Bogart Makes A Soft Landing

Chain Lightning (1950) Flies Warners Economy

Postwar Bogart a test pilot? Seems ill-advised, or maybe armed forces needy for guinea pigs did send up hard drink/chain smokers to do the job of men thirty years younger. Did Bogie balk? He split w/Warners not long after, path littered by scripts better than Chain Lightning that he'd nix out of hand (including Trouble Along The Way and The System, latter turning out fine with pinch-hitter Frank Lovejoy). HB spent hours in mock-up aircraft against process sky, having to realize through it all that Chain Lightning would do his career no good. He'd had a string of clucks. None of Bogart's own Santana productions amounted to much, including now-lauded In A Lonely Place, a flop at the time. The African Queen came not a moment too soon to airlift Bogart from stalled vehicles like Chain Lightning.

Warners had adopted a spend-less policy from 1948. You could see cuts applied to Key Largo and ones thereafter. This hurt all of product, but was essential to keeping gates open in face of reduced theatre attendance and families barbecuing or playing outdoor sport instead of picture-going. Here is startling statistic I came across in a book by Gilbert Seldes, The Great Audience, published in 1950: "In 1948, the American people spent more money on equipment for fishing than they did at the movie box-offices, on hunting and bowling they spent a billion and a half dollars, almost equally divided, which again is more than they spent to see the movies; the once-exclusive pastimes, golf and motor-boating, were so popular that the amount spent on them roughly equaled the movies' take." Seldes argued that when viewing sports, "the spectator sees a contest," where "surprises are greater than they can possibly be in the formulas of the movies." So there is basis, neatly summed up, for friends and former classmates preferring ball play to show-going. Would Greenbriar be a hotter Web address if it concentrated on pigskin and hoop rallies? Most assuredly --- yes.

Back to Chain Lightning, or any late 40/50's output of hobbling Hollywood. Seldes talked much of folks grown out of movies by the time they turned twenty. Is that still true, even more so true? I read of average buyer for advance tickets to the recent Star Wars being fifty-years old and male. That would be nostalgia's crowd, of course, ones carried away in 1977 and wanting to visit their magic place again. Many of us like movies precisely because most are comfy like well-worn shoes. I saw Chain Lightning yesterday (a Warner Archive DVD) and wondered if anyone else in the world might be doing the same (and if so, why?). Outside of value as a time capsule, and barometer of Bogart "far from his best" (to quote capsule reviewing), where is value in Chain Lightning? To civilians and the young, probably none, but isn't that the fate of all oldies, and almost as soon as they're off a production line? Top Gun (1986) is thirty-six years "newer" than Chain Lightning, treats a same jet-age in up-to-minute terms, but like its precursor, is, in John Wayne Alamo parlance, "dead as a beaver hat" to contemporary viewership.

HB Poses for Key Art to Enhance CL Ad Campaign

Enough of chilled reality's splash. I enjoyed Chain Lightning and hope to again before achieving ultimate lift-out like Bogie in his "Buck Rogers rig" (what dialogue calls flight suits). Early jets were like science-fiction. There's a nice flashback to WWII where HB and crew sight a rocket-powered German craft entering a dogfight against allied bombers, uneasy remind that, given a few more months, the Axis might have turned tides in the air. It's here we get first whiff of Warner economies, all of combat borrowed off actuality footage and a mismatch to studio fakery. Warners spent $1.4 million on Chain Lightning's negative. It got back $1.6 in domestic rentals. Without foreign revenue (another $890K), it would have lost money. This is how serious the depressed market was. Bogart not long before was a guaranteed mop-up every time. Now they'd squeeze pennies even on his vehicles. Chain Lightning is best seen from that sympathetic viewpoint. It was simply, and for its time, about the best WB could do on behalf of contract talent (further sampling: Gary Cooper in Dallas, Flynn in Montana, Joan Crawford in The Damned Don't Cry).