From 1941 to 1953, director John Huston and actor Humphrey Bogart made one classic film after another, from The Maltese Falcon to The African Queen. Here is the story of their close but combative friendship.
Little of this is news—in fact I couldn’t find a single anecdote or quote in the book that Segaloff hadn’t sourced from one of the many biographies of the men ... Segaloff’s book is a papier-mâché mummy of secondary sources, rewritten in a style that makes the mistake of trying to sound hardboiled ... Disinclined to sort out fact from fiction, Segaloff fails to zero in on what should have been the heart of the book: the role the men played in each other’s fantasy lives ... Plodding ... Tedious.
The author is clearly a fan of both men, but Segaloff writes frankly about the darker sides of Huston and Bogart...so that the reader can understand these two fully—both the good and the bad. A welcome addition to the voluminous literature about Bogart, Huston, and the movies they made.
Nothing new, but a pleasant read for fans ... Admirably non-hagiographic ... The conceit of writing a book about both men rather than just one isn’t as original as Segaloff suggests ... This is well-traveled ground, with stories that fans likely know, but it’s still fun to read.
