The Man With Bogart's Face (DVD)

Nostalgic send-up of Bogart detective films of the '40s boasts a spot-on impression of the famous star by Robert Sacchi, who made a career doing mostly the same. (That's him in the Robert Zemeckis-helmed "You, Murderer" episode from Tales from the Crypt). The premise is that Sacchi plays a retired cop who gets plastic surgery to make himself look like Bogart, and then sets up shop as a private dick named Sam Marlow. But the plot is really just an excuse to pay tribute to Bogart's detective films. Sacchi's channeling of Bogie is so uncanny you'll be positively mesmerized for about 30 minutes. And that's the problem. While this amiable pastiche might help while away the evening in nostalgic reverie, it does a major disservice to the films it appears to idolize. That's the problem with nostalgia: it usually jettisons all the depth and complexity of the original, leaving an indistinct fifth-generation clone, a fuzzy Xerox of a Xerox of a Xerox. So when the novelty of the flick begins to wane, there's only the plot to fall back on for interest. And the plot is only there to have something upon which to hang references to Bogart flicks. The story largely mirrors The Maltese Falcon, with the great whatsit, the things dreams are made of, being a pair of sapphires known as the "eyes of Alexander." The cast is composed of simulacra of past film greats: Gene Tierney (Michelle Phillips), Sidney Greenstreet (Victor Buono), and Peter Lorre (Herbert Lom)--not so successful, that last one. --Jim Gay

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