Turner Classic Movies tip for Dec. 25, 2008: Bogey for Christmas

December 24, 3:43 PMClassic TV ExaminerDoug Krentzlin

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     Humphrey Bogart in "The Maltese Falcon" 

“Casablanca,” TCM, Thursday, Dec. 25, 2008, 8 p.m. (EST)

“The Big Sleep,” 10 p.m. (EST)

“The Maltese Falcon,” 12 Midnight (EST)

Humphrey Bogart was the movies’ uber-tough guy and one of the most influential actors of his generation. This Christmas night, TCM has the perfect present for Bogart fans: his three greatest movies back-to-back starting at eight o’clock p.m. (Supposedly Bogart was born on Dec. 25, 1899.)

“The Maltese Falcon” (1941) was screenwriter John Huston’s directing debut and the very first film noir. It also holds the record as the most faithful film adaptation of a novel ever. Bogart had his first major leading man role as ruthless private detective Sam Spade whose investigation of the murder of his partner puts him on the trail of the priceless treasure known as the Maltese Falcon. Mary Astor is the femme fetale and the rogue’s gallery of villains includes Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre and Elisha Cook, Jr.

“Casablanca” (1942) is Bogart’s most famous film, which along with “Citizen Kane” epitomizes Hollywood at its best. In this, the definitive World War II flag waver, Bogart plays Rick Blaine, owner of a night club in French-occupied Morocco caught up in a romantic triangle with Isle Lund (Ingrid Bergman), the woman he carries a torch for, and her husband, internationally known freedom fighter Victor Laszlo (Paul Henreid). Conrad Veidt plays Major Strasser, the Nazi heavy, and Claude Rains steals the show as corrupt policeman Captain Renault.

“The Big Sleep” (1946) was an attempt to recapture the magic of “The Maltese Falcon” and the result was arguably Bogart’s most entertaining movie as well as the most memorable of the films he made with his wife Lauren Bacall. Directed by the great Howard Hawks, “The Big Sleep” stars Bogart as Raymond Chandler’s immortal private eye Philip Marlowe and Bacall as the mysterious Vivian Sternwood in this wonderfully convoluted tale of blackmail and murder.