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Lauren Bacall: Her Films and Career
This volume begins with a biography supplemented with many sexy shots of Lauren. After that each film starting with 1944 "To Have and Have Not" through 1982 "Health" is described and critiqued including Lauren's experiences on the set of each one.
192 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1986
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October 21, 2025
Up, down and up again. Repeat. That was the rollercoaster known as Lauren Bacall's career. Lawrence J. Quirk takes a critical, if sympathetic ("she has earned the right to handle herself any damn way she pleases" is his guiding principle while defending her notoriously difficult behavior), look at those ups and downs, as well as Bacall's star image and persona, written in 1986 while she was enjoying yet another career resurgence on both screen and stage.
Bacall's paradox is that she's commonly regarded as one of the few true top-tier A-list Hollywood legends, yet her vast body of work has been underanalyzed save for a handful of performances scrutinized by countless critics and scholars over the decades. Even though her autobiography became an award-winning best-seller, we still don't have a definitive, independent, in-depth Bacall biography. Quirk's book holds its value, as it remains one of the few comprehensive reviews of her work.
Quirk compactly and entertainingly weighs every performance Bacall delivered between 1944 and 1982, starting with a mini-essay on her stardom and life, which he frames as a tale of resilience and survival, before going through her filmography chronologically.
There are frustrating inconsistencies. Without apparent logic, Quirk deep-dives into the reviews Bacall received at the time for some movies but not others; the same applies to their box office results. There are also factual errors, such as the false claim that Bacall's singing was dubbed for To Have and Have Not. But Quirk's approach is refreshingly daring. He considers the universally-hailed To Have and Have Not subpar and deems the landmark melodrama Written on the Wind mediocre. Conversely, he praises Bacall in long-forgotten romps such as Blood Alley and Flame Over India. Few would side with these observations, but Quirk makes a compelling case for most of them.
The book covers 23 of Bacall's movies; she went on to make about as many more in the three decades that followed its publication until her death. While the first half of her career was inarguably her peak, it would be fascinating to read such a committed analysis on several of her late-career turns such as The Mirror Has Two Faces and Birth.
Bacall's paradox is that she's commonly regarded as one of the few true top-tier A-list Hollywood legends, yet her vast body of work has been underanalyzed save for a handful of performances scrutinized by countless critics and scholars over the decades. Even though her autobiography became an award-winning best-seller, we still don't have a definitive, independent, in-depth Bacall biography. Quirk's book holds its value, as it remains one of the few comprehensive reviews of her work.
Quirk compactly and entertainingly weighs every performance Bacall delivered between 1944 and 1982, starting with a mini-essay on her stardom and life, which he frames as a tale of resilience and survival, before going through her filmography chronologically.
There are frustrating inconsistencies. Without apparent logic, Quirk deep-dives into the reviews Bacall received at the time for some movies but not others; the same applies to their box office results. There are also factual errors, such as the false claim that Bacall's singing was dubbed for To Have and Have Not. But Quirk's approach is refreshingly daring. He considers the universally-hailed To Have and Have Not subpar and deems the landmark melodrama Written on the Wind mediocre. Conversely, he praises Bacall in long-forgotten romps such as Blood Alley and Flame Over India. Few would side with these observations, but Quirk makes a compelling case for most of them.
The book covers 23 of Bacall's movies; she went on to make about as many more in the three decades that followed its publication until her death. While the first half of her career was inarguably her peak, it would be fascinating to read such a committed analysis on several of her late-career turns such as The Mirror Has Two Faces and Birth.
Displaying 1 of 1 review