Exclusive Interview with Director Kathryn Ferguson 

Q : Kathryn, I love your previous work, “Nothing Compare”(Which Following the Career of Singer Sinéad O’Connor).  You did a phenomenal job out there. But, Humphrey Bogart is another kind of a star that intrigues a lot of people. So what’s your relation with Bogart that made you decide to tackle this project?

Kathryn Ferguson: Sure, thank you so much, I appreciate that you liked “Nothing Compare”. So, basically, Universal approached me about this project when I was finishing “Nothing Compares”, and I knew a little bit about Bogart, but he certainly wasn’t somebody that I’d spent years of my life studying by any means. I’d always been quite obsessed with the golden age of Hollywood, the weirdness of old Hollywood, like myths and legends, it was definitely an era I was really excited about, who isn’t? I suppose when they approached me about it was interesting.

To think, how could I tell a film about this icon of male masculinity in the 20th century? It felt like quite a jump, given most of my work’s about women. So myself and my co-writer, Eleanor Emptage sat down with this challenge and thought, how can we make a film we’d want to watch that we would be interested in through a contemporary lens.

We started to do a lot of research about him and really understand his story and find out as much as we could. What became very apparent quickly was the key relationships he had with women and who these women were and how they’d shaped his life and career trajectory prominently…so really from researching this and then really finding that was the angle that we were most interested in.

That was then what the film that we decided to make. I suppose it’s highly, cause he’s still considered like a titan of cinema and is still so revered 70 years after he’s been gone, we kind of wanted to ask why? What is the magic about and that’s kept his legacy so strong for so many years? So really I suppose that was the very starting point for it all.

Q :  This is like a really interesting point compared to the other documentary about Bogart, because it’s basically a relationship with his women in a lot of ways. Speaking of a woman, his mother Mode was a very well known illustrator and a breadwinner for the household, but it’s not a cuddling or hugging type. So do you think he became the ladies’ man in a certain sense,  because it had a lot to do with relationship with his mother because he was trying to actually win affection for the female in a later life?

Kathryn Ferguson: Yes, very well observed, in a nutshell, absolutely. We are not psychologists, so we can’t confirm it, but the relationship he had with his mother was a key relationship of his life. As you say, she was so successful and a breadwinner, right? Leading suffragettes whenever he was born and isn’t able to also nurture him in the way that he needs to be nurtured.

So appears to then follow this pattern throughout, especially his early few decades of his life where he seeks out very successful women who want to put their careers first.  And he really needs them to nurture him and they can’t. So the marriage collapsed because he’s not able to get what he needs. It feels like a pattern that keeps happening where he is seeking someone to care about him properly and to look after him, but he also can’t help being very attracted to very successful women, it’s a bit of a cycle that leads nowhere.

Obviously he gets into a problematic relationship with his third wife, Mayo, who is obviously an amazing actress as well, what’s tragic about that relationship is that it has a lot to do with how men and women were treated by the Hollywood system at that point. In the thirties, she was one of the leading film noir stars and he was on his way up.

And they meet face to face on an escalator, but because of their age, her escalator goes down and his escalator just keeps going up. I think that must have been very devastating for Mayo to meet this person and fall in love and both be on an equal footing work wise.

And then due to the system and the Hays Code(The Production Code spelled out acceptable and unacceptable content for motion pictures produced for a public audience in the United States) and the cancelling of all of Mayo’s type of roles that she’d obviously played, due to the moral codes coming into Hollywood and the censorship and the control that started to happen. Her career just ends basically, and then watching her partner just become this superstar must have been quite a hard pill to swallow.

Q : I didn’t know that he has such an extended stage career, prior to his success in the film industry. He even had a one year contract with Fox, but Fox didn’t renew the contract. But his past wife Helen Menken was trying to actually help his career, so as his second marriage and even third marriage as well. I thought that he had a certain charisma, but no one seemed to recognize them, why it take so long for anybody to recognize him?

Kathryn Ferguson: It’s probably been typecast in the wrong type of roles, certainly in the 20s. Playing the pretty boy repeatedly, didn’t get him anywhere because he wasn’t good looking enough for that role. A lot of people have commented on that in the film. He didn’t find his footing. Then, playing the gangster, coming from this very wealthy background.

Maybe the authenticity in his performances weren’t coming across as it was far from who he was as a person. I think John Houston was a huge part of it. He really met the creative match there that could really see the talent that Bogart has and how to use it best. It was that relationship that was one of the most important for his career, for sure. The Petrified Forest was obviously a really big moment as well. But prior to that, I don’t think it was a good match for the role.

Q : I’m curious to know that director Howard Hawks was initially discouraged in a relationship with Bogart and Lauren Bacall, because obviously he had 3 prior marriages, and obviously an age difference that might not be probably successful. But they worked together initially, I thought he should have been more encouraging, but he just warned her. I was wondering what was the reason for that. 

Kathryn Ferguson: I think Hawks was quite controlling over the women that he discovered and brought into his film. I think there was something from what I was reading about it, there was something about that. I think he’d also somewhat based Lauren’s style and how she was portrayed on his partner, Nancy “Slim” Keith(Hawks’ wife). I don’t know, there was something strange going on there.

In a nutshell, I think Howard Hawks was maybe slightly jealous that there was something happening between Bogart and Bacall. But of course, there was a huge age gap, very problematic. Bogart was in a very tragic marriage on both sides and Anyone I’m sure who cared about either of them would have told them to run a mile at that point because it was obviously not the healthiest thing to be getting into.

I think what’s interesting about that relationship is that despite all of the age differences and I suppose everybody’s concern and I think the proof really is in the pudding and that they were very in love and had a strong relationship for 12 years, obviously now they are known as royalty of the golden age of Hollywood pairing together, but I can understand why people would have been concerned at the start, for sure.

Q : I personally think it’s very much the reason with the successful relationship is that it also relies on probably how smart she was considering her age back then. Even after she launched her career, she mentioned that instead of her career, she was trying to focus on marriage. But let’s move on to the other topic that Bogart’s relationship and stance on Hollywood Industry, particularly about McCarthyism, he actually went to hearing and one of his pictures was published in a Life Magazine. 

Kathryn Ferguson: He was very anti censorship. And he’d obviously, and I think that was something that we were definitely trying to put this in the film, going right back to Helen Menken’s brush with censorship in Broadway, with “The Captive”, being cancelled for a play about a lesbian.

Certainly, he had these run ins throughout his whole career. And I think by the time, when we get to that part really around the communist witch hunts in Hollywood, I think his big thing was we can’t have this type of censorship in movies. It’s really immoral and not a standard we should be adhering to, he storms to Washington with a plane load of Hollywood stars, thinking they’re gonna support things and turn things around. I find it fascinating he buckles under the pressure, I think the Daily Worker had him on the front cover when the pressure got too extreme and he then recants and takes it back.

And that, I find, is one of the most surprising elements of Bogart’s character, because he doesn’t do anything else. As John Huston says in the film, that was something he regretted doing. It is interesting to hear how much pressure he was under at the time, but it’s something we’re all dealing with today with blacklisting and cancelling. I feel if he had one regret on his deathbed, it was probably that.

Q : What I find fascinating about part of the films that he was involved in was Casablanca and his relationship with Ingrid Bergman. During your research of the film, what are the things that you find fascinating about their relationship? 

Kathryn Ferguson: With Bergman, yeah, I think she was obviously incredibly excited to being in a film with him, but I think during that period in his personal life, he was going through a very point in his marriage(He was married to Mayo Methot that was really a rocky marriage), and as we go into the film, but I feel that he probably kept himself to himself.

So that he didn’t cause any more problems at home, to be honest..lol. And one of the ways to avoid problems was to avoid being too pally with a beauty like Inger Bergman. But I think he would have kept himself to himself by all accounts from interviews that must’ve been confusing to someone like her, who was obviously appearing in this film as co-star and him being so unreachable. It’s miraculous the chemistry still comes across on screen despite this all emotional wall he’s put up.

Q : Has your perception of Bogaert changed after making this film? 

Kathryn Ferguson: I didn’t know very much about him to be honest, I’ve learned a huge amount about this complex human being, I’d watched maybe a handful of his key films prior to that, so for me, it was a real lesson in finding out who this person was and trying to understand. How has he maintained this legacy for so many decades after his death?  So all of it’s been educational for me and surprising, getting to understand more about the man behind the myth.

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Here’s the trailer of the film.