‘Key Largo’ a great showcase for Bogart

Or to put it another way, a cat born on the day that “The Maltese Falcon” was released could have attended Bogart’s funeral.

Yet the impression he made in these short years ranks in the highest reaches of the pantheon.

If cinema were a religion (it’s not), Bogart would be one of the most powerful saints, so legendary that it’s almost hard to believe he ever existed in normal time.

Curiously, Bogart achieved this status only after his death, when a new generation discovered him on late-show reruns and in repertory houses.

[...] he was ideally suited for grainy 16mm and TV viewing, in that he had a rather soggy lower lip that was distracting in pristine prints and is even more apparent on Blu-ray.

He’s a disillusioned veteran who comes to visit the wife (Lauren Bacall) and father (Lionel Barrymore) of a fallen comrade, and he arrives just as their hotel is being occupied by a team of gangsters, led by Edward G. Robinson, see?

[...] let’s not forget Claire Trevor, as the gangster’s former flame, now a pathetic drunk.