. Since then, Bogart fans and John Huston fans have discovered it and breathed new life into what could have been a forgotten film. We are all the more fortunate for it as it is a wonderful film well worth the viewing.

Up the River (1930) **

Release Date: October 12, 1930

Running Time: 92 minutes

Starring: Spencer Tracy, Humphrey Bogart, Claire Luce, Warren Hymer

Directed By: John Ford

Legendary director John Ford who would later go on to make many films with the likes of John Wayne, Henry Ford and Lee Marvin, helmed 1930’s Up the River, his only film starring Humphrey Bogart. Ford had a career that spanned from the early 1910’s all the way into the 70’s. When his failing health finally ended his amazing and long running career. He cut his teeth in the silent era and it is this influence that is most obvious when watching Up the River. Right out the gate it is obvious that this is a film right on the edge of the transition between silent films and talkies. Title cards crop up from time to time to explain the setting or the situation much the same way they did when there was no better way to convey this information. It was a crutch early filmmakers relied on until they found more natural ways to do it. The story also falls on vaudevillian tropes that better served the silent era such as sight gags sans witty dialogue. Other conventions, some no longer politically correct, also date this film. It is a film of its time; a time capsule into a world that no longer exists.

The story is almost non-existent here. Steve (Humphrey Bogart) is being held at a southern prison along with his friends and fellow inmates Saint Louis (Spencer Tracy in his motion picture debut), and Dannemora Dan (Warren Homer). Steve is one of the trustees, well regarded by the guards and the warden, and entrusted in checking in newly incarcerated prisoners. One of these new prisoners is Judy Fields (Claire Luce) who has taken the rap for con man Frosby (Morgan Wallace) and is serving a year. The two fall in love and promise to marry once both are free. Steve finishes up his sentence several months before Judy and travels home to his family who know nothing of his incarceration. But Frosby follows him and, using this knowledge, blackmails Steve into defrauding the family and neighborhood with bad bank bonds. Word gets back to Saint Louis and Dan who break out of prison, during a talent show for the inmates, to deal with the fraudster.

What becomes apparent early on is that Bogart is uncomfortable in front of the screen here. He had appeared in a couple of short films before this but was relatively new to film acting at this time and that shows on screen. It wouldn’t take long for him to find his niche but it wouldn’t happen here. Two years later he would appear in his first gangster role and settle comfortably into that stereotype for the next decade. Here, he is trying to play a part that is outside his comfortable range and it comes across forced and unconvincing. 

In stark contrast, Spencer Tracy, who also was new to the scene, is spot on in the role of Saint Louis, a career convict who is loyal enough to break out of prison to help his friend and honest (?) enough to check back in when it’s all over. Tracy is having a blast in such a broadly drawn character showing clearly that he was born for the screen. He has just enough dark humor to him that we can see in the right circumstances he could be a dangerous man, yet we are drawn to him anyway. It’s a shame the rest of the film is not up to his level.

The threadbare story coupled with some really poor pacing problems really sink this picture. Scenes have a tendency to go on well past the point of necessity. This is most obvious during the talent show where while acts are on display. This is a holdover to the days of vaudeville where audiences expected more of a variety show then just a straight up narrative. It may have played better in the 30’s but modern audiences will find it disrupts the pacing. 

The comedy is very hit and miss, too. Some of the bits are outright hilarious. Saint Louis’s knife throwing act is dark and hilarious. This comes back in another humorous scene on board a train as he prepares to throw a small knife into the floor he and Dan are sitting on and, presumably, between the fingers of Dan’s outstretched hand. It’s funny and also a little unnerving, enhancing the humor. The final set piece involving a prison baseball game is the best scene in the entire movie, landing joke after joke, many of which would become clichés in later films. Other moments are just plain bizarre such as the inclusion of twin girls who speak everything in harmony. Moments like this hit the ground with a heavy thud. Even worse then that, though, is a music and dance number involving convicts in black face, including several closeup shots of a black prisoner laughing uproariously at what now days is highly offensive.

Up the River is a product of its time. Many MANY elements here have not aged well. If it weren’t for the brilliant performance of Spencer Tracy this might be forgotten amongst so many other films of the era. It has a unsatisfying resolution to the Frosby plot line, making that whole part of the story feel more like filler than an actual integral part of the story. It runs too long and spends too much time away from Saint Louis and Dan, who is playing the straight man to Spencer Tracy and thus fails to make much of an impression on his own. The film is hardly a train wreck but is so tonally off that it makes it a chore at times to watch all the way through.