The Man With Bogart's Face
                 
Director: Robert Day
Year: 1980
Rating: 7.0
This film is based on a gimmick but it works pretty well.  This falls between a spoof and a homage to Bogie, noir and classic Hollywood. I am not sure if people unfamiliar with those things will appreciate this film or even get it. This is based on a novel, but for a film they really needed an actor who could do a decent Bogart impersonation. They found him in Robert Saachi who has a strong resemblance to Bogart and has used that for other films and even did a one-man show as Bogart. He has Bogart down pretty well, the twitch of the mouth, rubbing his shoulder, the way he smokes a cigarette, the stare, the disbelieving cynical smile. And the voice of course. And the trench coat and fedora. And the white tux out of Casablanca.



The film though doesn't just depend on his playing Bogart. It is a decent plot that is as complicated as a Raymond Chandler novel filled with suspicious characters and femme fatales. At 2 hours it goes too long but the many film references to Laura, Mask of Dimitrios, The Mark of Zorro, Double Indemnity, Basil Rathbone as Holmes, Maria Montez, Hondo, The Treasure of Sierra Madre and his crush on Gene Tierney is a delight for an old movie lover like me. Cameos from George Raft, Mike Mazurki and  Victor Sen Yung add to the flavor.



It begins with a man sitting in a chair having bandages removed from his face after plastic surgery. He looks like Bogart, a wink at Dark Passage in which Bogart goes the first half of the film with his face not shown until after the face change. He has just opened a detective agency, Sam Marlow without the "e". He hires a secretary (Misty Rowe on Hee-Haw for years) based more on her frontal exposure than her typing skills.



His first client is the demure Hilda (Olvia Hussey) who is worried about her father and after two men try and stop her, they find her father dying from a bullet wound. Then Gena (Michelle Phillips) shows up looking like Gene Tierney in a dream. She needs help getting some incriminating photos back from Raft. And then the Peter Lorre type shows up in the form of Herbert Lom. Then the Turk. Franco Nero and his Executive Secretary Sybil Danning want Marlow's help. And finally the fat man. Victor Bueno doing a fine Sydney Greenstreet. Of course, the cases are all connected. And people are trying to kill him. It ends as it has to with a "Here's looking at you, kid". Some snappy clever dialogue, a mirror scene out of Lady from Shanghai, a few belly dancers, a couple fights, the expected car chase and the dame in bed reading the Maltese Falcon. All good for me.