On February 20th, 1956, Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall reported for work at Warner Brothers to do costume tests for their upcoming movie ‘Melville Goodwin, USA’. Based on a John Marquand novel, the story had to do with a career military man who becomes a Major General thanks to the supportive influence of his wife. Unfortunately Bogart’s health was failing–a heavy smoker and drinker, Bogart had developed esophageal cancer in late 1955. He did not talk about his health and visited a doctor in late January 1956 after considerable persuasion from Bacall. Thus these costume tests were made within weeks of his diagnoses. Ten days after this shoot, on March 1, Bogart had surgery to remove his esophagus, two lymph nodes and a rib. The surgery was unsuccessful, and chemotherapy followed. 

But let’s look on the bright side. At least the tests were filmed and Bogie was game enough to not give up the ship, so to speak. He seemed to have every intention of making the movie at this point and looks quite dapper in his various costumes. You may at first find this footage to be a bit of a snooze but stick with it because something funny gradually happens; remember that cartoon where Daffy Duck is being drawn by an unseen animation artist who keeps putting him in different outfits which make Daffy look increasingly silly? That’s the effect these tests have with Bogie. The camera angle rarely changes, the room remains the same, but a series of increasingly baffling costumes appear on him–most of them of a military nature and all of them progressively more ludicrous. Things take a change for the better (or maybe worse if you’ve been laughing at the progression of Bogie’s get-ups) when Lauren Bacall comes into view and joins her shorter-than-her husband, striking some seriously sexy poses. The movie wasn’t made of course. A year later the script was heavily revamped and made with Susan Hayward and Kirk Douglas as ‘Top Secret Affair’. By then Bogie was dead. But the tests survive…