The Maltese Falcon
“That’ll teach me to leave a broad alone with a bottle of scotch and a Topsy Tail. Never again, Mac.”
I finally made it through this one last week, despite Humphrey Bogart’s well-documented Ambien-esque effect on me — and I did fall asleep in the middle of it, actually, but the creeping sinus crud I spent most of last week battling meant that I fell asleep in the middle of a lot of things. Like sentences. Of my own. But when I woke up from my nap, I just unpaused the flick and continued.
It’s quite good, but I couldn’t help thinking of Skyrockets’s comment about it, that it’s a movie so perfectly built that, while you can’t help but admire it, you don’t really love it — because I did admire the construction, and the way all of the main characters elegantly disposed of simply enormous amounts of exposition. Probably three quarters of what happens in the movie, at least from a plot-advancement standpoint, happens entirely out of sight; now and again you get a high-pitched shriek on the other end of the telephone, but that’s about it in terms of showing instead of telling. The actors have to make up the difference, but it’s done so neatly, I didn’t really notice it until the movie had ended.
In other spots, though, the script is refreshingly direct — not a lot of agonized bitten-lip reaction shots in response to various deaths and double-crosses, just accepting them as fact and moving on to the next logical thing. It’s the most evident in Spade’s relationship with his secretary, who’s really more of a factotum; she does everything from answer the phone to carry out money drops, and I wish she’d had more screentime, because the casting of Mary Astor didn’t quite work for me. On the one hand, my initial feeling that she just didn’t have enough noir-dame hard edges to carry the role turned out to be unfair, because the flutteriness she has instead is 1) unexpected and 2) more effective, both for the viewer and on Spade. On the other hand, that drunk-cat-lady hairstyle had me distracted in scene after scene — what the hell is going on there? Does she have it combed forward, or around the sides? If it’s a bob, what’s with that weird clowny floof in the front? Just cut it and marcel it so I can concentrate on the dialogue!
Tags: movies
As adaptations go, this one was particularly faithful primarily because John Huston hated all the screenplays so he threw them all out and did his own directly from the novel. Maybe that’s why it’s so tell not show.
It’s a boring movie. That’s okay. Metropolis, Psycho, from our distance they bracket it like diamonds, surrounding a (dull) birthstone.
We all have our “naked emperor” moments, this was just your most recent one!
Oh, the hair! Yes, yes and yes. Truly the most mystifying and scene-stealing hairdo in the history of cinema. And to steal a scene from Peter Loire in what is essentially a drag-queen performance in a three-piece tailored suit. . .that is some up-(staging)do!
I found this movie really distracting to watch (and I love Humphrey Bogart) because I watched it just a week or two after reading the book and I’ve never seen a screenplay with fewer deviations from the dialogue in the source material. It seemed practically word for word.
Well, so, I loved this movie from time immemorial but I am also a major Dashiell Hammett fan.
I also married a man named Maltese who has never seen the whole thing through.
Win some… :)
@ Corina: as Barb said above, there’s a reason for it seeming word for word – it was. Huston pretty much took the book, cut out all the stuff that wasn’t dialogue, and pasted what was left to his script pages.
I love it, but then, I don’t find Bogart soporific.
I named my son after Dashiell Hammett, but still need to see this movie…or, you know, maybe not.
“(M)arcel it” just about made my week.
Ever seen the Maude Fulton adaptation from like 10 years earlier? It stays true to the book, too. But because I saw them in reverse order, I got a real kick out of it. Guess I strongly identify the characters with the actors from the Huston version, and it was like Otto Matieson was doing a hilarious imitation of Peter Lorre as Joel Cairo and Ricardo Cortez was trying to refine Bogart’s Sam Spade. Some of the differences were probably required for making movies in the 30’s versus the 40’s, but I just found it hilarious… AND, I didn’t fall asleep even once!
Peter Lorre to Sydney Greenstreet, when they realize they have a fake bird:
“You stupid idiot! You bloated fathead!!”
I’ve sat through this thing innumerable times just to hear Peter Lorre call Sidney Greenstreet a “bloated idiot” and a “stupid fathead.” Hi-larious every time.
I love The Maltese Falcon for Bogey alone, but I never thought much of Mary Astor until I saw The Palm Beach Story. She plays this spoiled heiress and she could not be funnier. I can’t speak to whether her not her hair is improved, because it never bothered me in either film.
I love this movie just for the line, “I’ll slap you and you’ll like it!” or something to that effect (it’s been awhile since I’ve actually seen it.)
If anyone, after seeing The Falcon, is hankerin’ for more hot Lorre/Bogart/Huston action (plus added Truman Capote!), I highly recommend this movie:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0046414/
It’s fizzy, campy, and really fun, and features Bogart at maybe his least snooze-inducing.
This is one of my favorites. Whenever it’s on randomly, I have to watch the whole thing. Same for Philadelphia Story.
Thank God someone else knows what a marcel wave is.
LOVE Maltese Falcon, the book & the movie Love the genre. Love to study the book to film adaptation of that era. Love Bogart. BUT I totally understand his soporific effect. I ALWAYS fall asleep during The Big Sleep. LOVE the book and I understand that it’s a wonderful film once you understand the code (lots of naughty stuff happens in the novel that couldn’t make it onto the screen iat that time) but that doesn’t stop nap time. I’ve tried caffeine. I’ve tried daytime viewings. I even bought the DVD to make sure I watched it, to no avail.
I love love love this movie, always have. I don’t think it’s just faithfulness to the source (actually the earlier film is better at that in one or two pre-Production-Code respects), but it’s such dead-on perfect casting, top to bottom. Yes, I think Mary Astor embodies her role as perfectly as Bogart, Lorre, and Greenstreet do theirs.
The DVD set is also one of the best, including as it does BOTH earlier filmings of the story (hitherto almost impossible to find). Plus one of the most unexpected and welcome surprise extras I know, the 20-minute ballet short THE GAY PARISIAN (i.e., the Offenbach GAITE PARISIENNE), filmed c. 1940 by the Ballet Russe, and a real piece of cultural history.
I do truly love this movie too, but then again I truly love PSYCHO and METROPOLIS too, so what do I know.
And Sunny- BIG SLEEP is soporific! I don’t know what it is! If Lauren Bacall can’t keep me awake, I don’t know who can. My other big sleeper is THE SEARCHERS. I know it’s good… I just… can’t…. zzzz….
Sorry, I just realized I said big sleeper. I’m a little loopy tonight.