The Maltese Falcon SE (3-discs) (R1)

Sat down Thursday afternoon to watch The Maltese Falcon (1941) which was reiussed by Warner in the US and Canada in a three-disc Special Edition last October. When I first saw the film more than ten years ago, I found myself more admiring than really liking it though I guess my indifference at the time had more to do with the fact that other films and genres held greater appeal to me.

As a bored teenager who sometimes wished that his life was more exciting, the work of David Lynch was like a tonic for me in those times: it began with seeing Twin Peaks on television and then Blue Velvet on video. I identified strongly with Lynch's admission that he yearned for something extraordinary to happen, like an accident, to escape from the almost unbearably perfect idyll of his own childhood. Lynch's cinema appealed to me most at that time since the dreamlike and surrealist qualities, the violence, the nightmares and the unflinching look into the deepest recesses of our psyche in Blue Velvet and Eraserhead represented to me everything extraordinary, daring and out of the norm whereas films like The Maltese Falcon represented classical Hollywood which then seemed too "conventional", and most particularly, too talky to me.

I recall distinctly how shocked and yet enthralled I was when I first saw Blue Velvet, especially during the extended scene in which Frank Booth goes on to rape Dorothy Vallens as Jeffrey, trapped in the cupboard, looks on. Seeing Blue Velvet gave me a curious sensation: on one hand I realised I was watching something special, a film perfect in its expression of the sensibility and concerns of Lynch as an artist. Yet I could also understand why the picture had provoked such outrage in 1986: it shocked me and I could see where those who were offended by the film and actively hated it came from even if ultimately I didn't share their feelings. Few films have equaled the pure thrill of that two-fold sensation of the elation of discovering a great film and being disturbed but also positively excited by the film's courage to go where few others dare to tread.

That was then. I don't mean to say that I've cooled on Lynch completely in the ten-to-fifteen years since I first saw The Maltese Falcon and then his films. I still think that Blue Velvet is a masterpiece and a key film of the 1980s. Eraserhead is the type of picture that genuinely deserves the much-abused label of a cult film. The Elephant Man is strong also but eventually, I feel, psychologically a bit one-dimensional in the way the writers insist on John Merrick's pure goodness.

But before I digress too much: the point is that Lynch's surrealism still appeals to me to some extent and I'd probably add one or two of his films to my collection but it's other directors, Ozu, Renoir, Melville, Hawks, who get all the love these days. Basically, I reverted back to preferring films from the 1930s to 1960s (loved early sound-era comedians like Laurel & Hardy and the Marx Brothers as a kid), especially 1950s Japanese cinema and Golden Age Hollywood. What I loved as a kid and then seemed unattractive in my teens now charms me again in my late twenties, and more so than ever. This brings us neatly back to The Maltese Falcon and I'm happy to say that the picture won me over second time round.

The Maltese Falcon was the debut of John Huston as director and he got the job after he impressed Warner with his input on screenplays as diverse as Jezebel (1938), High Sierra (1941) and Howard Hawks’ Sergeant York (1941) (by the way, is anyone else not convinced by this film? Compared to the likes of His Girl Friday, Bringing Up Baby and The Big Sleep, I find that York feels too much like the honourable but dull prestige picture; that and a terrible, terrible performance by Joan Leslie). A nice bit of trivia: Huston also contributed additional dialogue for Universal’s 1931 adaptation of the Poe whodunit The Murders in the Rue Morgue. His script for The Maltese Falcon is a master class in economic yet nuanced storytelling and there are many cracking lines (“Haven’t you tried to buy my loyalty with money and nothing else?” – “What else is there I can buy you with?”), the majority reportedly taken verbatim from Hammett’s novel.

The pic starts with San Francisco detectives Sam Spade and Miles Archer being enlisted by Brigid O’ Shaughnessy, who is using a pseudonym when she first meets Spade, to trace down her sister who is on the run with a man named Floyd Thursby. Spade and Archer agree to trail Thursby but then Archer and Thursby are found shot dead. As Spade has no alibi for the time when Thursby was killed, the police suspect him of Thursby’s murder. Shaughnessy confesses that she has made up the story about the sister gone missing but is reluctant to reveal more to Spade. Trailed by a shady man in trenchcoat, Spade continues his investigations and becomes involved with two men, Joel Cairo and Kasper Gutman, who are trying to locate a golden bird statuette, the Maltese Falcon.

Up until The Maltese Falcon, Bogart was a very solid performer who was often cast as a gangster or a man with connections to the underworld (his supporting turn in Michael Curtiz’ excellent Angels With Dirty Faces comes to mind) but this is the picture universally regarded as the one where he came into his own. He is the perfect casting for Sam Spade: he has seen enough to know how to read the game and his amused, knowing smile makes clear that he isn’t buying Shaughnessy’s half-calculating, half-desperate act. Bogart is excellent in the way he brings across the different shades of Spade’s personality: he can be playful when the situation calls for it, feigning anger at Gutman’s refusal to reveal the Falcon’s value and grinning with delight when his con pays off. But he is equally ruthless and capable of a cruel streak: consider the snarl and relish with which he lays into Wilmer and Lt Dundy. Spade’s determination, unwavering sense of loyalty towards his dead colleague but also his single-mindedness shine through in Bogart’s energetic turn. So does the genuine warmth and affection he shows for his secretary Ellie who is played with great conviction by Lee Patrick who has wonderful chemistry with Bogart.

From the supporting actress to the leading lady: I have to admit I’m in two minds about Mary Astor’s performance. It’s crucial not to confuse the flimsy acting of her character with the actress’s performance, a mistake a considerable number of people seem to be making when watching the film, and yet at the same time I find something lacking from Astor’s performance. I guess it strikes me as too inconsistent. At times, she is excellent. Think of the surprised and delighted smirk that lights up her face when she is seeing that Spade concocts a goofy story to prevent the policemen from questioning them both; think of how earlier in that sequence she viciously kicks out at Cairo. I find it’s in her final scene with Bogart where the melodramatic overacting of her character gets the better of Astor. It’s a difficult character to play and Astor does well for the most part but the rest of the cast is so consistently good that when she falters it is are all the more noticeable.

The Maltese Falcon was not just Huston’s directing debut, it was a first one too for Sidney Greenstreet, an English actor from Kent, who came to America in the 1930s and played in theatre, including Shakespeare, before he arrived in Hollywood. The then sixty-two-year old has an imposing presence in appearance and character (which supports hints that he dominates Wilmer and possibly Joel Cairo, too) and he delivers his often memorable lines with great relish: “I distrust a close-mouthed man. He generally picks the wrong time to talk and says the wrong things. Talking's something you can't do judiciously, unless you keep in practice”.

It was also his first of altogether nine pairings with Peter Lorre who plays Joel Cairo, Gutman’s partner in seeking out the Falcon. Cairo is an intriguing character, a camp gay man with pretensions. Lorre’s voice here sounds to me slightly more affected, higher pitched than usual and then there are the gestures and his reactions: first, the manner in which he holds his cane to his mouth almost as if he is licking it, then his concern over his appearance as he berates Spade and later Shaughnessy for the cuts in his face. Lorre’s performance is camp but not aggressively so, and his angry outburst in the finale is quite startling.

Cairo likes to present himself as a man whom you should underestimate at your peril but who is really quite a weakling. He is easily overpowered and intimidated which, come to think of it, makes him and Wilmer quite alike. When Spade twice hits Cairo hard in the face and tells him that “When you’re slapped you’ll like it and take it”, it really makes you wonder just how much of it is Spade exhibiting his cruel streak and asserting his superior strength over the other man, and how much of it is actually laying bare the truth, that Cairo is the submissive type. If Wilmer is easily cowed by the domineering father figure of Gutman, what does that suggest about the relationship between Gutman and Cairo? For a studio picture under the watchful eyes of the Hayes Code, the film is surprisingly sexually suggestive and explicitly gay. Then again, you only need to think of the double entendres between Bogie and Lauren Bacall in The Big Sleep to remind yourself of how the more astute directors managed to circumvent censorship.

The Maltese Falcon is a talkative film but unlike, for example, some of David Mamet's films it never feels stagy, partly because Huston's setup of shots isn’t theatrical like Mamet's (Gutham's imposing personality is emphasised by medium shots of Greenstreet from a low angle although Huston often shoots from the low angle throughout the film as if to suggest how easy it is to be overpowered by the corruption in this world). Also, Huston never lingers on a scene unnecessarily (this is not meant as a swipe at Mamet): transitions are handled with swift dissolves and wipe-cuts and the plot moves along at a high tempo, almost surprisingly so, given how dialogue-driven the film is. If there’s an aspect of the pic I didn’t warm to it’s Adolph Deutsch’s score which I found a bit overbearing but then it’s more or less representative of the film scores of the time.

* * * * * (out of five)

The film’s restoration looks highly impressive. Were it not for some slight damage in two scenes, this would be a perfect image but even so it still looks very strong for a film this old, with excellent contrast and sharpness for a standard DVD. It’s not quite reference material like the image for Casablanca and White Heat but anyone who has seen this film on faded copies on television or video, will be really pleased with this re-release. Dialogue was absolutely clear at all times (so much so that the overdubbing of Sydney Greenstreet by another actor for two lines is very noticeable now) and with no hiss or other age-related noise marring the audio track.

A note for our R2 readers: The Maltese Falcon SE is going to be released in Region 2 on the 5th of February albeit only as a 2 disc set without The Maltese Falcon (1931) and Satan Met A Lady (1936) and the radio adaptations. The second disc will contain the A Magnificent Bird documentary and Bogart trailer feature (Why are Region 2 buyers still getting shortchanged like this even from the likes of Warner? The artwork is identical with the R1 but with different, and frankly, garish colours).