"You know how to whistle, don't you? Just put your lips together and blow..."
"I used to tremble from nerves so badly that the only way I could hold my head steady was to lower my chin practically to my chest and look up at Bogie. That was the beginning of "The Look." (Lauren Bacall)
Lauren Bacall meets Humphrey Bogart
Director Howard Hawks discovered her for To Have and Have Not (1944). In the story Hawks told, this film sprang from a bet made over drinks with Ernest Hemingway. Hawks wagered he could make a great film from Hemingway's worst story. He did it--by crafting relationships, both Bogie and Walter Brennan's friendship and the amorous fireworks between Bogie and Bacall. In fact, he had the film rewritten so that the relationship between "Steve" and "Marie" became the main focus of the film. Originally the romance was to have been between Bogart and Dolores Moran (Mme. Du Bursac), the wife of the fugitive Paul Du Bursac. Bacall became known to all of Bogart's friends as "The Cast". Whenever he wanted to see her, he told Mayo Methot, his wife at that time, he was going out with "the cast". Bogart and Bacall had broken off their relationship at the end of the
filming because Bogart felt he should make an honest go of his marriage with Mayo, but the romance was rekindled during "The Big Sleep".
The Big Sleep (1946)
Director Howard Hawks and Bogart got into an argument as to whether one of the characters was murdered or committed suicide (Owen Taylor, the chauffeur whom is only referenced in the movie). They sent a wire to author Raymond Chandler asking him to settle the issue, but he replied that he didn't know either.
The scene where Bogart and Lauren Bacall make suggestive talk about horses was added almost a year after filming was otherwise complete, and the two performers had married in the mean time. The dialogue is as follows:
Bacall: "...speaking of horses, I like to play them myself. But I like to see them work out a little first. See if they're front-runners or come from behind... I'd say you don't like to be rated. You like to get out in front, open
up a lead, take a little breather in the back stretch, and then come home free...."
Bogart: "You've got a touch of class, but I don't know how far you can go."
Bacall: "A lot depends on who's in the saddle."
This made it past the censors of the day and has gone down in movie history.
Many scenes were reshot to play up to Bogart and Bacall's romance, all of them after they were married. The scene where Marlowe is tied up in the hideout was totally reshot, giving Bacall more lines and close-ups, and they used a different actress to play Eddie Mars' wife.
Editor's note: Lauren Bacall died, aged 89, on August 12, 2014.