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Actress and novelist Mary Astor was born on May 3rd, 1906. In making the 1941 movie “The Great Lie”, Bette Davis insisted that a difficult to cast role be given to Astor because Davis liked to work with good actresses who would bring out the best in her. Astor understood this type of risk taking, as opposed to dull self-protective caution, later writing: “Our security must be threatened in order for us to appreciate it.” Astor won the movie's only award, the supporting actress Oscar for her portrayal of pianist Sandra Kovak. In her acceptance speech, Astor thanked Bette Davis...

MSNBC’s anchor Joy Reid said Friday on her show “The ReidOut” that the majority of Americans support President Joe Biden moving to vaccine mandates because they are “sick” of the “unvaccinated bogarting our spaces and keeping the pandemic going.” Reid said, “We begin tonight with a sigh of relief followed by a right-wing meltdown. President Biden has announced far-reaching new federal requirements to compel the millions of unvaccinated Americans to get their shot. If you’re like me, chances are you and those in your circle thought — finally, we finally don’t have to worry about the unvaccinated bogarting our spaces...

Let's stop arguing about Mitt Romney and argue about something else for a couple hours. I'm presently in a discussion with some friends about whether Isla Lund really wanted to end up with Rick Blaine or Victor Laszlo. If you need to Google these names, skip this post. I say she wanted to be with Rick. The explication here begins in the scene where she shows up at Rick's apartment holding a gun at him, and he says, "Go ahead and shoot; you'll be doing me a favor." Got it? Okay. When she got there, she demanded the letters of...

One of the definitive (some would say THE definitive) films noir tonight.

Humphrey Bogart stars in this semi-spoof film noir about a group of swindlers looking to make a shady uranium mine deal in Africa. Neither the deal, nor the group is quite what they seem, however... Directed by John Huston. Co-starring Jennifer Jones, Peter Lorre, and Gina Lollbrigida...

"With deep sorrow, yet with great gratitude for her amazing life, we confirm the passing of Lauren Bacall," the estate said on a verified Twitter account. Bacall was married to Humphrey Bogart from the mid-1940s until his death in 1957. They had two children.

She looked so terrific and strong for such a long time that it was easy to imagine Lauren Bacall might just hang around forever. And who wouldn’t want her to, for the pleasure of hearing her firing off smart, unvarnished remarks about old Hollywood in that husky voice? But the end came at last on Tuesday, when the 89-year-old actress died from a stroke at her home, according to a report on TMZ.

<p>A statuette of a bird featured in the classic 1941 detective thriller "The Maltese Falcon" sold for more than $4 million at auction Monday.</p> <p>The final price on the 45-pound, 12-inch-tall prop was $4,085,000, according to Bonhams auction house. That includes Bonham's premium.</p>

It features in one of the most famous movie scenes of all time - and now it could be yours. The car in which Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman's characters travelled in to the airport for Casablanca's immortal finale is going under the hammer next month. The 1940 Buick Phaeton - which belonged to Bogart's character Rick Blaine in the 1942 film - is expected to fetch $500,000 (£312,000) at auction in New York on November 25. It is among a number of iconic movie props and costumes being sold off as part of the Dreams Are Made of This...

c. 1918: Humphrey Bogart in the Navy

For those interested and wanting to watch something more tolerable than the Communist(oops!) "Democratic" National Convention, Turner Classic Movies is presently airing all 4 Humphrey Bogart/Lauren Bacall films tonight.

The Caine Mutiny airs tonight at 8:00 Eastern Time on TCM. The Republican Debate starts an hour later on ABC.

The facts for this article, but not the legal conclusions, come from an internal memorandum in the US Department of Homeland Security, Division of Citizenship and Immigration. This extraordinary document is from the Chief Counsel and the Directors of Policy and Strategy, Field Operations and Service Center Operations. It is addressed to the Director of that Office. Though the ACLU has no direct involvement in this memo, it is entirely in line with the ACLU’s position that everyone who can sneak across the border is immediately entitled to all the benefits available to Americans and to legal residents in America....

I watched The African Queen, again this week. That classic movie, starring Humphrey Bogart and Katherine Hepburn, offered a clear explanation of several current news events this week. What is the lesson of The African Queen? It is this: Understand your circumstances, and set your goal based on that. In that movie, the goal was to sink the German warship, The Louisa. And that goal dictated the tactics which had to be taken, regardless of danger or odds against them, to reach that goal. As a reminder of that fine movie, the tactics were for Charlie Allnut and Rose Sayers...

The largest study of its kind has unexpectedly concluded that smoking marijuana, even regularly and heavily, does not lead to lung cancer. The new findings ''were against our expectations,'' said Donald Tashkin, of the University of California at Los Angeles, a pulmonologist who has studied marijuana for 30 years. ''We hypothesized that there would be a positive association between marijuana use and lung cancer, and that the association would be more positive with heavier use,'' he said. ``What we found instead was no association at all, and even a suggestion of some protective effect.'' Federal health and drug enforcement officials...

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Poor Jim Carrey. His movies have raked in nearly $2 billion at box offices, but now a leading entertainment magazine says the comedian's asking price of $25 million a film has become "a bit of a gamble." ADVERTISEMENT In its issue out this week, Entertainment Weekly rates top stars on whether they are worth the money. Among those whose asking prices have become too high are Carrey, Nicole Kidman, Will Ferrell and Eddie Murphy, the magazine said. It added that after years of ever-rising star salaries, the prices for top talent are now coming down because...

The Aviator on National Review Online E-mail Author Send to a Friend <% printurl = Request.ServerVariables("URL")%> Print Version February 25, 2005, 3:14 p.m. Howard Hughes's Last HurrahWhat The Aviator misses. by John Meroney Fifty-three years ago this week, Howard Hughes found himself locked in a battle against powerful political forces he believed were bent on undermining the free-market system. The billionaire industrialist, airplane manufacturer, and filmmaker became so passionate about the fight that he summoned all his emotional and physical strength to overcome a crippling fear of the public so he could make his case for what he saw as...

The most storied bird in cinema history, Dashiell Hammett's ``The Maltese Falcon,'' is winging its way back home to San Francisco to star in the 75th anniversary celebration of a book that helped create the ``hard-boiled'' American mystery genre. Getting the black bird -- or rather, the 50-pound lead prop used in the 1941 screen version -- from Southern California to San Francisco, where Hammett lived and wrote from 1921 to 1929, could very well make a Hammett-style pot boiler all its own. Now valued at $2 million, the statue Sam Spade so doggedly pursued will arrive with armed security....