Invisible Stripes (1939) Screen Caps

This movie just lent itself to screen caps. I had several "WTF", "OMG" and "FTW" moments while watching the film and there were just way too many choice images I wanted to capture. And here they are! Enjoy.

Naked. I fully expect to get traffic from "George Raft Naked" and "Humphrey Bogart Naked" Google searches after this.

I beg your pardon, but aren't you Humphrey Bogart? 

Baby-faced William Holden and his pinch-able cheeks!

And the angels sing on high

You'll never see a bunch of teenagers fight this hard over going to work.

Eh. East Side Kid. No. Dead End Kid. No I got it! Bowery Boy! 

Hey Nancy, get your trusty wrench and hit this criminal over here on the head.

Just curious as to why Bogie got hit in the leg if the bullets were clearly aiming for his head.

Here's looking at you... tramp.

Invisible Stripes (1939)

The stripes are invisible because even though they are no longer in jail, they will never be free.

Invisible Stripes (1939) watches a lot like another Bogie movie that came out that same year: Roaring Twenties (1939). Instead of James Cagney and Bogie coming home from World War I you have George Raft and Bogie coming out of jail. The plight they face when they come home is the same. Any opportunities that were available before the left are not there when they come back. Bogie, in both roles, knows that going/staying bad is the only way to get by whereas both Cagney and Raft make a valiant effort at going straight. George Raft plays Cliff who tries everything he can to get a decent job but finds nothing but opposition. No one wants to have an ex-con from Sing Sing on staff. His little brother Tim (William Holden - wait, what? William Holden? OMG! That was him? I didn't even recognize him. He's so young. Why didn't anyone tell me...) wants to marry his longtime girlfriend Peggy (Jane Bryan) but he can't make ends meet enough to be able support a wife and a family. Tim is very tempted by the criminal life that people like Chuck (Bogie) lead; taking what they want, when they want and making no excuses. Cliff will do everything possible to give his little brother and his mother (Flora Robson) a good life, even if it means sacrificing a life for himself. Bogie is as well represented here as he was in Roaring Twenties. He's in a supporting role, has fourth billing but his part is significant enough that although another actor carries the movie you still get the Bogie experience.

They Drive By Night (1940)

This scene never happened. But it's a great shot nonetheless!

Poor Bogie. By 1940, he was fed up with all the roles Warner Bros. had been giving him. They Drive By Night (1940), might have been the last straw. Bogie got fourth billing after George Raft, Ann Sheridan and Ida Lupino. Not only that, Ida Lupino, a newcomer to Hollywood, stole the picture from veterans Raft and Bogart with her performance as the evil and downright crazy Lana Carlsen. Bogie played gangsters, a Mexican Bandito, Irish horse handler and has been killed or maimed in a movie in every which way imaginable. They Drive By Night is a good precursor for High Sierra, Bogie's breakout role because this may be the lowest Bogie's career had sunk before he made it big. I mean, c'mon, the guy loses an arm, his job and the means to support his family within the first 30 minutes. And all because his character fell asleep on the job. Then he disappears for the rest of the picture until the very end. Not quite worthy of the great Bogie in my opinion. It was time for Hollywood to wake up and see Bogie for what he really was. In watching this film, I thought it was interesting that the role of Lana Carlsen, a sultry and manipulative wife of a trucking magnate, was given to newcomer Ida Lupino rather than Ann Sheridan who was quite good at playing/being a seductress. At first Sheridan's character Cassie is a wise-cracking tough waitress but she softens into a plain jane/prospective wife when she falls for George Raft. It seemed to me Lupino would have better in that role but I like that Lupino played Lana because boy did she do a good job! George Raft was pretty decent as a good guy trying to make it by in a harsh world. However, every time I see Raft on screen I'm always reminded of his supposed mob connections and of his whirlwind affair with Norma Shearer. The documentary that came with the DVD mentioned that this film is really made up of two different stories. So in a way, you get two movies for the price of one! Or a 1/4 Bogie movie for the price of two non-Bogie films. It's hard to tell if we've been cheated out of a great Bogie performance or treated to a fine Lupino one. It all depends on how you look at it.