George Raft


I just watched the movie... and I was wondering if George Raft died? It seems as though he got killed in the explosion when he was leading the rat to the open door. Can anyone clarify if George Raft died or not in this movie?

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Yes. Him and Pollcat. Remember, when the "army" comes in, Cagney is the only one left standing.

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Raft not the brightest bulb.

He turned down the roles that made bogie a superstar and could have made him one. High sierra and the maltese falcon. Raft was the studios first pick for those and prior to high sierra he was the bigger star than bogie. Of course bogie made those roles classic and then came casa blanca.

A bio i just read of bogie says that raft shortened his career by turning down great roles for trivial reasons. He tuened down high sierra only because he didn't like his character dying in the end.

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He also turned down the lead in 'Double Indemnity'. Seems Raft didn't exactly make the right choices when it came to career-making roles/choices ... I really like Raft, too.

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I heard that he also turned down Casablanca before the part was offered to Ronald Reagan who was also brushed aside in favour of Bogie

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If you look at the roles he refused, there's a pattern. He didn't like roles in which he died or looked bad (isn't clearly the hero, doesn't get the girl, etc.). That may sound trivial, and, yes, it also sounds like a man with a giant ego, but that thinking also used to be Hollywood conventional thinking. Many stars used to think they'd harm their perfect superstar image if they took certain roles. Raft's thinking wasn't so much trivial as old-fashioned. Raft didn't foresee that the culture was changing, and it was just the kind of morally murky roles that Bogie took on that made him possibly the biggest star Hollywood has ever produced.

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Thanks for the spoiler...

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If Raft had had the sense to accept Dead End,High Sierra,The Maltese Falcon and Casablanca,would Bogart have ever become a star?

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I do always warn with a [spoiler] in the subject, but I have to ask: If you haven't seen the movie yet and you don't want the plot spoiled, why are you reading discussions on the movie's message board?

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What did he have to live for,anyway?Life in the Hole? I don't think there was any justification for the National Guard opening up with machineguns like that;sealing off the jail and teargas would have been enough.

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I always liked Raft. He would have been just fine in gangster/detective fare like High Sierra or Maltese Falcon, but a lot of guys could have done those roles (Robinson, Cagney, etc.). But Casablanca? That's a conflicted role that demands a lot of nuance. Can't really see Raft or Reagan in that role.

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I think Reagan could have played in Casablanca if it had been shot in the 1950's because, by then, he was a more seasoned actor. But definitely not ready to take on the role of Rick Blaine in 1942.

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Raft dies in Casino Royale. "I was framed" best part of a bad movie.

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Raft is a classic example of the stiff or wooden actor. He couldn't act. Each Dawn I Die would have been a very good movie - I think James Cagney as an actor is the exact opposite of Raft - except every time Raft appeared in a scene, the quality of the scene went down. It appears to me that every other actor in this film knew and acted their roles well.

By the way - IF Raft had been given, by the gods' great misfortune, the role of Roy Earle in High Sierra, the movie would have ended up as a forgotten B movie lost long ago instead of the Bogart classic film it is today. As for Casablanca? That makes me think with wonder of how a great movie can come accidentally into being. Again, without Raft. The only film with Raft in it that I recall liking much is They Drive By Night, and Bogart is in that. I'm sure there are more but none where George Raft is the lead.

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