“You just put your lips together and blow.” RIP Lauren Bacall

Film fans around the world will feel another loss today, as the death of Lauren Bacall was announced.

The Huffington Post:

“Lauren Bacall, one of the last stars of Hollywood’s Golden Age, has died. [..}

… it was for her four films alongside Humphrey Bogart for which she will be best remembered.

“Bacall married Bogart in 1945, the couple going on to have two children, a son and a daughter. The pair remained together until his death in 1957. After Bogart’s death, Bacall married actor Jason Robards Jr, to whom she had a further son.”

Anyone who knows me, knows how much I love classic films. I enjoy their pace, artistry and use of language which is often so different in contemporary film making. I am a fan of the forties style. I also love the audacity and spirit of fun which is portrayed in that era of Hollywood leading ladies.

Lauren Bacall’s screen glamour and quintessential attitude will forever be immortalised in lines from To Have and Have Not, the film in which she met Bogart.

“You know how to whistle, don’t you, Steve? You just put your lips together and blow.”

The idea of a woman capable of something a man was not or that she could be his equal, was slightly tongue in cheek, but in fact a critical component of the development in society at the time. In the Second World War, notions of what women could and could not do were tossed aside, as women whether in the workplace in manufacturing or agriculture, replaced their men at war. Clothes and looks, and attitudes to sexuality and marriage, were changing. Post-war there was turmoil as roles were realigned. Some of this was reflected in film of the era, women were often dutiful housewives or dangerous femmes fatales. Bacall straddled both in real life and on screen.

Attitudes to women’s role in society and post-suffragism politics were changing. Bacall played an active role here. During the late 1940s, together with Bogart and others, she set up the Committee for the First Amendment. Though widely noted as naive, it was an attempt to stand up to the attacks on Hollywood by the House of Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), to defend free speech and political rights.  Much as one would see the Blacklist thirty years later portrayed in The Way We Were [1973] by Barbra Streisand.

Lauren Bacall saw much change in views towards women in society in her lifetime. But that passing line, in her breakthrough film points to one small, insignificant thing which does not seem that much changed, then or now. I find it can still be seen as mildly inappropriate or surprising by some today. A woman whistling in public. Not a wolf whistle, diet-soda-would-be-proud-at-that-misfired-act-of-equality style whistle. But a tune. A rip roaring rousing melody.

Some of the most simple things in life, bring the most pleasure.

Today it is rare that I meet another women who likes to whistle, at all, never mind as much as I do. When in towns in pedestrian underpasses, in deserted London Underground tunnels or in the car. Wherever I can get a good acoustic. But occasionally I’ll forget to stop if someone should unexpectedly stumble into the soundwaves. And quizzical glances, little smiles, half comments reveal, it’s maybe a little less usual. But perhaps we should celebrate simplicity more often. It’s fun to whistle, as it is to sing. And perhaps it’s OK to be a little different, a characteristic Director Howard Hawkes who discovered Bacall, sought out and strove to preserve.

It was her film acting which made her name and found her leading man in all senses. For Lauren Bacall, Bogart was the love of her life. My favourite of their films, The Big Sleep, will no doubt be the source of headlines today.

She worked on Broadway in musicals, gaining Tony Awards for Applause in 1970 and Woman of the Year in 1981 but it was her performance in the film, the The Mirror Has Two Faces which earned her a Golden Globe Award and an Academy Award nomination. In 2009 she received an Honorary Oscar “in recognition of her central place in the Golden Age of motion pictures.”

Amongst her own achievements, it may be she will be best remembered for what she shared together in the classic black and white era with Bogart, part of the glamorous couple. She hoped that she would be remembered more for herself.  For me,  she was unique, distinct and different in film noir. It’s her independent, grown up sassiness for which I’ll remember her on screen, and the glimpses into her strength of character I admired in real life.
“You know how to whistle, don’t you, Steve? You just put your lips together and blow.”