by Carmen Polvere

Created on: May 30, 2010

  

    Humphrey Bogart is the Best Movie Actor of all time. If he portrayed no other character than Rick Blaine in “Casablanca” he would still be the best movie actor of all time. But fortunately for movie fans, he did. His breakthrough role as bank robber on the run Duke Mantee in the 1936 classic “The Petrified Forest” was as chilling a performance as any recent Hollywood horror creation. Bogart’s classic portrayal of killer with a hear of gold Roy Earle in “High Sierra” was another example of his range as an actor.

    When explaining to Captain Louis Renault (Claude Raines) why he came to Casablanca, “My health. I came to Casablanca for the waters,” Rick blandly states. “The waters,” exclaims Louis, “What waters?” adding “We’re in the desert.” To which Rick responds, “I was misinformed.” It doesn’t get any better.

    Bogart’s outstanding performances as detectives Sam Spade in “The Maltese Falcon” and Phillip Marlowe in “The Big Sleep” are film noir classics that to this day are a must see on any detective movie list. As Fred C. Dobbs in “The Treasure of Sierra Madre” Bogart showed a range seldom seen in movies before or since. The slide into insanity by Dobbs as acted by Bogart is an amazing feat.

     Other classics followed “Casablanca” such as “To Have and Have Not”, “Key Largo” and of course his Oscar winning performance as Charlie Allnut in “The African Queen”. Taking place during World War I “The African Queen” teams Charlie and Rose Sayer (Katharine Hepburn) as they attempt to sink German gunboat Louisa in the Belgium Congo by using Charlie’s African Queen as a torpedo boat to sink the Louisa. A terrific movie which also won Academy Awards (1951) for Katharine Hepburn as Best Actress and John Huston as Best Director. It is also notable that there are many who consider Katharine Hepburn as the Best Movie Actress of all time.

    As Rick strikes a blow for freedom by putting an end to Captain Strasser’s (Conrad Veidt) phone call at the airport while trying to recall the plane flying his love Ilsa Lund (Ingrid Bergman) and resistance leader Victor Laszlo (Paul Henreid) to Lisbon he symbolizes the fight for liberty being waged in the middle of World War II. How great it must have been in a movie theatre in 1943 watching Humphrey Bogart and Claude Raines walking off together into the fog as “Casablanca” ends with Rick proclaiming, “Louis, I think this the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”  Best Movie Actor of All Time? Humphrey Bogart wins hands down.

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