IT ALL CAME TRUE (1940)

Standard line on Humphrey Bogart’s move from the ranks of leading contract players to A-list stardom has him plucked for bigger things in '41 by Raoul Walsh and then John Huston for the one-two punch of HIGH SIERRA and THE MALTESE FALCON.  But before that, home studio Warners had already singled him out after years of second lead hoods in big pics and top-billed leads in programmers.  In hindsight, this film looks like his career pivot point.*  Lewis Seiler is the blunt, journeyman director who can’t take the cutes out of the set-up, an aging Irish Darlin’ with a failing Manhattan boarding house filled with ancient ex-performers who gets a lifeline when her darling boy (Jeffrey Lynn) comes home with his guest, underworld gangster/club owner/employer Bogart, desperate for an unlikely hideout after shooting someone.  Niece Ann Sheridan, a singer who’s worked for Bogie, already staying there.  Both men have their eyes on Sheridan.  (Who wouldn’t, she even gets to sing a few numbers in her own warmly musical voice when a bored Bogie converts the brownstone into an intimate Gay ‘90s club.  Just what any gangster on the lam would do.)  Hokey, but also silly fun; plus a great turn from Felix Bressart as a retired magician who doesn’t know his revived act is getting big laughs because his dated routine is so darn corny.  But the main thing to watch is how Bogart transitions right before your eyes into a sympathetic lead.  Heck, he even gets the big renunciation scene at the end so he can play fairy godfather to the lovers.*

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK:  *Basically, the same renunciation bit James Cagney played two years back for Raoul Walsh in THE ROARING TWENTIES/’39, giving the very same Jeffrey Lynn the love of his life.  Plus Bogart as the second lead baddie . . . sans redemption.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2016/09/the-roaring-twenties-1939.html

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  *A later reissue reshot the opening title card, upping Bogart from third to first billed.