Post by mikef6 on Jun 22, 2020 18:35:24 GMT
Here, and in two following posts, I will discuss three important Bogart movies that, amazingly, have not come up yet except perhaps in passing. I start with…
The Maltese Falcon / John Huston (1941). Warner Bros. Cinematography by Arthur Edeson. Masterpiece. Work of art. In the First Ever True Film Noir Sweepstakes, I pitch for “The Maltese Falcon.” To quote filmnoir.art.blog/essential-films-noir/ “Bogart as Sam Spade is the quintessential noir protagonist. A loner on the edge of polite society, sorely tempted to transgress but declines and is neither saved nor redeemed.” And I would add two more markers: a cynical worldview and the very first true femme fatale. First film noir. Paul Schrader agrees with me.
How much have I always loved this movie? Let’s go back to the late 1960s before home video and home recording of TV programs. I was living a quasi-hippie lifestyle (straight job during the day, psychedelic shirts and bell bottom pants at night). I was at a raucous party and having myself a good time when I remembered that “The Maltese Falcon” was scheduled on the late movie (anybody remember the Late Movie and pre-home video days) and that time was almost upon me. I don’t remember making excuses; I just left and hurried to be home by 11:30 p.m.
Alfred Hitchcock is credited with naming a movie trope – The Macguffin. A Macguffin, in a thriller, is the thing everybody, Good Guys and Bad Guys, want: a roll of microfilm, papers, a formula, a murder weapon – it doesn’t matter much what but serves as a launching of the action to follow. In 1930, mystery writer Dashiell Hammett created one of the greatest Macguffins (and one of the greatest of the fictional private detectives) in his novel “The Maltese Falcon.” As Casper Gutman (Sidney Greenstreet) relates it:
But, we soon find out, the statuette is in or about to arrive in San Francisco and human life is nothing compared to the Falcon.
Into the Spade and Archer Detective Agency walks Miss Wonderly (Mary Astor) who spins a tale about her sister who has run away from home with a shifty character named Floyd Thursby. She wants to hire someone to follow Thursby and locate the sister. Sam Spade’s partner Miles Archer (Jerome Cowen), attracted to Miss Wonderly, immediately volunteers. Later that night, Spade (Humphrey Bogart) is awakened by police. Miles has been shot to death and so has Floyd Thursby.
Hollywood lore says that as John Huston was leaving for a week’s vacation in Mexico, he gave Hammett’s novel to his secretary and told her to fill up her time typing up the book into screenplay form. She did so and put the finished product on Huston’s desk. It came about that studio head Jack Warner was wandering around the offices, saw the script on the desk top, and took it back to his office. When Huston got back the next Monday, he found a memo telling him that “The Maltese Falcon” had been greenlighted.
“The Maltese Falcon” is just about the perfect film. Immensely entertaining, stands up to repeated viewings over decades, and leaves us, as all great “entertaining” movies do, with the feeling that there is more buried within it than the surface thriller even though it has no obvious moral for us all, nor is it a statement about a social evil, a character study, or neither uplift or tear jerker. Yet its complexities are there to be dazzled by and to contemplate.
The Maltese Falcon / John Huston (1941). Warner Bros. Cinematography by Arthur Edeson. Masterpiece. Work of art. In the First Ever True Film Noir Sweepstakes, I pitch for “The Maltese Falcon.” To quote filmnoir.art.blog/essential-films-noir/ “Bogart as Sam Spade is the quintessential noir protagonist. A loner on the edge of polite society, sorely tempted to transgress but declines and is neither saved nor redeemed.” And I would add two more markers: a cynical worldview and the very first true femme fatale. First film noir. Paul Schrader agrees with me.
How much have I always loved this movie? Let’s go back to the late 1960s before home video and home recording of TV programs. I was living a quasi-hippie lifestyle (straight job during the day, psychedelic shirts and bell bottom pants at night). I was at a raucous party and having myself a good time when I remembered that “The Maltese Falcon” was scheduled on the late movie (anybody remember the Late Movie and pre-home video days) and that time was almost upon me. I don’t remember making excuses; I just left and hurried to be home by 11:30 p.m.
Alfred Hitchcock is credited with naming a movie trope – The Macguffin. A Macguffin, in a thriller, is the thing everybody, Good Guys and Bad Guys, want: a roll of microfilm, papers, a formula, a murder weapon – it doesn’t matter much what but serves as a launching of the action to follow. In 1930, mystery writer Dashiell Hammett created one of the greatest Macguffins (and one of the greatest of the fictional private detectives) in his novel “The Maltese Falcon.” As Casper Gutman (Sidney Greenstreet) relates it:
In 1530, the Order of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem later known as the Knights of Rhodes, were given the island of Malta by Emperor Charles V but one condition: That they pay him yearly the tribute of a falcon in acknowledgement that Malta was still under Spain…the Knights were profoundly grateful to the Emperor Charles for his generosity toward them. They hit upon the thought of sending for his first year's tribute, not an insignificant live bird. but a glorious golden falcon crusted from head to foot with the finest jewels in their coffers…These are facts, historical facts not schoolbook history, not Mr. Wells' history, but history, nevertheless. They sent the foot-high jeweled bird to Charles in Spain. They sent it in a galley commanded by a member of the Order. It never reached Spain. A famous admiral of buccaneers took the Knights' galley and the bird.
Into the Spade and Archer Detective Agency walks Miss Wonderly (Mary Astor) who spins a tale about her sister who has run away from home with a shifty character named Floyd Thursby. She wants to hire someone to follow Thursby and locate the sister. Sam Spade’s partner Miles Archer (Jerome Cowen), attracted to Miss Wonderly, immediately volunteers. Later that night, Spade (Humphrey Bogart) is awakened by police. Miles has been shot to death and so has Floyd Thursby.
Hollywood lore says that as John Huston was leaving for a week’s vacation in Mexico, he gave Hammett’s novel to his secretary and told her to fill up her time typing up the book into screenplay form. She did so and put the finished product on Huston’s desk. It came about that studio head Jack Warner was wandering around the offices, saw the script on the desk top, and took it back to his office. When Huston got back the next Monday, he found a memo telling him that “The Maltese Falcon” had been greenlighted.
“The Maltese Falcon” is just about the perfect film. Immensely entertaining, stands up to repeated viewings over decades, and leaves us, as all great “entertaining” movies do, with the feeling that there is more buried within it than the surface thriller even though it has no obvious moral for us all, nor is it a statement about a social evil, a character study, or neither uplift or tear jerker. Yet its complexities are there to be dazzled by and to contemplate.