Film: The Caine Mutiny 1954's "The Caine Mutiny" was not Humphrey Bogart's last film (he made half a dozen others before dying in 1957), but it was arguably his last great film. Unlike the roles Bogart had as a young man, his role as Lieutenant Commander Phillip Queeg in The Caine Mutiny sees him as a grizzled veteran tasked with restoring order to a poorly run ship. His character is nit-picking, paranoid, and all but washed up. Instead of being the leading man, Bogart serves as the foil for two junior officers--Lieutenant Thomas Keefer and Ensign Willie Keith--who are locked in a Manichean struggle. It's a role Bogart plays well, seeing as it mirrored his own declining stature in Hollywood; Bogart complained after the film was released that he got less than he deserved for the role. August 20 at the National Theatre, 1321 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW. Phone: 202-628-6161. Web: http://www.nationaltheatre.org/
Novelist Louis Bromfield (center) watches Lauren Bacall cut the cake after her marriage to Humphrey Bogart (left) at Bromfield's Ohio farm. Son Stephen Bogart is helping raise funds to renovate the home where his parents were married. (Associated Press)
The "fanatical devotion" of his fans made actor Humphrey Bogart "bigger in death than he had been in life," biographer Stefan Kanfer writes.
