Hell No They Ain’t No Angels-Humphrey Bogart’s We’re No Angels

Hell No They Ain’t No Angels-Humphrey Bogart’s We’re No Angels

DVD Review

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

We’re No Angels, starring Humphrey Bogart, Peter Ustinov, Aldo Ray         

Over the past couple of years I have been running the table on Humphrey Bogart films, as an expression of the kind of guy, cinematic guy anyway, that I could relate to as a kid (and still admire in certain ways). You know a guy that no one would dare throw sand in their face, certainly no woman, not because of his physical size so much as that he had a look that if somebody was so foolhardy as to do such a deed they would find themselves in a bad place on some dark, foggy night when they least expect to find themselves facing his personal bastinado. A guy not looking for trouble but not ducking it either, not ducking even some punk hood, all what did they call it back then, yeah, all “gaudy and show” with some dangling hot gun that he would be more than happy to take away from such a miscreant, and the punk, being a punk would have to take it, have to take it or else. And speaking of dames, twists, frills, frails or whatever you called women, good-looking femme fatale-type women in your old corner boy night, including good-looking dames who might be so foolhardy as to throw sand in a guy’s face (not literal sand but fog-bound sand and story to mix a guy up beyond belief), a guy who was not afraid to take a little gaff for some twisty dame who gave him that come hither look. A guy ready to chase some windmills for that look just to see where it led. Best of all a guy not afraid to run the rack on some bad guy (or a good guy who was looking to turn bad) just because he was a bad guy, maybe kept some old man awake at night, worrying, or some frail tied up to his rackets, that kind of thing.  

Now some of those attributes might not mean a lot, might in fact be kind of old-fashioned, kind of rough male of the species over the top these days in some circles in polite Western society but there you have it. For a time that running the table included reviews of Bogie as the hard-nosed, take no prisoners, give no quarter and take none shoot first and ask questions later mad monk gangster Duke Mantee who really was a man of his deadly word in the matchup between primitive man and the increasingly effete intellectual modern world man featured in The Petrified Forest and the take no nonsense world-weary, world-wary detective Sam Spade ready at the drop of a hat to either chase some stuff of dreams windmills or to put the handcuffs on tight for some wayward femme with that come hither look and that jasmine scent or whatever the hell she was wearing in the film adaptation of Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon. Reviews as well of the jaded ex-pat (who had that funny little prior resume point of having been a “premature anti-fascist” in the 1930s struggle in Spain) “welcome to the struggle” ready to take on the whole German Army once he got religion and once she, and you know the she even if she did not have the price of that jasmine scent, for the seven thousandth time got under his skin Rick of Rick’s Café in Casablanca, and, oh yeah, along that same vein the knight in shining armor, or better because more useful sea-worthy boat captain ready to take on the whole Vichy French apparatus in the wartime (World War II version) to save a damsel in distress, a dame who would have gotten under anybody’s skin once she asked for that off-hand cigarette-lighting match and gave that come hither whistle, in the film adaptation of Ernest Hemingway’s To Have Or Have Not. And to give a couple more examples for those who don’t get the allure a couple of reviews of Bogie as the resourceful but also world-weary, world wary detective Phillip Marlowe who keeps the dreams of an old man alive (and his wayward daughters, including one who took dead aim at him as a windmill chaser and the other just dead aim, out of trouble) in taking a punk mobster down to size in the film adaptation of Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep and as a  “don’t leave your buddy behind” true blue Army guy looking for the bad guys who tried to blocked him from doing just that in Dead Reckoning. So with just those few examples you can see that they were all films where Bogie exhibited certain manly traits that were (and some may still be) worth emulating. And then we come to the film under review, We’re No Angels, and the guy switches up on us. Turns into a Good Samaritan, of sorts, an ironic one splashed with a little humorous bend too.           

What gives? What gives, just to give a snapshot of what this film is about, is that Bogie is one of three hardened convicts (the other two played Peter Ustinov and Aldo Ray), French convicts, hard cases all (murderers, career criminals) who are doing hard time at that little maximum prison resort in the Caribbean, Devil’s Island. But being resourceful, especially around Christmas time, they escaped to the town nearby with plans to set sail for France and to take up their old lives as carefree guys once again, maybe a heist here, a con there, simple stuff. But first they need dough, plenty of dough, and some new duds since to grab that departing ship requires not just dough but a certain look, a look like you did not just escape from high security Devil’s Island.  So they planned to rob a clothing merchant to give them that cash, and throw in the duds while they were at it. Turned out though, as the film slowly developed, the merchant was no good as a businessman having failed in France and been sent out to the boondocks by his greedy rich cousin, a nefarious relative as it turned out, no question, had a wife, a fetching wife, no question, who stood by him (they don’t always, the fetching ones), and a sweet teenage daughter, all betwixt and between, who was in love with, well, you know how teenagers are, in love with being in love.   

So our hardened criminals, our nefarious bad guys slowly turned things around and went from attempted robberies and petty pilfering of civilian outfits to Good Samaritans and help the merchant (by getting rid of, getting rid in a very final way, the greedy cousin who had come from France for an inspection), the wife (still standing by her husband to Bogie’s chagrin), and that smitten daughter (who fell in and out of love with one guy, and then in love with another, like I said a typical teenager) being witty, ironic, and funny by turns, especially Bogie. And get this, once they have spread their Christmas cheer they head back to jail, no, head back to hellhole Devil’s Island. What the heck is going on with our man Bogie. Give me Duke Mantee who would just as soon put a slug in a guy as look at him (and does in that endless cinematic battle between the primitive instincts of man and the modern attempts to curb those baser instincts which got a thorough-going test in the real world of the 1930s and 1940s) or Sam Spade who turned over, once he took a cold shower to wipe that come hither look out of his mind and opened a window to let the city air merge and melt that jasmine scent, that filled with the stuff of dreams femme fatale who just so happened to have an itchy trigger-finger to the coppers without a tear. Give me that Rick of Rick’s Café who gave up his honey, without or without the jasmine scent as a lure that was just the way it was with them, for the good of the cause or that made of sterner stuff skirt-chasing Captain Morgan once he saw she could sing too, sing and take a few knocks without crying about the matter. Okay, and give me that handy Philip Marlowe, avenger of sullen women’s sicknesses, avenger of old men’s broken dreams, avenger of wrong track turned right femmes, avenger of small time right gees and grifters by bad hombres who put paid to the career of one Eddie Mars or the stick to his guns, undeterred, inquisitive, and vengeful Rip not leaving his Army buddy behind, or anything to sullen his memory. You take him in We’re No Angels, okay.