Bacall Me Crazy

A few weeks ago I watched a behind-the-scenes featurette of one of my favorite movies, THE AFRICAN QUEEN.  First of all, everyone who hasn't seen AFRICAN QUEEN needs to, like, right now.  And everyone who hasn't seen this featurette needs to pop their DVDs into the player and watch it immediately! It was such an interesting story of how this amazing film got made (against all odds, of course!).  But you would never think that this incredibly successful, award-winning (Humphrey Bogart got his oscar for it!) film would have been made completely independently! And the John Huston stories are unbelievable. 

Fact: Katherine Hepburn is NOT actually a zombie in this movie.
Despite this picture.

But I'm getting sidetracked...

This post is actually about Lauren Bacall, because she was all over the featurette.  Now those of you I'm friends with are probably asking, "why, Meredith? AFRICAN QUEEN stars Humphrey Bogart and Katherine Hepburn!" Why yes, dear friend, it does.  But Lauren Bacall followed her husband all the way to freakin' Africa (yes, they shot mostly on location - not surprising if you've seen the movie, very surprising if you know anything about old movies!) where she literally lived in a hut and cooked for the entire cast and crew, when she wasn't fending off red ants and dysentary.  Seriously, watch this documentary.

Anyway, this featurette made me LOVE Bacall.  I've always thought of her as kind of cold...I mean, who doesn't when they look at pictures like this?


My hat is warm...my demeanor is not.

 But now I love her. So I want to start emulating her amazing masculine/feminine warddrobe (something Katie can clearly get behind!) her grace and her strength.  Shouldn't we all?  Maybe I should start by NOT making this post title a shameless pun. Just kidding, too late!

Plaid has never been sexier.



Love.

 -m