Bogart and Huston Their lives, their adventures, and the classic movies they made together

Film critic Segaloff (The Rambo Report: Five Films, Three Books, One Legend) examines the collaboration between director John Huston (1906--87) and actor Humphrey Bogart (1899--1957), who made six films together. While the two men did not spend much time together away from work, their professional relationship was highly successful and based on admiration and trust, Segaloff writes. Huston was a screenwriter on several of Bogart's earlier films, and when he received his first directing assignment, 1941's The Maltese Falcon, Bogart was his top choice for the role of Sam Spade. The stellar success of that film set the stage for five future films, from classics such as 1948's The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (which won Huston two Oscars for his direction and screenplay) and 1951's The African Queen (which won Bogart his Best Actor Oscar), to minor but well-received films like Across the Pacific (1942) and Key Largo (1948). Their last collaboration was the 1954 cult classic Beat the Devil. Segaloff's book devotes a chapter to each film, plus brief biographical chapters on Huston, Bogart, and their studio head, Jack Warner. VERDICT An entertaining look at two brilliant Hollywood figures and the cinematic legacy they created.--Phillip Oliver

A film critic celebrates one of cinema's most fruitful writer-director alliances. As longtime reviewer Segaloff writes in this admirably non-hagiographic book, Humphrey Bogart (1899-1957) and John Huston (1906-87) "were friends who together produced an extraordinary screen legacy." They teamed up for six films from 1941 to 1953, starting with Huston's directorial debut,The Maltese Falcon, an effort that rescued Bogart from the "relentless string of B-pictures" that the head of Warner Bros., Jack Warner, had consigned him to. Segaloff writes that, while previous books have been devoted to only one of the two men, his focuses on their collaboration and views their work "through the lens of their personalities, histories, interests, and the noteworthy times they spent together." The conceit of writing a book about both men rather than just one isn't as original as Segaloff suggests, but that doesn't detract from his accounts of their long, frequently booze-soaked friendship and the films they made together. He charts classics fromKey Largo (1948) toThe African Queen (1951) toThe Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) and lesser efforts such asBeat the Devil (1953), a "cult movie" that "was born in compromise, planned in arrogance, filmed in panic, and released in desperation." Segaloff documents each man's many marriages and affairs and dramatizes the rift that developed after Bogart backtracked on his criticism of the House Un-American Activities Committee when Republicans questioned his loyalty. This is well-traveled ground, with stories that fans likely know, but it's still fun to read about these two men and their respective misadventures. When Bogart was shootingAcross the Pacific (1942), his marriage to Mayo Methot was going so poorly that, when he came home one day, she stabbed him with a kitchen knife. A doctor stitched him up, and "like a trouper, Bogart reported to work the next morning." Nothing new, but a pleasant read for fans. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.