The other day, I ran this really long item on the 80 years ago theme:
Lex Anteinternet: Friday October 3, 1941. The Maltese Falcon:
Humphrey Bogart appeared as Sam Spade in the classic, The Maltese Falcon, which was released on this day in 1941.
In spite of the movie poster, I don't recall a lot of "blazing automatics" in the film, but it is a great film.
Not generally recognized today, the film is a remake of a film by the same name, from a decade prior. The two films are actually reportedly very close in plot, with both very closely following the Dashiell Hammett book, but the 31 variant was a pre Production Code film and contained elements that were omitted from the 41 film, including some fairly open references to homosexuality and hints at nudity. This is interesting for a variety of reasons, including that while the movies track each other in all other respects, the 1941 version which omits this material is the one that is remembered, suggesting that the degree to which material is really necessary in movies is overstated.
The film was directed by John Huston, a great director and legendary Hollywood figures, and Peter Lorre and Sydney Greenstreet, both of whom had appeared in the recently released Casablanca, which some also regard as a film noir, appeared again with Bogart in this film. Indeed, it's a surprise to me that The Maltese Falcon was released after Casablanca, as it has the feel of an older film.
The 31 film came just a year after the novel was released. The 41 film overshadows the novel and the 31 film, which is a credit to it. Both film variants reported follow the dialog of the book very closely which is of note as the dialog in this film is so distinct that it's come to define film noir in many people's minds, even though many film noir feature nothing of the sort. Having said that, they all have a certain gritty feel to them. At any rate, the film's dialog is so well known that both serious noir efforts such as Pat Novak for Hire, the radio drama, and parodies, such as Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid and Calvin & Hobbes detective base their dialog on it.
The Maltese Falcon famously concludes with the revelation that the falcon figurine is a fraud , with Spade then indentifying that "that's the stuff dreams are made of", one of the most famous movie lines of all time.
After that, I thought, should I add this to the "Movies In History" page?
Well, there's good reasons not to. This is a movie made in 1941, it's not a movie looking back on 1941. When this film was made people were going to the movies, so they could have a couple of hours not to think about whether the US was going to enter the global catechism, whether Moscow was going to fall to the Germans, and whether they were going to be drafted.
Still, we wrote quite a bit about it, and this is a really influential movie, so perhaps we ought to spend a little time looking at it.
The central plot here, and I'm going to really unfairly reduce it, is that everyone is looking for the jewel encrusted Maltese Falcon, a remnant of the Knights of Malta, which has been lost to the world but which now is nearly found, and which criminal elements are closing in on. People are getting murdered. Femme fatales are really being fatal, and creepy criminals are lurking everywhere. Standing against them and for the forces of justice are Sam Spade, super private eye, whose partner has just been gunned down in a murder made to look like a suicide.
Yikes, what a plot.
It's a very good movie. Does it reflect its time.
Well, no, but it does act as sort of an interesting mirror in a way.
Now, what we can't take from that is that this is somehow a realistic image of what private detectives did in the 1930s and 40s. . . or ever. Probably the portrayal of the Volkswagen driving PI in The Big Lebowski is more representative of that. And while I have no doubt that the hard-boiled image portrayed by Bogart has been affected by PI's from time to time, it probably doesn't accurately reflect the profession either, other than that it probably can be a dicey way to make a living. So we can toss that out for the most part.
But in terms of male clothing, it probably is reflective to a degree of the style of the time. The suits are cheap and plain, which is a not inaccurate portrayal of day to day life in the 30s and 40s for men. Bogart wears a fedora, but he preferred Borsolino's, which were a very expensive Italian fedora. He usually wore his own hat in films as he preferred that brand. He wears a trench coat in the movie, which became a movie prop, but at the time this was made that was an intentional reference to service in World War One, which gave us that coat in its original and best form. The firearms are mostly conventional and correct for the period, although his partner is murdered with a Webley Fosbery Automatic Revolver, which would be weird for any era. This is pointed out by Spade in the film, which shows I suppose about how acutely aware he is of every detail of a crime.
As for the women, Mary Astor is ridiculously well-dressed for the era, something that was common for movies of this era. Films tended to dress leading ladies glamorously, not matter what.
So, not a documentary by any means, but some interesting reflections of the era in which it was made. Part of that reflection, as we've noted, comes filtered through the Hayes Production Code, which was now in effect. In spite of that, the 1941 version of the film is remembered and the 1931 version, which was more salacious, is not. Anyway you look at it, Sam Spade is a guys' guy, with no doubts about his masculinity, and while the central female figure is an evil self acting woman, she's pretty clearly a woman, or maybe a gal, or a dame.
