The List is Life: #99

99.

The Dame;

Lauren Bacall.

Making her screen debut alongside a Hollywood legend at the age of just 19 can’t have been easy, but were you to see the smouldering confidence with which Lauren Bacall carries herself through To Have and Have Not, alongside her soon to be husband, Humphrey Bogart, and you’d think she was a seasoned pro. For over 60 years she has continued to turn in highly confident and mature work, time and time again. Her legendary status cannot be denied, and her beauty has probably lead to her being tremendously overlooked as an actress.

The Dude;

Sean Connery.

An absolute pro. His marvellous physique made him the perfect super spy in his prime yet as the decades have gone by, Sean Connery has displayed a natural and effortless screen charisma that only the true legends of the game could claim to possess. That he numbers among their rank, cannot be denied.

The Director;

Victor Fleming.

Victor Fleming began his directing career making fairly low key silent films. He finished it in the 1940s, making star vehicles with Spencer Tracy as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Ingrid Bergman as Joan of Arc. Yet in the end his career has been eternally defined (and rightfully so) by the year 1939, in which he snatched up the reigns and took control of the troubled productions of two all time classics, The Wizard of Oz and Gone with the Wind. Two bonafide iconic films, from entirely different ends of the spectrum, both steereed to the screen by the same man in the same year. Not bad a for a fella who started life in the business as a stuntman.

The Picture;

The Jungle Book (Wolfgang Reitherman, 1967)

Based (albeit loosely) on the book by Rudyard Kipling and as the last Disney film overseen by the great man himself, The Jungle Book could have coasted on the reputation that such claims would have afforded it. Yet the studio managed, even in the wake of its creators passing to rise up and turn out one of their most beloved classics. Catchy songs from start to finish keep all entertained, characters that are both zany and bold ensure that this is an experience the viewer shall never forget and laying at the heart of this animal kingdom is an entirely human story about a child growing up and accepting his destiny. The darker nature of Kipling’s story may have been replaced by something altogether more family-friendly, but the deep humanity at heart remains throughout.