1) I’ve sort of put aside everything I’ve been reading to devour Bogie and Bacall, William J. Mann’s new double biography (which he himself signed for me at East End Books in Provincetown about a month ago). In five sections — Humphrey, Bogie, Betty, Bogie and Baby, and finally Lauren — all the myths and legends are cleared away to present the facts, which are not always very nice.
1a) I had seen Bogie in Petrified Forest with Leslie Howard and Bette Davis, but I had no idea it was his breakout film and his breakout Broadway show (also with Leslie Howard).
2) But this afternoon, on impulse, I put Betty Bacall aside for the script of Dinner at Eight, heaven knows why. If I was ever to go back on stage I’d love to do Carlotta Vance (Marie Dressler is perfection in the movie) . . . but whaddya know, all but one of her good scenes, and a couple of her best lines, are not in the Broadway script! In fact the whole play is much darker. Almost nothing gets resolved as it does in the film.
2a) The script included the original cast, so you can imagine my joy learning that Carlotta Vance had been created by my beloved Constance Collier. Other surprise casting include Cesar Romero as the evil chauffeur Ricci, Sam Levene as Max Kane, the theatrical agent (I learned a lot about him from Harold Kennedy’s memoir No Pickle, No Performance; Levene is famous for playing the producer in Moss Hart’s Light Up the Sky), and Gregory Gaye as Gustave the butler. He turns up in Casablanca as the German banker Rick won’t let in the back room, and also pops up in Ninotchka, I Wake Up Screaming, and as the murdered two-timing baritone in Charlie Chan at the Opera.
3) A couple weeks ago I woke up with the surprising revelation that, if I knew I was going to die in a couple weeks, I’d start throwing out all the unread books in this house. And it was a relief to consider it! But then . . . what would I prop my laptop on for Zoom calls?