How one movie saved Humphrey Bogart’s Hollywood career: “I’d now be out of films altogether”
In 1999, the American Film Institute (AFI) released their list of ‘100 Years… 100 Stars’, detailing the greatest movie stars to ever grace the screen.
The exercise, which mainly consisted of names from the ‘Golden Age’ of Hollywood, produced two lists, one for men and one for women. On the male side of things, the top ten include indisputable legends like Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy, Jimmy Stewart, and Cary Grant, but there was only room for one man at the very top. His name was Humphrey Bogart.
Through his roles in The Maltese Falcon, The Big Sleep, and Casablanca, Bogart established an on-screen persona of a suave, slick-talking hero with wits as sharp as his enviable features. He was a household name in his heyday and continues to inspire many talented performers to this very day. However, things weren’t always so good for him.
Like so many actors before or since, Bogart struggled to make an impact in the early days of his career. He had been a stage actor for many years before snapping up a few measly film and radio roles in the early 1930s, but, as he recalled in Stefan Kanfer’s book Tough Without a Gun: The Life and Extraordinary Afterlife of Humphrey Bogart, one film changed everything.
“I believe if I had not been given the movie role of Duke Mantee, in The Petrified Forest, I’d now be out of films altogether,” the star declared. “Duke was my first heavy role, and I like heavies, having no desire to be sympathetic or romantic… I had had so many violently active stage parts that the chair felt fine. Putting across a characterisation without benefit of the usual movement and gestures that help hold an audience’s attention is a special kind of problem.”
Based on a play by three-time Pulitzer Prize winner Robert E Sherwood, The Petrified Forest tells the story of a waitress named Gabby (Bette Davis) and her ambitions to leave a small Arizona town. She meets Alan (Leslie Howard), the man she thinks holds the answers to all of her questions. That’s where Bogart comes in. As the vicious gang leader Mantee, Bogart holds the diner where Gabby works hostage, and the two would-be lovers must fight to live long enough to have a future together.
Bogart had first played the role on stage, in a production also featuring Howard. It was Howard who landed his co-star the role in the movie version; the studio had wanted to cast Edward G Robinson as Duke, but Howard lobbied for Bogart instead. The icon was so touched by this kindness that he named his only daughter Leslie in honour of his friend.
The Petrified Forest is one of Bogart’s best ever films. If you’ve only ever seen him in his trademark hero roles, then you’ll be shocked to see him play as callous and ruthless as Mantee. This was the part that proved he had range and could offer more to a production than just a handsome face. Without it, there’s a chance he might not have topped that AFI list so many years later.
