That face you see on this month's Now Playing guide is the same one that graced our very first N.P. cover back in January 1997. It's also the face that has been a cover subject for us the most often since then, this being the seventh time "the Greatest Movie Star of All Time" (as he was declared by Entertainment Weekly magazine) and "the Greatest Screen Actor" (as the American Film Institute has called him) has been "covered" by us, either as a solo subject or as part of an ensemble. No one else-not Cary, Clint, Marilyn, the Duke, Kate, Fred and Ginger included-has matched that record.

Which, when you think about it, is quite amazing. By any logical yardstick, it's a wonder that Humphrey Bogart, the TCM man of the month for December, managed to became a movie star at all. Once upon a time, and most definitely in Bogie's era, an actor had to be-first and foremost, and with only a few exceptions- tall, dark and handsome to be granted entry behind that velvet rope into the movie pastures where bona fide leading men can roam. Think Clark Gable and Errol Flynn. Think Tyrone Power, Robert Taylor, William Holden. Bogart didn't fit any such Handsome Harry profile. He stood 5 feet 8 inches and possessed a somewhat craggy face with a mouth that curled awkwardly when he spoke. There was even a slight hint of a lisp.

Further, that first name did him no favors, "Humphrey" never being a moniker synonymous with toughness, bravado or muscles. But put them all together in the package born December 1899, to a successful New York doctor and his wife, a famous magazine illustrator, and you had a star as big, magnetic and timeless as Hollywood has ever known. In a profession where the length of popularity has always averaged seven years, the magic of Bogart has lingered for seventy years, with no sign of it ever slowing down.

There are as many reasons we're saluting Bogart on his 110th birthday month as there are Bogart movies, and our look back at his career is the most extensive we've ever done on the actor; it may also be the most complete Bogart film retrospective that's been done anywhere. There will be sixty-four Bogart movies, from one of his earliest, 1932's Love Affair with Dorothy Mackaill, to his final one, 1956's The Harder They Fall with Rod Steiger, along with two documentaries about H.B., plus an additional pair of films in which he makes a guest appearance and a one-hour look on December 16 at trailers from several different Bogart classics. We'll be showing all the usual suspects: The Maltese Falcon, Casablanca, To Have and Have Not, The Big Sleep, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Key Largo, The African Queen and The Caine Mutiny, but also many Bogie blasts from the past you likely have never heard of, much less seen. (Does 1938's Swing Your Lady ring a bell? Or 1936's Isle of Fury and One Fatal Hour?)

Do plan to spend quality time with us this month basking in wall-to-wall Bogart, either as the beginning or continuing of a beautiful friendship.

by Robert Osborne