We watched THE MALTESE FALCON last night, since Joanna is sort of a Humphrey Bogart fan and hadn’t seen it. What’s left to say about THE MALTESE FALCON that hasn’t already been said thousands of times by hundreds of better commentators than me?
Well, I don’t delude myself into thinking that any of these observations are original to me, but since I’ve seen the movie so many times, I decided to watch for things that I hadn’t really noticed before. One of them is the fact that the sets have ceilings. Orson Welles and his cinematographer on CITIZEN KANE, Gregg Toland, get a lot of credit for being innovators because so much of the photography in KANE is from a low enough angle to show that the sets have ceilings. The same thing is true in THE MALTESE FALCON, which came out the same year (albeit a few months later) as CITIZEN KANE. I’m thinking that John Huston and his director of photography, Arthur Edeson, deserve to be considered innovators, too.
Another angle I considered is the legend that Huston gave a copy of Hammett’s novel to his secretary, told her to put the dialogue into script format, and then used that as his shooting script. I’m inclined to doubt that, because there are some fairly important changes from the book, including the deletion of the Flitcraft story and a slightly different ending. Huston had to have done some work on the script.
I was also somewhat surprised at how little screen time Sydney Greenstreet actually has. Gutman is such a dominant character that it seems like he’s there more than he really is. But Greenstreet doesn’t make his first appearance until the movie is halfway over and is in only three or four scenes after that. But it’s a great performance, no doubt about that.
Finally, this isn’t something new I thought about on this viewing, but rather a long-time complaint about the movie. Mary Astor really is a weak link in what’s otherwise a great cast. I don’t think she was a very good actress, her hairstyle is distractingly goofy, and I don’t find her attractive at all. It’s a tribute to Bogart’s skill that I can believe Spade really cares about Brigid. One of the actresses considered for the part before Astor got it was Rita Hayworth. Now that’s a Brigid O’Shaughnessy I would have liked to have seen.
Despite that quibble -- and Gladys George really isn’t very good as Iva, either, come to think of it -- THE MALTESE FALCON is still a great, great film, one of my all-time favorites, and thank God they haven’t remade it as an Adam Sandler movie . . . at least not yet.
Well, I don’t delude myself into thinking that any of these observations are original to me, but since I’ve seen the movie so many times, I decided to watch for things that I hadn’t really noticed before. One of them is the fact that the sets have ceilings. Orson Welles and his cinematographer on CITIZEN KANE, Gregg Toland, get a lot of credit for being innovators because so much of the photography in KANE is from a low enough angle to show that the sets have ceilings. The same thing is true in THE MALTESE FALCON, which came out the same year (albeit a few months later) as CITIZEN KANE. I’m thinking that John Huston and his director of photography, Arthur Edeson, deserve to be considered innovators, too.
Another angle I considered is the legend that Huston gave a copy of Hammett’s novel to his secretary, told her to put the dialogue into script format, and then used that as his shooting script. I’m inclined to doubt that, because there are some fairly important changes from the book, including the deletion of the Flitcraft story and a slightly different ending. Huston had to have done some work on the script.
I was also somewhat surprised at how little screen time Sydney Greenstreet actually has. Gutman is such a dominant character that it seems like he’s there more than he really is. But Greenstreet doesn’t make his first appearance until the movie is halfway over and is in only three or four scenes after that. But it’s a great performance, no doubt about that.
Finally, this isn’t something new I thought about on this viewing, but rather a long-time complaint about the movie. Mary Astor really is a weak link in what’s otherwise a great cast. I don’t think she was a very good actress, her hairstyle is distractingly goofy, and I don’t find her attractive at all. It’s a tribute to Bogart’s skill that I can believe Spade really cares about Brigid. One of the actresses considered for the part before Astor got it was Rita Hayworth. Now that’s a Brigid O’Shaughnessy I would have liked to have seen.
Despite that quibble -- and Gladys George really isn’t very good as Iva, either, come to think of it -- THE MALTESE FALCON is still a great, great film, one of my all-time favorites, and thank God they haven’t remade it as an Adam Sandler movie . . . at least not yet.
6 comments:
Wow, Rita Hayworth. I would have liked that too. I didn't notice the ceilings before.
Adam Sandler!(shudder)
Adam Sandler!(shudder)
I understand this was Greenstreet's first movie, although he was an established stage actor.
Ten seconds at IMDB could verify this, but I'm lazy today.
Yeah, Huston supposedly saw Greenstreet in a play in Los Angeles and decided to cast him as Gutman. Up until then, the leading candidate for the role was S.Z. "Cuddles" Sakall, which certainly would have changed the dynamics of the film.
Adam Sandler as Brigid!
But you're right about Mary Astor. She's always been the awkward spot to me in the film I otherwise love.
I think someone has said that THE MALTESE FALCON is as inventive as CITIZEN KANE regards to cinematography. There are some great compositions throughout the film. You don't see them at first, which is something you can't say about CITIZEN KANE.
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