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Tokyo Joe (1949)
This is a nice post war film. Bogart plays Joe Barrett, a guy who had a bar in Tokyo and a Russian wife. He comes back after the war thinking his wife was dead. He discovers she is still alive.....but married to another guy. Joe gets into a complex jam with the crime lords. It appears Bogart never went to Japan. All the establishing shots are rear screen projection, or a double wearing a fedora and trench coat. Some of the plot mirrors Casablanca. Bogart owns a bar. He finds his lost love only to find that she belongs to another. He is forced to work with unsavory characters. Never the less, it is a good flick. It is worth buying the DVD. It is one of the few Bogies films that I will watch again and again.
This was Bogart's last film of the forties. As the golden era closed (1930-1949), so did the best chapter in Bogies career. I feel that his best movies wereTokyo Joe and before.
With success comes power. Bogart had much more say in the roles he would play, the directors and actors he would work with, even the script. He even created his own production company, Santana Films to develop his own projects.
The problem with actors who become successful is that they think because they know acting that they know all the other crafts involved in film making: Camera, story, directing, lighting and everything else. Because they have the power, they are allowed to make less than great decisions.
Bogart always gave great performances, but most of the Santana movies had poor production value and luke warm stories. His Warner Bro films were better, but never matched the magic of his films from the golden era. Of course there are a few exceptions like The African Queen. It is a superb film.
