I've always been fond of orchids

Brother Orchid (1940) starred Edward G. Robinson. Getting second billing was Humphrey Bogart. This is odd because Bogart is barely on the screen. Unfortunately for him, this was an occurrence that happened far too often before he made it as a star. In the over 50 movies Bogart appears in, the majority feature him in bit roles where his character can not be easily defined. The write-ups on previous Bogart movies are the exception to Bogie’s pre-stardom casting. Brother Orchid is more in line with what happened to Bogie most often.

The story is obviously a gangster one. It was made by Warner Brothers, the gangster studio, starred Edward G. Robinson, the gangster star, and featured Humphrey Bogart, the lieutenant of the gangster forces who wishes he could be number one.

In this movie Robinson makes a trip to Europe, for a vacation. He leaves the organization in the hands of Bogart and feels that once he gets back, everything will be alright. Bogie loves the power he has and starts to get a gang together that will break free of Robinson once he gets back in the country. Of course when Robinson arrives back in New York, Bogie passes everything off as being fine. He plots how he wants to bump Robinson off and carries out the plan. Just one thing doesn’t go as Bogie plans, he fails to kill Robinson. He believes he has and leaves Robinson alone in a forest.

When Robinson awakes, he realizes he no longer has his gang and he is wounded. He is able to hobble to a convent where he is embraced by the monks. They nurse him back to health and he becomes one of them. Although he fakes his work, paying kids to hoe the fields, he seems to be making a genuine effort at piety. He adopts the name Brother Orchid and even gets recognized by his fellow monks as an outstanding example of the work they are trying to accomplish. This all goes over well with Robinson, but he still has plans at getting his gang back.

He gets that opportunity one day when he joins a fellow monk on the monthly trip to the city in order to sell what they have harvested. Robinson drops the monk off and says he’ll be back with the trunk when the monk wants him. He is able to enter his old building and find some of his own gang. He finds Bogie and they tussle. He wins and everyone goes home happy.

The ending sequence between Bogie and Robinson is mainly carried off-screen through dialogue. We only see Bogie for about 3 minutes at the end and then the beginning sequence takes about 20 minutes, with Bogie on screen for about 10 of those. In a movie that lasts an hour and thirty minutes, to only see the second billed star for 13 of those is a rip-off for the audience. But it is what happened to Bogart for a lot of his early career.