It’s impossible for me to resist The Maltese Falcon (1941). Much as, for Sherlock Holmes, Irene Adler is “the woman,” Sam Spade, for me, is “the private eye.” (Sorry, Marlowe.) Spade’s unique blend of cynicism and idealism, his crazy Xanatos-gambit of lies and omissions, and the way he manages to display an array of emotion while committing to almost none of them make him magnetic to watch. Bogart, too short and too dark to play the character Dashiell Hammett originally described, makes the part his own, and the nuance of the performance only gets sharper with rewatching.
I first saw The Maltese Falcon in college, by myself. It was one of those films I’d always meant to see, and it happened to be checked in at our library one night. It wasn’t the first noir I’d ever seen, but it was probably the one that hooked me most firmly. I remember being impressed by the tightness of the plot, the economy of dialogue. So much is done in this film with glances, shakes of the head, tiny gestures. Greenstreet and Lorre resist the urge to careen into caricature with grace, and the film rewards rather than penalizes audience members who catch and remember small details.
But I have a confession to make. For all that, in many ways, this film is the quintessential detective story, its one underlined flaw annoys me more every time I see it. The miscasting of its two main female characters, Effie Perrine and Brigid O’Shaughnessy, could not be more glaring.
As Perrine, Lee Patrick does a passable job considering the fact that she’s far too old for the part (Patrick was 40 at the time, whereas Effie in the book is tomboyish, pert and flirts with Spade more or less constantly). Patrick is, at least, believable as a competent, semi-jaded accessory to Spade’s life. Within the context of the film, as separate from the novel, Patrick makes sense, and my issues with her casting spring almost entirely from my affection for the novel. But Mary Astor, as Brigid, is a trainwreck.
This is not entirely Astor’s fault. Brigid is meant to be a classic femme fatale, and the costume and hair choices for Astor are just baffling. It’s not as if they didn’t know how to make a woman lovely in 1941; Barbara Stanwyck was in The Lady Eve that same year, and Joan Leslie was gorgeous in Sergeant York, if in a slightly different mode. But it can’t be denied that the 35-year-old Astor looks positively dowdy here. If Iva Archer is a bit less than fresh, well, Spade was looking to dump her anyway. But Brigid has to be irresistible for the plot to work.
I do allow that there are ways other than looks for a character to be irresistible. Charisma, for example. Brigid is a constant liar, a brilliant con artist in her own way. We’re told she’s left a string of conned men behind her, Thursby being the latest; we’re meant to believe that Spade is unique in seeing through more of her lies than the average mark.If Astor could be magnetic, could purr instead of shriek, maybe I’d buy this.
But she’s breathless, rushed, as if she’s trying to get everything out before she forgets it. When confronted with her misdeeds, her protests are shrill. And let’s be honest. If you’re acting across from Humphrey Bogart, you will need a boatload of charisma just to keep up. Astor just doesn’t have it.
This wouldn’t frustrate me so much if the film weren’t so close to perfection otherwise. There are so many tiny, crystalline moments that simply could not be improved. It’s a shame the viewer keeps butting up against the limitations of miscasting. (Lauren Bacall was only 17 at the time The Maltese Falcon was made; you can’t help but wonder what a difference a few years might have made. But even someone like, say, Rita Hayworth could have put an interesting twist on the part.)
Still, this would be one of my favorites for Bogart’s work alone, even without an excellent screenplay and a (mostly) solid supporting cast. I catch more nuances and details every time, and even when familiarity has dulled Spade’s “wild and unpredictable” edge, he remains one of the most iconic figures in the genre and, for me, in cinema.
Grade: A- A must see if you haven’t.
The Exploding Macguffin 