Where I'm Bacalling From

While home for the holidays and watching the required amount of holiday TV, I finally saw Dark Passage, the 1947 Humphrey Bogart-Lauren Bacall noir. It's pretty fine, but several close-ups convinced me that Bacall possessed supernatural good looks even among the noir siren pantheon. By the time of this movie, the 23-year-old Bacall was already married to the 48-year old Bogart, whom she met while filming her first movie, 1944's To Have and To Have Not. Bacall got that role because of the Harper's Bazaar cover above, which was spotted by director Howard Hawks' wife. Something kind of creepy about the blood-nurse tableau and Bacall's doll-like expression -- but still, what a honey.