The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of...

TCM Big Screen Classics is bringing one of my favorites to movie theaters around the country on Sunday, 2/21 and Wednesday 2/24! It's the 75th Anniversary of The Maltese Falcon (1941) and if you've never seen it, now's your chance!
Maltese Falcon isn't the first film noir. In fact it's not even the first time this Dashiell Hammett story was adapted for the screen.

But John Huston's version has the definitive, dark, gritty look that would be copied in detective movies throughout the '40's and '50's- a style that would later be called Film Noir. Quite an accomplishment for Huston's directorial debut. While Huston certainly grasps the shadowed look of noir- what I think he really excels at in his films is wrangling a talented cast- and Maltese Falcon is a tour de force.

Humphrey Bogart had made a name for himself as a world-weary tough guy in films like The Petrified Forest (1936), Angels with Dirty Faces (1938), and High Sierra (1941), but none of those roles impacted his career like Sam Spade. Bogart seemed tailor-made for this tough-talking, conflicted private detective whose baggy eyes have seen more than their fair share of tough breaks. This is the movie where Bogart's screen persona found the perfect vehicle to become legendary. He'd do it again a year later in Casablanca (1942).

Mary Astor had been making movies for about twenty years when she took on the role of Brigid O'Shaughnessey. Some would say that at 35, Astor was looking at the backend of her Hollywood career. But some of Astor's best work was just ahead. Astor's usual stock in trade was portraying high born ladies who had to struggle with a hidden, burning desire like her third side of the love triangle in Victor Fleming's classic Red Dust (1932). Astor exuded an upper-crust vibe with a smoldering, lower class inner life. So, O'Shaughnessey's hidden layers of truth were right up her alley. As Spade peeled her slowly, Astor was both sinister and vulnerable, making this broad's tearful downfall warranted- but regretful.

The character actors filling out the rest of the cast were just as well-suited to their roles. Sydney Greenstreet made his screen debut as blimp-like criminal boss Kasper Gutman, laughing and grunting his lines with delicious abandon. Peter Lorre gets to play an early gay character, perm-headed Joel Cairo. How do we know he's gay? Cause he "smells like lavender" and practically fellates his cane in one scene. It's those little cues that directors like Huston liked to slip by the censors of the time.

Bogart, Greenstreet, and Lorre were so great together, Warner Brothers teamed them up again in Casablanca and Passage to Marseilles (1944). Rounding out the team was reliable Elisha Cook Jr. doing his best neurotic toughie act, getting smacked around and getting heated about it.

So there are plenty of reasons to go and see The Maltese Falcon. Much fewer to miss this classic bird.