The Maltese Falcon: An Interesting Tale of the Times

"The stuff that dreams are made up." One of the only original lines from the 1941 version of Dashiell Hammet's classic mystery tale. Not many people know there were 2 other film versions before this one, one in 1931 by the same name and one in 1936 entitled "Satan Met A Lady." Recently, WB had the genious idea to release all three films in one DVD set, and guess what has two thumbs and got it for his birthday? If you said "Rob" that is correct.

The 1941 version has always been a much by myself since I saw it when I was about ten. One day I was sick from school with nothing to do, so I started flipping through the channels to discover that this old movie my dad had recently been talking about was on.

It was "The Maltese Falcon." From beginning to end I was hooked on every line, every movement, and every actor. This eventually led me to finding one of my favorite genres: Film Noir.

So when I got this DVD, I was intrigued? What would the differences be in each movie? Will they be vast, or will the others just be not as well done tellings of the novel. So I popped it in.

While watching the DVD's I realized that each film represented a distinct time in film history, and each had their own certain charm to it.

The first film I watched was the 1931 version of the film. It starred Ricardo Cortez as Sam Spade and Bebe Daniels as Ruth Wonderly (more commonly known as Brigid O'Shaugnessy). It was a bit jarring at first to be watching this film, because, well, it was much like the 1941 film. It had much of the same dialouge and was a very faithful adaptation of the book. Of course, none of the acting was as good. I mean, come on, famous version put John Huston on the map as a great director, Humphrey Bogart on the map as a leading man, Sydney Greenstreet on the map as.... Sydney Greenstreet and who can forget Peter Lorre's powerful thrust into mainstream film. But there were still two large differences, both stemming from the fact that the movie was made pre-code.

For those of you who don't know what "pre-code" means, I shall inform you. Well, very simply, it means a film made before the Hays Code took effect in 1934. What is the Hays Code? Well, it was created by the catholic church in responce to the large amount of sexual innuendos and violence that was in films during the 1920's. The 20's of course was a large time of organized crime and sexual freedom, which was largely reflected in the films of that time that made heros out of gangsters. The Catholic Church got sick of all this riff-raff and made it a law that a film must follow a certain amount of guidelines that included no blood, no sexual references and pretty much nothing bad. In 1967, as films went underground, the code was abolished for MPAA (which we now use today).

Pre-code films are often characterized by their more sexual feelings to them, and the '31 version of The Maltese Falcon has that. Bebe Daniels is seen without any clothing twice, but only from mid-cleavage up. She is much more sexually explict making broad, brazen attempts at Spade. Also, a part from the original book that does not remain in the famous film is in this film, because it was made pre-code. The scene involves Spade taking Miss Shaugnessy to the kitchen and making her strip to make sure she isn't hiding anything. While, in the '31 version she obeys and gets down to her underwear, the sequence is missing from Huston's film.

The most apparant thing about the original is an epilouge that is tacked onto the end from any other version. It involves Spade visting Shaugnessy when she is in jail. They are still in love, but Spade knows that she broke the law. The most daring moment of this film though, is when it is unvieled that Shaugnessy is pregnant with Sam's child. This would have been out of the deal of the fim had been made during the code years. It was against the Catholic church, and incredibly unheard of.

Another interesting aspect is that studios, back when the first film was made, were afraid that people wouldn't see a movie if the main character isn't likable, which in the book he is not. Thus, in the original film, Spade is played much more as a happy go lucky playboy rather than a man who wants whatever he can get as long as it helps him. He is hadsome, peppy, cracking jokes, and beaming through much of the movie. Not Spade, but Spade back then was not acceptable to the studio who needed to cash in on their star.

Then, after the code was instated, another Dashiell Hammett movie came out: THE THIN MAN. It is a tale of who rich socialities that solve a crime. It quickly became a very popular film series and WB needed a way to make money off of this. Then they remembered "hey, we have this movie here called 'The Maltese Falcon' which was written by Hammet also."

The problem was that "The Thin Man" was a comedy and that "The Maltese Falcon" was a hardboiled private eye film. So they changed around the premise to fit what they were looking for at the time, which was the next "Thin Man."

The Maltese Falcon quickly became a jewel encrusted horn. While the studio wanted this film to be big, and believed in it, they wanted to distance it from its counterpart that flopped at the box office 5 years earlier. All of the names were changed. The story behind the horn didn't change much, it just was a different object and thus, the name needed changing. Which led to it being titled "Satan Met A Lady."

While this title, in the original context of the book, would only really apply to Shaugnessy, in this version it applied to another: Gutman.

For comedic effect, they changed Gutman to a woman and made Cairo a large british man.

In fact, everything was played to comic effect in this film. Mostly broad slapstick, but the moments it really soars is when they get into some dark puns and the such. Once again, Spade was played as a playboy, but even more this time. In fact, to the point where he is hitting on a girl while he is on a date.

They also increased the role of his secretary to make her more of his romantic counterpart, thus making them a duo solving crime and in love at the same time, just as in "The Thin Man."

Then came 1941, which is historically considered a great year for film because it was the introduction of two, incredibly influetial young filmmakers: Orson Welles (Citizen Kane) and John Huston with The Maltese Falcon. Both filmmakers had never done anything in their life, but the studios were loking for young blood. They were looking for the next generation of filmmakers because the audience wanted something fresh and new.

Welles and Huston were both famous before they had done their breakthrough film. Huston was known for writing screenplays. Mainly Huston, pre-Falcon, would siimply write play and book adaptations. Welles, of course, was famous for his Mercury theater troop that performed radio plays. Most famously, they performed a live broadcast of "War of the Worlds" which caused mass panic throughout America because it was broadcast as if it were a news program (it is, in my opinion, the best of his work).

The studios that year decided to take huge chances by banking on these new directors with seemingly un-bankable images. Welles was given the better deal out of the two film makers since he directed, produced, co-wrote (evidently, evidence has said that it is a possiblity that he plagarized much of the film) and even starred. This was unheard of when the film was being made. Hell, it is almost unheard of today!

Then there was Huston, who was famously the protege of the great John Ford. In fact, without John Ford "The Maltese Falcon" would have never happened. You see, Huston was looking for a film project to direct and he wanted it to be something powerful and fresh. Something that nobody had seen before. John Ford read the novel and told Huston to "shoot the book." So one weekend, Huston went to his typist and told her to transcribe the book to movie form, and she did.

The studios were now putting an incredible amount of faith in two, until now, unproven directors with scripts where the main character was unlikable. In fact, there is a big similarity between Kane and Spade in being that they are always looking for a way to make more money. Other than that, Spade is a very different character from Kane. Spade does not care about his women, he will just use them for sex or to find out the case in the end. He isn't afraid to threaten a woman and you never, ever see Spade happy. He is always dead focused on his objective and the wheels are always turning in his head.

Originally the studio wanted to hire a different man that Bogart to play Spade, but Ford always knew that Bogart was the one, and he was right. It was a breakout role that shot him to the top of the Hollywood. This film was not only the launching pad for Bogart though. It also introduced the world to the great Sydney Greenstreet. Greenstreet had never done a film before this and was incredibly worried about how he would be recieved in it. All those worries were put to rest later that year though, when he was nominated for Best Supporting Actor for his role of Gutman. This is also the film that made people aware of little bugeyed Peter Lorre. 3 stars were in the makings with film, and were only solidified with their next film they all did together: arguably the best film of all time, "Casablanca."

"The Maltese Falcon" has gone on to be an extremely influential film. Not only did it provide the film achetype of the hero, it also almost single handedly created the Film Noir genre. If you were to watch the direction, it is only the first films to use the stark contrasting shadows and it was one of the first movies to always stay one step ahead of its actors.

Such a classic story has taken us through such classic and famous moments in film history, and will remain as one of the greats for centuries to come.