From the Bookshelves to Cinema

The Maltese Falcon



I read Dashiell Hammett's Maltese Falcon at the beginning of the summer, both because I love his other novel Thin Man (and its film adaptation) and because I wanted to see the film. Well, I'm finally getting around to it right now. It's a story that lends itself to the moving pictures and particularly the film noir genre. Spade & Archer are a pair of private eyes in San Francisco. Spade is having an affair with Archer's wife and wouldn't have respected Archer very much even if he wasn't. But when Archer gets murdered while following a lead for a (female) client, Spade still wants to get to the bottom of it.

Humphrey Bogart (who, naturally, plays Spade) seems so much younger than he is in Casablanca, even though it was made only a year after Falcon. His Spade is spot-on--a man who always keeps his composure, is hardly ever startled (or hardly ever let's you see him startled). He's a man that can punch your lights out without losing the ash off the end of his cigarette. I've never been a huge Humphrey Bogart person, myself, but I like him alot more now that I've seen him smile. He'd always seemed rather forbidding (my mom just said "I think he's creepy, myself. Even creepier when he smiles." No, she doesn't know what I'm writing), and his smile has a fantastically sinister edge to it. 

But the film, beyond the fantastic plot (fantastic because it follows the film to a T), is just a fantastic example of old film-making. The minimal (i.e. realistic) set design, the play of shadows and light that is best executed in black and white, the clothes, all prove with a wonderful concreteness that flashier isn't better. It's so odd (and odd that it's odd) that the actors look like people. They have wrinkles, they aren't perfect physical specimens (or all the same body type if they're not), and their faces tell distinct stories. Their hair moves, which is refreshing. I suppose, it was a different time.

both photos: filmnoirphotos