The Maltese Falcon

[JackieMatra]

I believe blanks were always used in the film industry. The reason for the guns being pointed off to one side was that it was one of the innumerable rules of the Code that if the gun and the victim were in the same frame, the gun could not be pointed directly at the victim. Go figure.

I'm afraid that I can't find the still photograph to support this, but I definitely recall seeing one in a book, which showed the filming of a Cagney film, perhaps "G-Men", which showed a marksman kneeling on some non-too-solid-looking scaffolding, preparing to fire live rounds from a Thompson sub-machine gun at the side of a building near James Cagney's head, with a caption under the photograph saying that this is what is shown in the photograph.

 

[AdeeC]

I've always been impressed with the fact they slipped 3 homosexual characters and a woman who is distinctly "loose" past the Hays office (or whoever was running it at the time). I'm not sure if I've seen another picture of the era that packed that many "questionable" elements into one film ... though I'm sure some here could either remind me or fill me in on some I missed.

There's another element I find interesting: Bogart in particular did a lot of these movies that were sort of like the edge of an adventure story. They were mostly indoor pics, very much like plays, but they suggested a sprawling adventure story (like might have been made in the last 40 years) just over the horizon. The Maltese Falcon's back story, and the story that goes on after the characters depart seems to be full of exotic and international adventure, but we only experience the edge that Sam Spade sees as the story brushes past him. Casablanca is the same, Rick has a history escaping a France that is being over-run by the Germans and, at the end, he is about to depart on a desert adventure with Frenchy that could lead to all sorts of exciting chapters. To Have and Have Not actually goes outside into the elements a bit ... and there are others. Keeping them on budget seemed to constantly force the story to bring the sense of a whole adventure into a few rooms for a brief period of time.

Of course Casablanca was a play but some of the others could have been.

The original MALTESE FALCON made in 1931 is also an excellent movie. Far more risque and revealing than the Bogart version. This is one reason it was remade as the original was deemed unsuitable even with edits for release after the enforcement of the production code in 1934 . Lacks the heavyweight stars like Bogart, Greenstreet and Lorre but Ricardo Cortez , Bebe Daniels and Una Merkel do a great job. Daniels is far better than Mary Astor in the same role. Worth watching and not just for comparison only.

 

[Fading Fast]

I've always been impressed with the fact they slipped 3 homosexual characters and a woman who is distinctly "loose" past the Hays office (or whoever was running it at the time). I'm not sure if I've seen another picture of the era that packed that many "questionable" elements into one film ... though I'm sure some here could either remind me or fill me in on some I missed.

There's another element I find interesting: Bogart in particular did a lot of these movies that were sort of like the edge of an adventure story. They were mostly indoor pics, very much like plays, but they suggested a sprawling adventure story (like might have been made in the last 40 years) just over the horizon. The Maltese Falcon's back story, and the story that goes on after the characters depart seems to be full of exotic and international adventure, but we only experience the edge that Sam Spade sees as the story brushes past him. Casablanca is the same, Rick has a history escaping a France that is being over-run by the Germans and, at the end, he is about to depart on a desert adventure with Frenchy that could lead to all sorts of exciting chapters. To Have and Have Not actually goes outside into the elements a bit ... and there are others. Keeping them on budget seemed to constantly force the story to bring the sense of a whole adventure into a few rooms for a brief period of time.

Of course Casablanca was a play but some of the others could have been.

That's a really smart observation. It's something I've felt (but never thought of in the broader context that you did) when watching "Key Largo." So much is going on outside the hotel that impacts the lives of those inside, but other than in a few short scenes, we never leave the hotel. However, we feel it all through the outstanding writing, directing and acting that brings the mob, post-war ennui, alcoholism and race relations passionately alive in the hotel.

 

[MikeKardec]

That's a really smart observation. It's something I've felt (but never thought of in the broader context that you did) when watching "Key Largo." So much is going on outside the hotel that impacts the lives of those inside, but other than in a few short scenes, we never leave the hotel. However, we feel it all through the outstanding writing, directing and acting that brings the mob, post-war ennui, alcoholism and race relations passionately alive in the hotel.

If you had the choice to either "see the whole story" or to just see the film you don't suffer much narratively with these pictures, which is pretty cool. It did, however, make a lot of films seem claustrophobic when compared to movies that went out into the world like The Lady From Shanghai or (later) The Wages of Fear and shot on real locations.

I am always aware of films that are made in places that have not been overshot ... I don't really notice films made on locations that have been used dozens of times because art directors are great at making them look different but when a film is truly shot on exotic locations it is a breath of fresh air. I think of The Constant Gardiner, District 9, or some of the exotic pieces of some of the Bond films. Even many of The Walking Dead's Georgia locations still feel fresh. LA, Vancouver, New York, the area about 60 miles in diameter from Bernalillo,NM have been shot to death.

If you follow the rules (which an occasional brave filmmaker does not) you shoot within 60 miles of the city where most of the crew in that area live in a state with a tax incentive. That's probably less than a dozen places in North America. Better than being stuck on the back lot but still few enough to make a "real" location picture stand out!

 

[Benzadmiral]

MIkeKardec wrote, "I've always been impressed with the fact they slipped 3 homosexual characters and a woman who is distinctly 'loose' past the Hays office (or whoever was running it at the time). I'm not sure if I've seen another picture of the era that packed that many 'questionable' elements into one film ... though I'm sure some here could either remind me or fill me in on some I missed."

Three . . .? Oh. Wait, you're right. Gutman (Greenstreet), Cairo (Lorre), and Wilmer, the gunsel (Elisha Cook Jr.).

 

[MikeKardec]

MIkeKardec wrote, "I've always been impressed with the fact they slipped 3 homosexual characters and a woman who is distinctly 'loose' past the Hays office (or whoever was running it at the time). I'm not sure if I've seen another picture of the era that packed that many 'questionable' elements into one film ... though I'm sure some here could either remind me or fill me in on some I missed."

Three . . .? Oh. Wait, you're right. Gutman (Greenstreet), Cairo (Lorre), and Wilmer, the gunsel (Elisha Cook Jr.).

The other nice thing was that the only one who was even close to being stereotypical for the era was Lorre, and Peter Lorre had a way of somehow creating many stereotypes and simultaneously transcending them!

Another bit that is a very cool aspect of "being on the edge of the grand adventure" is that Floyd Thursby (who wound up as dead as Miles Archer) could be seen as the hero of the story up until then ... I believe he's the man many of the exciting things have been happening to. The construction of the story is fascinating because Spade is so front and center in the story, yet he only visits it for a few days before it moves on without him.

 

[Capesofwrath]

Not sure it does move on though does it? After Spade springs himself from the frame he’s been put in and sends the Astor character down, he tells the cops where the rest are and I assume they all get captured and taken down to the station for a nice chat.

 

[MikeKardec]

Not sure it does move on though does it? After Spade springs himself from the frame he’s been put in and sends the Astor character down, he tells the cops where the rest are and I assume they all get captured and taken down to the station for a nice chat.

I might have had that wrong, it's been forever since I've seen it. My memory had Guttman and Cairo headed out after another rumor of another bird in some other exotic part of the world.

 

[Capesofwrath]

I might have had that wrong, it's been forever since I've seen it. My memory had Guttman and Cairo headed out after another rumor of another bird in some other exotic part of the world.

Yes, that’s right. But Spade has spilled the beans to the cops and told them where they are staying. So though we don’t see it the cops will be on their way to them.

Incidentally the one thing which pisses me off in what is otherwise an almost perfect picture is the misquote at the end where Ward Bond as the not so bright cop asks Spade what the bird is, and he replies: “The stuff that dreams are made of.”

“We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep."

 

[Inkstainedwretch]

The Code again. According to the Code you couldn't let criminals get away with a crime, so The Maltese Falcon had to have that tacked-on ending when it should be clear to everyone that Gutman and Cairo just went on their merry way. In the same spirit, on the old Älfred Hitchcock show Hitch would come on at the end and drolly explain how the character who just got away with murder in the episode got caught, always in some absurd fashion.

As for the quote from "The Tempest,"everybody remembers that ön"as öf,"because it's a more modern phrasing. Everybody remembers "the face that launched a thousand ships" when the line in "Dr. Faustus"goes: "the face that wrecked a thousand ships." The sheer abundance of movie misquotes (and misremembered quotes) rates its own thread.

 

[Capesofwrath]

The Code again. According to the Code you couldn't let criminals get away with a crime, so The Maltese Falcon had to have that tacked-on ending when it should be clear to everyone that Gutman and Cairo just went on their merry way. In the same spirit, on the old Älfred Hitchcock show Hitch would come on at the end and drolly explain how the character who just got away with murder in the episode got caught, always in some absurd fashion.

As for the quote from "The Tempest,"everybody remembers that ön"as öf,"because it's a more modern phrasing. Everybody remembers "the face that launched a thousand ships" when the line in "Dr. Faustus"goes: "the face that wrecked a thousand ships." The sheer abundance of movie misquotes (and misremembered quotes) rates its own thread.

Well, at the risk of being pedantic the meaning of dreams are made of, and dreams are made on, is quite different. In the first it means than we, man, are the things that dreams are made of. It elevates us as creating the stuff of dreams. But in the correct version we are the simply the vessels in which which dreams are made. Actors in life and not creators. Shakespeare always had man as an actor, a player, and not in control of his destiny.

I think the line in Marlow is: Was this the face that launch'd a thousand ships, And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?

 

[Fading Fast]

... In the same spirit, on the old Älfred Hitchcock show Hitch would come on at the end and drolly explain how the character who just got away with murder in the episode got caught, always in some absurd fashion.....

It is so obvious that Hitch was rolling his eyes as he does that. I think he loved that it gave him a way to tell a story in which the murderer, thief, etc., gets away without having to write into the story a silly "crime does not pay" ending. Basically, in many of his TV shows, the bad guys win - it is obvious that is the story he is telling - and then he comes on once the real show is over and dryly explains - as you said - how the bad guys, in some absurd way, eventually get caught. Quite a smart way to do it.

 

[Matt Crunk]

Back to the subject of The Maltese Falcon, I just learned that AMC theaters are going to be having a special showing of the film during the week of Feb 21. I for one cannot miss this opportunity to see such a classic as it was intended, projected onto the big screen. If you have an AMC theater in your area, I urge you to check it out.

 

[Old Rogue]

There's another element I find interesting: Bogart in particular did a lot of these movies that were sort of like the edge of an adventure story. They were mostly indoor pics, very much like plays, but they suggested a sprawling adventure story (like might have been made in the last 40 years) just over the horizon. The Maltese Falcon's back story, and the story that goes on after the characters depart seems to be full of exotic and international adventure, but we only experience the edge that Sam Spade sees as the story brushes past him. Casablanca is the same, Rick has a history escaping a France that is being over-run by the Germans and, at the end, he is about to depart on a desert adventure with Frenchy that could lead to all sorts of exciting chapters. To Have and Have Not actually goes outside into the elements a bit ... and there are others. Keeping them on budget seemed to constantly force the story to bring the sense of a whole adventure into a few rooms for a brief period of time.

As many in here are probably aware, the Novel As Time Goes By, by Michael Walsh, picks up the story of Casablanca starting with the very last scene of the movie. In addition to telling the adventures that are hinted at in the ending of the movie, the novel provides a lot of backstory information on the characters, especially Rick Blaine. The story isn't written exactly the way I would have done it (assuming I had the talent to write a novel!), but I thought Mr. Walsh did an excellent job. At least once a year I try to take time to watch Casablanca and then read the novel.

 

[MisterCairo]

The original MALTESE FALCON made in 1931 is also an excellent movie. Far more risque and revealing than the Bogart version. This is one reason it was remade as the original was deemed unsuitable even with edits for release after the enforcement of the production code in 1934 . Lacks the heavyweight stars like Bogart, Greenstreet and Lorre but Ricardo Cortez , Bebe Daniels and Una Merkel do a great job. Daniels is far better than Mary Astor in the same role. Worth watching and not just for comparison only.

Is it available on dvd/blu-ray do you know? My searches keep turning up the Bogart version only...

 

[Naphtali]

I'm afraid that I can't find the still photograph to support this, but I definitely recall seeing one in a book, which showed the filming of a Cagney film, perhaps "G-Men", which showed a marksman kneeling on some non-too-solid-looking scaffolding, preparing to fire live rounds from a Thompson sub-machine gun at the side of a building near James Cagney's head, with a caption under the photograph saying that this is what is shown in the photograph.

I have that photograph, and I think I included it in a thread on this forum several years ago. It shows James Cagney leaning against a corner of a brick building while the shot is being set up on "Public Enemy." On a scaffold is a man aiming a Thompson sub-machinegun. Running Mac OS X 10.4.11, I can no longer access Photobucket, nor identify any repository that would allow me to use as a resource from which to place graphics. So this reply is a "Trust Me."

 

[JackieMatra]

I have that photograph, and I think I included it in a thread on this forum several years ago. It shows James Cagney leaning against a corner of a brick building while the shot is being set up on "Public Enemy." On a scaffold is a man aiming a Thompson sub-machinegun. Running Mac OS X 10.4.11, I can no longer access Photobucket, nor identify any repository that would allow me to use as a resource from which to place graphics. So this reply is a "Trust Me."

That sounds like precisely the photograph that I was referring to.
I mistakenly guessed that it was probably from the film "G Men", but I recently watched that film again and found that it contained no such scene.
I haven't seen "The Public Enemy" in years, so I can't currently confirm that there is such a scene in that film.

 

[PeterB]

I was watching the Maltese Falcon the other night, and lo and behold, this thread popped up in the New Posts. Thought I would contribute my 2 cents.

The film is almost the book verbatim. John Huston did not have a script, so he told his secretary to type out the dialogue from the book, more or less word for word. Thus, Hammet's dialogue, always good, was preserved on the screen. Some of you made interesting observations about how the story actually takes place outside the film, including the chases in Hong Kong, the search for the ship and the murder of Thursby, whom we never see. Similarly, Spade's affair with Mrs Archer is not really shown. In this way, the film is able to present a large story, through hints, reports and references.

As one of you wrote, the story is fairly set-bound. I am not sure whether that was because of the budget, or intentionally, by John Huston. The book mostly takes place indoors, so I suppose Huston was just following the book. It is hard to see how it could have been improved with outdoor locations. The murder of Miles Archer is one such outdoor scene. It was not shown in the book, but only reported, because the book is told through Spade, in the third person but limited to his point of view. I think the reason it was shown in the film was to dramatize it, but I could be wrong.

The film was made twice before -- with Ricardo Cortez, and then with Bette Davis, as Satan Met a Lady. I have not seen either. When the film was planned, it was listed as a remake and was an opportunity for Huston. It more or less made him as a director; he had been a writer previously. It also pushed Bogart to stardom. George Raft famously turned it down, because it was a remake and because Huston was a novice. I don't think it would have been as good with Raft, who lacked the emotional depth that Bogart had.

The only problem with watching it today is that it has become so iconic that Sidney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre almost seem to be parodying themselves. One forgets that when the film came out, they had not been seen as a pair before (at least I don't think so), and audiences did not have the benefit of having seen them together in other films, nor having seen Lorre's work over the next two decades, almost degenerating into self-parody, though he was a good actor. In fact, Maltese Falcon is one of those films that was fortunate to have thoroughly competent actors in every role, none of them really established as "stars" yet, with the possible exception of Mary Astor.

With reference to the Production Code, and the need to have criminals punished at the end of the film -- in the book, Spade turns in Mary Astor because she killed his partner. I can't remember whether he turns Gutman and Lorre in as well, but whether they are arrested soon after the film ends or not, we can be sure that they will come to a sticky end eventually. And the script clearly indicates that Spade himself is not really above breaking the law himself. In fact, if you watch the film without first setting Spade as the hero in your mind, you will see that for most of the story he is ambivalent about making money, and certainly he was involved with Mrs Archer and did not like Archer much. He is in this way an anti-hero, and model for characters in later films.

 

[AdeeC]

Is it available on dvd/blu-ray do you know? My searches keep turning up the Bogart version only...

You have to get the Warner Brothers 3 disc version which included the original. See link. Also includes the 1936 remake SATAN MET A LADY. There are also lots of extras and quality is excellent.

http://www.amazon.com/Maltese-Falco...r=8-1&keywords=Maltese+falcon+special+edition

http://www.amazon.com/Maltese-Falco...r=8-1&keywords=Maltese+falcon+special+edition

 

[JackieMatra]

The only problem with watching it today is that it has become so iconic that Sidney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre almost seem to be parodying themselves. One forgets that when the film came out, they had not been seen as a pair before (at least I don't think so), and audiences did not have the benefit of having seen them together in other films

Greenstreet and Lorre had never appeared together in a film prior to "The Maltese Falcon", although they were to appear in a subsequent seven (all excellent) films together,
because "The Maltese Falcon" was Sydney Greenstreet's very first film.