Tag Archives: humphrey bogart

Like a fine wine…

Posted on by under best.films.ever., big-screen viewings, sarah's faves

 

Casablanca is my favorite film of all time. It’s one of those movies that I never tire of watching. In fact, one of my first dates with my husband was watching it while eating homemade pasta. Each year we have a tradition of watching this perfect film at least once together.

Last year (7/15/2011), he surprised me with tickets to watch Casablanca accompanied by the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra at the Verizon Wireless Amphitheater, a venue that allowed us to bring blankets and watch the film from the lawn with a bottle of wine. It was a perfect summer evening; I had no idea what an amazing experience this would be. It was an incredibly moving feeling to be surrounded by hundreds of people who were laughing, crying, and cheering along with me. This film, which still has the power to move me after countless times watching it, had the same effect on so many others. The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra added a new and exciting element to the film. Because it was a live performance, there was no room for error. The Orchestra had a responsibility to maintain and enhance the sheer power of this film. I’m sure that any Casablanca fan would agree that one of the most important elements in this film is the music. Who can watch this film and not swell with emotion as Victor Lazlo commands the band to play “La Marseillaise” in an attempt to overpower the evil Major Strasser and his comrades? The Orchestra fulfilled my expectations in every way; it was indeed a compelling performance.

This year (6/14/2012) my husband and I watched Casablanca on the big screen at The Fox Theater in Atlanta. Because The Fox is designed in the theme of an Arabian desert, it was the perfect setting for Casablanca.

The Fox Theater

The previews for the movie featured a Looney Tunes version of the film: Carrotblanca. (The crowd seemed pleased with the choice of Pepe Le Pew to play Captain Renault.)

I sincerely hope that we are able to find another fantastic showing of Casablanca next year! I can’t wait to share my passion for this film with other fans all over again!

The appealing antiheroes of the “man’s picture.”

Posted on by under antiheroes, blogathon, dudes

The ladies of The Scarlett Olive are hosting a “For the Boys” blogathon this weekend, and this is our late-in-the-game contribution. To see other posts, visit the Olive and check out what everyone has to say on this topic!

The idea of the “woman’s picture” as a genre of classic film–particularly a subset of woman-centric movies released throughout the 1930s, 40s, and 50s–has long been a source of interest for film critics. These types of films, deliberately targeted to female audiences, are rife with emotion and melodramatic plots, and can be quite over-the-top in their attempts to literally jerk tears from viewers. This is not to discount these movies, however; many of them are quite enjoyable, despite their tendency towards sentimental romance and pure pathos. And some actresses virtually made their careers in the woman’s picture genre–longtime rivals Bette Davis and Joan Crawford, for example, populate a number of these movies, many of which remain beloved by classic movie fans today. Who can forget Davis stoically lying down on her bed, willingly accepting her impending death in 1939′s Dark Victory? Or Crawford’s self-sacrificing, constantly striving mother in 1945′s Mildred Pierce (which also, interestingly enough, manages to believably cross genres as a stalwart of 40s film noir)? Filmgoers never could get enough of seeing these women struggle and find their dubious rewards and/or just desserts. And it seems they still can’t, for the woman’s picture still thrives in American film culture, having evolved in recent years into the broader “chick-flick” category, which generally attempts to replace pathos with broad comedy.

But in considering the notion of the “woman’s picture,” it might occur to one to think: what about a “man’s picture” genre?

Some might argue that the “man’s picture” encompasses the realms of Westerns and gangster flicks–stories of hard-charging, determined, uber-masculine men taking on the world, letting nothing or no one stand in their way while they go after what they want. Think of the most notable heroes and villains in the history of film. Most of the ones that immediately come to mind are male, aren’t they? James Bond. Atticus Finch. Robin Hood. Rooster Cogburn. Philip Marlowe. Spartacus. Darth Vader. Captain Bligh. Alex Delarge. Dracula. Captain Hook. Norman Bates. Sure, there are some notable female characters who fit the hero-villain mold, but our popular consciousness is generally conditioned to immediately fill these roles with men, and the majority of those figures come from action films, Westerns, crime and detective dramas, and other “guy-friendly” genres.

But it’s too simplistic to assume that, because these genres and their lead characters are dripping with testosterone, they are somehow unappealing to women. In fact, the male characters that populate these types of films are among the most appealing masculine leads in all of filmdom, to both male and female viewers. Of especial interest are the antiheroes, the “good guys” marked by distinct shades of gray, wherein the line between “good” and “bad” is blurred or, in a few cases, nonexistent.

Antiheroes are infinitely more intriguing than their more traditionally heroic counterparts. The antihero is complex and flawed, far from the often larger-than-life portrayal of the “good guy.” Often, these men cross moral and ethical boundaries for the sake of the greater good (or what they personally consider to be the “greater good”), and by and large, this flouting of socially-acceptable and/or legal behavior causes them few sleepless nights, for they are secure in the idea that their actions, however harsh or morally ambiguous, were appropriate. Their hard-boiled exteriors often hide deeper motivations–in many cases, the antihero acts out of love or compassion that has been twisted or misdirected somehow, and the real reason behind his behavior is revealed gradually throughout the course of the film. At the end of the movie, the antihero either finds some manner of redemption, or else resigns himself to maintaining the status quo that has become his natural way of life.

Here are four of my favorite examples of the male cinematic antihero, all chosen from movies that could arguably be classified as “men’s pictures” (though, obviously, these films encompass multiple genres). All of these characters are appealing to both men and women, albeit likely for different reasons (I, for one, get a great deal of enjoyment just from staring at those handsome mugs!).

Rick Blaine (Casablanca)

Rick (Humphrey Bogart) is perhaps the most romantic figure on this list, but there is little sentimentalism attached to the romance at the heart of his story. He’s utterly cynical, an attitude that comes not only from the bleakness of the war raging around him, but from a broken heart. He builds walls around himself, literally and figuratively: he owns a nightclub, Rick’s Cafe Americain, but manages to remain almost entirely unsocial in the midst of a bustling social environment, letting no one grow close to him. And he makes no pretense about being out for himself, unrepentantly explaining to Ilsa, “I’m the only cause I’m interested in.” Rick finds redemption in the end by accepting that he cannot be with the woman he loves and realizing that the interests of the “greater good” far outweigh his previously self-serving behavior.

Ethan Edwards (The Searchers)

Edwards (John Wayne) is the very definition of a “man on a mission.” His family has been slaughtered in a Comanche raid, his two young nieces have been kidnapped, and Ethan takes it upon himself to track them down, rescue the girls, and avenge those who were killed. Though he’s partnered with his adopted nephew, Martin (against his wishes), Ethan remains at heart a solitary gunman, intent with purpose and reluctant to deviate from his preconceived prejudices. When his hatred leads him to declare that he’ll kill Debbie when they find her–because he’d rather see her dead than “mated” to a Native American–it causes the viewer to question Ethan’s heroism. Is he really heroic, or is he just as bad as those who destroyed his family? This question is answered in the end, when Ethan delivers Debbie back to her rightful home before wandering away into the sunset, the lonesome gunslinger once more.

Michael Corleone (The Godfather)

Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) fits the anti-heroic mold more so in the first film of The Godfather trilogy than the sequels. He begins the first movie as a nonparticipant in the Corleone family business; he’s a college man and a veteran of World War II, determined to make a life outside of the Mafia. It’s only when his father is attacked that Michael allows himself to be pulled deeper into the darker side of his family, so as to protect his father and brothers. Michael tells his second wife, Kay, that he intends to legitimize the family business, but through a startling series of events ends up becoming the most powerful don of the most powerful family in the Mafia. Once he decides to take on the mantle of Don Corleone after his father’s death, Michael moves largely into villainous territory, as he knowingly pursues the expansion of his crime syndicate. Still, this does not preclude the audience’s sympathy or even a level of understanding, as we eventually see the lengths that Michael goes to in his quest for power and witness the degradation he initially fought so hard against.

T.R. Devlin (Notorious)

Devlin (Cary Grant) is suave, smooth, and utterly debonair. He’s an agent of the United States government, tasked with hunting down and eventually capturing a group of Nazi officers who escaped to South America after the war. He’s also a bit of a bastard. He falls in love with Alicia, the daughter of a convicted Nazi who has agreed to spy on her father’s former compatriots. But he allows her to be used as a pawn by the government, and becomes angry when her feminine wiles work a charm over powerful Nazi ringleader Sebastian. His stubbornness and pride almost lead to her death, though he redeems himself by rescuing a poisoned Alicia in the end. It’s strange seeing Grant as such an unsympathetic character (he really is a prat, regardless of the reasoning behind his behavior), but it’s also a revelation to see an actor who had generally been shunted into good guy roles throughout the majority of his career embrace his anti-heroic side so convincingly.

Now that I’ve had my say … who’s your favorite cinematic antihero?

“I don’t mind a reasonable amount of trouble.”

Posted on by under best.films.ever., brandie's faves, lit adaptations, noir, private eyes are watching you

As part of our week-long celebration of the 70th anniversary of The Maltese Falcon (1941), today we are taking a look at the third and final film version of Dashiell Hammett’s pulp crime novel. For a brief introduction to this movie, check out our post on Falcon from last year. For a more in-depth synopsis of the film’s plot, we recommend the AMC FilmSite entry about the movie. And if you’ve never seen any of the film versions or read the book, be warned that we will be discussing elements of their respective endings in all of our posts this week.

The Maltese Falcon (’41) has been judged by many critics to be the greatest detective story ever filmed. The influential 1955 book A Panorama of American Film Noir (1941-1953), initially published in France by film critics Raymond Borde and Etienne Chaumeton, declared Falcon the first true example of Hollywood film noir. Notable critics such as Roger Ebert have labeled the movie as one of the best of all time. And the American Film Institute has cast several laurels in Falcon’s direction: it landed at #31 on the most recent AFI Top 100 Movies list (in 2007); came in at #6 in the “Mystery” film genre; and its closing line, “The stuff that dreams are made of,” was chosen as the fourteenth-best movie quote of all time.

Of course, as with any film, its “greatness” is a matter of subjectivity. Falcon does have its detractors. Film Noir: An Encyclopedic Reference to the American Style (first published in 1979) describes the film as a “caricature” populated with “one-dimensional” characters, stating that the film suffers from “textbook camerawork” and a “general attitude of contemptuous misanthropy.” And the author is certainly entitled to his opinion. There have been films that have been, by and large, critically lauded over the years which I am … well, less than enamored with. But I do think this review is short-sighted and almost aggressive in its criticism of the movie, particularly in its assessment of the film’s misanthropic nature, which is a necessary extension of creating a cinematic world where the lines between “good” and “evil” are so blurred as to be nonexistent.

For all that the first two screen adaptations of Dashiell Hammett’s book got wrong, the final version gets everything just right. The movie follows the book almost precisely–very little is excised in the translation to the screen, and Hammett’s pitch-perfect dialogue is recreated virtually word-for-word. By and large, the actors are far superior to their predecessors, bringing new depth to these characters. The movie even looks better than the other two versions: its gritty appearance and washes of darkness perfectly encapsulate the story’s mood.

First-time director John Huston was greatly influenced by Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane, which was released in theaters five months before Falcon. Hallmarks of the earlier film can be seen in the way Huston and cinematographer Arthur Edeson populate their movie with a wealth of shadowy shots and low, almost menacing camera angles (Edeson, incidentally, also worked on Satan Met a Lady). When making plans for filming, Huston took a cue from Alfred Hitchcock and story-boarded the entire movie before shooting, plotting out even the most minute details before the camera even started rolling.

Arguably the best element about the entire film is the casting, for Huston wound up with the perfect actors for the leading roles, particularly Bogart as the combative, dark, and enigmatic Sam Spade. Part of the credit for Bogart’s casting, interestingly enough, goes to actor George Raft, who turned down the role of Spade, paving the way for Bogart to take on the defining role of his own career. In fact, Raft can be credited with inadvertently promoting Bogart from supporting actor to leading man in the early 1940s: he also turned down the role of Roy Earle in 1941′s successful High Sierra (due largely to Bogart’s urging), and some sources even claim that Raft also turned down the part of Rick Blaine in Casablanca (though still other sources emphasize that this was merely a rumor). Huston had worked with Bogart on Sierra–he had co-written the screenplay for the movie with W.R. Burnett–and the two had become friends. Bogart, for his part, enjoyed working with Huston and would go on to star in Across the Pacific (1942), The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Key Largo (both in 1948), and The African Queen (1951) for the director.

A trio of effective villains serve as worthy foils for Bogart in Falcon. Sydney Greenstreet, in his first film appearance, is impressive in both his bulk and his mannered menace as ringleader Gutman. Gutman is the gentleman criminal, hiding his thuggish qualities behind a cultured veneer (and a loyal gunsel/lover, Wilmer, played with leashed fury by Elisha Cook, Jr.). The actor’s smooth voice and high-class accent only add to that facade. Greenstreet was reportedly so nervous before filming his first scene–the monologue in which Gutman explains the origins of the falcon–that he asked Mary Astor to hold his hand before stepping in front of the camera. But there is no sign of this in his polished, masterful performance, and he went on to garner an Oscar nomination for his debut.

This movie also marked the first onscreen partnering of Greenstreet and Peter Lorre–the two worked so well together that they would eventually costar in nine more projects over the next decade. Though both Gutman and Cairo, Lorre’s character, are homosexual, Lorre is given the decidedly “gayer” character. Rather than go over the top with his portrayal, Lorre subtly conveys Cairo’s orientation through his mannerisms–particularly the way he plays with his cane, as he caresses it and moves it near his mouth in a way that highlights its phallic nature. His reactions to Spade’s bullying are even more telling; he is no physical match for the detective, succumbing to a faint after a single punch, and he (perhaps wisely) relies on a gun to do his convincing for him. Lorre breathes realism into a potentially campy character, and ultimately makes a big impact in his few front-and-center scenes.

But the strongest villain, by far, in the entire film is Astor’s Brigid O’Shaughnessy. Her cold, calculating nature is a mirror of Spade’s own: they are two sides of the same damaged coin. Astor is a revelation in the role, which is a great departure from her previous “good girl” screen persona–but is, funnily enough, much closer to her controversial off-screen life. In the wake of her divorce, details of Astor’s personal diary, in which she reportedly wrote about her sexual conquests, came to light, and her image in the public had suffered. Whether or not that experience colored her portrayal of Brigid doesn’t really matter, though–however she did it, Astor managed to perfectly capture the darker nuances of the character in a way that few actresses of the time likely could. [Side note: I will further address Brigid--and the other female characters--in a separate post.]

The Maltese Falcon is, in a word, brilliant. The film is populated by a cast of characters whose actions and behavior is morally repugnant and off-putting. Yet Bogart and company, led by Huston’s steady, guiding hand, bring a level of sympathy to these not-so-good people. Spade’s an unmitigated asshole–unfeeling, harsh, and not at all above betrayal and subterfuge if it gets him what he wants–and Bogart plays him full-out, warts and all. Still, there’s something almost disturbingly sexy and enticing about Spade. He’s as appealing an anti-hero as has ever been created. In the end, Falcon works because we want to see what these rather reprehensible people, doing everything they can to assuage their desirous greed in an unclean world, will do next. Their interactions are just that damn entertaining.

Tomorrow: we’ll wrap up our week-long look at The Maltese Falcon with a Feminist Fridays post examining the female characters in the 1941 film.

Baby’s recollections.

Posted on by under in the fan pages

The upcoming March 2011 issue of Vanity Fair has an excellent interview with the grande dame of old Hollywood, Lauren Bacall. At the age of 86, Bacall remains a sharp, intuitive, and fiercely independent figure whose legendary profile still leaps out of a photograph. In the interview, Bacall reminisces about her relationship with first husband Humphrey Bogart. Surprisingly, one of Hollywood’s most legendary romances began not with a bang, but with a whimper–Bacall confesses that she was not attracted to Bogart from the start, even thinking “Yuck!” to herself when told she would be co-starring with him in her first feature film.

That attitude quickly changed once filming began on that movie, 1944′s To Have and Have Not, and the sparks began to fly between them. And speaking of that film, the actress recalls how utter terror gave rise to one of cinema’s most enduring images:

“[She quickly discovered] that she was so terrified in front of the camera that she could barely function. No matter what [director Howard] Hawks tried, she couldn’t gather her wits to perform her role as the femme fatale Marie, whom Bogart’s character in the film, Steve, nicknames Slim (in homage to Slim Hawks). She recalls being ‘ready for a straitjacket [on the first day of shooting]. Howard had planned to do a single scene that day—my first in the picture. I walked to the door of Bogart’s room, said, “Anybody got a match?,” leaned against the door, and Bogart threw me a small box of matches. I lit my cigarette, looking at him, said “Thanks,” threw the matches back to him, and left. Well—we rehearsed it. My hand was shaking. My head was shaking. The cigarette was shaking. I was mortified. The harder I tried to stop, the more I shook. What must Howard be thinking? What must Bogart be thinking? What must the crew be thinking? Oh God, make it stop! I was in such pain.’

The only way she could ‘hold my trembling head still was to keep it down, chin low, almost to the chest, and eyes up at Bogart.’ That stance accidentally became Bacall’s signature attitude on-screen, known as The Look.”

For the rest of the interview, including Bacall’s candid recollections of Bogart’s 1957 death, her long-running stage and screen career, and her sometimes troubled relationships with Frank Sinatra and Jason Robards, check out the March issue of Vanity Fair. It’s a fascinating read, to say the least.

SUtS: Lauren Bacall

Posted on by under 4-star films, ahh romance, brandie's faves, classic pairings, noir, summer under the stars

Carrie’s choice: Designing Woman (1957)

Airing at 4:30PM EST

Simply put: I loved this movie. Mostly, it’s cute. It’s entertaining. That’s the big picture.

Lauren Bacall is a very successful woman in and of fashion. She falls in love with a guy’s guy- a sports writer. She knows clothes. He knows boxing. They both love their lives, their friends, and each other. Trying to make things work out is interesting enough, with her artistic friends and his horse-races, but then husband Mike gets in trouble with the mob…

A successful woman in fashion

Now that you have the gist of the plot (I’ll let you figure out the rest on your own), I can tell you why this movie is great: It’s hilarious. A little stereotyped, but innocently enough. And Lauren Bacall sells it. They all do, really. The acting is great, sometimes over the top, and just charming. Mike has a “body guard” boxer who has a few too many hits to the head to protect him from the mob. Marilla (Bacall) has an artistic, musical, theater-oriented crowd. Besides, two very different people still trying to build a relationship based on love and respect is always a heart-warming pleasure, is it not?

And if this needs further endorsement, Mike, the husband, is played by Gregory Peck. So you know that this one is definitely on my DVR to record and watch again!

Brandie’s choice: The Big Sleep (1946)

Airing at 2:00PM EST

Looking at the picture heading off this post, all I can say is, I wish my eyebrows would do that. That would be a marvelous weapon to have in any feminine arsenal. And no one could do more with a delicately-arched eyebrow than Lauren Bacall.

Bacall’s love affair with Bogie is the stuff of Hollywood fairy tales, and in my review of the Bogie-Bacall film collection last year, I touched on what makes this pairing so damn special. Even in a movie like The Big Sleep, which is one of the most notoriously convoluted films ever released, the magic of Bogie and Bacall lights up the screen.

In this film, Bogie takes another stab at playing an iconic detective role, this time Raymond Chandler’s hard-drinking Philip Marlowe. He is hired by General Sternwood to help settle his daughter Carmen’s (Martha Vickers) gambling debts to a rare book dealer, Arthur Geiger, but Sternwood’s other daughter, Vivian (Bacall), warns Marlowe that there is more to the request. The plot dissolves into a complicated mess at this point. Seriously. I have now sat here for ten minutes trying to figure out how to explain the rest of this movie to you, and it’s just too difficult to manage. So you’ll just have to watch it for yourself. And then curse and complain afterward when you realize there are no easy answers to any of the mysteries put forth by this blasted movie.

Why watch it, then? Well, despite its tendency to make one want to pull out his or her hair by the roots, it is still an interesting movie, and one of the great film noirs to emerge from the 1940s. Bogie as Marlowe is the perfect sardonic anti-hero, and Bacall is simply sizzling as Vivian. It’s cliche to say that the two of them throw up sparks, but when you can almost literally see them, I think there’s no other way to say it.

However, the script, which was doctored by William Faulkner at one point (so that explains why it’s so damn hard to follow!), is the biggest draw for the film. The zingers fly fast and furious, as do the double entendres, and you’ll find yourself smirking throughout as Bogie cracks wise to any and all comers.

Give this movie a shot, and if you find yourself lost in the middle, don’t worry … you’re not alone.

When your husband’s acting funky, you should never drink your milk.

Posted on by under 3-star films, brandie's faves, noir

My raging cinematic love affair with Humphrey Bogart does not blind me to the fact that, like most actors, he sometimes chose the wrong part (or had the wrong part chosen for him by short-sighted studio honchos). This is most obvious, perhaps, in 1947′s The Two Mrs. Carrolls, costarring Barbara Stanwyck (another personal favorite), Alexis Smith, and Nigel Bruce.

In the film, Bogart plays Geoffrey Carroll, an American painter living in London who meets and falls in love with a young woman named Sally (Stanwyck). When Sally discovers that Geoffrey is married with a child, she leaves him, and he unhappily returns home to his family. Though his work has been suffering as of late, Geoffrey finds himself inspired to paint his sickly wife as an “angel of death.” But Mrs. Carroll is not merely ill–her husband has been poisoning her nightly glass of milk. When his wife finally dies, Geoffrey returns to Sally and marries her, and though they are initially happy, Geoffrey’s lack of inspiration returns, until he meets Cecily Latham (Smith), a flirty young heiress who wants Geoffrey to leave Sally and move to Rio with her. As his affair with Cecily blossoms, and he deals with the blackmailing chemist who provided the poison that killed the first Mrs. Carroll, the second Mrs. Carroll begins to suffer from sudden, splitting headaches …

Though the film was based on a play by Martin Vale and was completed in 1945, the release was held for two years because of studio fears that the plot was too similar to two other recent Hollywood productions. The first of these, Alfred Hitchcock’s 1941 film Suspicion, features Cary Grant as a shady young husband suspected of poisoning his wife’s milk in the same manner. The second, 1944′s Gaslight, revolves around a husband (Charles Boyer) who attempts to drive his wife (Ingrid Bergman) mad in order to gain access to a fortune in stolen jewels.

The similarities are many, to be sure, but the film differs in that Bogart’s evil behavior does not result from greed or vice, but rather from psychosis, a somewhat delicate subject that is only barely addressed within the film, as Stanwyck implores her husband to spare her life by telling him, “You’re sick, Geoffrey!” The signs of madness are there, even in the smallest gestures: when Geoffrey feels cornered or angered, he places his hand to his forehead, as if a sudden, intense pain is spiking through his head; the sound of bells, used in the film to denote tension and danger, particularly agitates him.

In fact, the very atmosphere of the film is crafted to highlight Geoffrey’s increasing insanity. It’s always overcast or raining steadily in the outdoor scenes, and the indoor scenes are lighted in such a way that harsh shadows are thrown against Bogart’s profile, outlining the weathered planes of his face in stark relief. The film embraces the Gothic in such an all-encompassing manner that it becomes histrionic–almost laughingly so–rather than intense.

Sadly, part of the reason for this can be laid squarely at Bogart’s feet. This is not the type of noir in which we are used to finding Bogart. He’s not the antihero; he’s not the hidden romantic. Instead, he’s an almost cartoonish villain, snarling and pacing, crazed and (dare I say it?) overacting to the extreme.

He’s balanced well by Stanwyck, though, who knows her way around melodrama (Stella Dallas, anyone?). She wrestles with the material and comes out on top, perfectly balancing the frightened wife and the woman determined to survive. And the supporting cast, rounded out nicely by a coquettish Smith and the comedic relief of Bruce’s slightly alcoholic doctor, helps raise the material above the melodramatic morass.

As I said previously, not every actor is perfectly suited to every role. But for the most part, throughout his career, Bogart knew wherein his strengths lay, and in general he knew to play to them. We can all be thankful for that; otherwise, we wouldn’t have indelible performances such as Rick Blaine, Sam Spade, Charlie Allnut, and Fred C. Dobbs, among many others.

Still, though this is definitely a minor role in Bogart’s extensive repertoire, it’s worth a viewing. If you’re looking for an hour and a half of diverting entertainment, you could do worse than to watch Bogart and Stanwyck spar for their lives. And there’s a cute, glancing reference in the script to Bogart’s most famous role and, arguably, his most famous line.

The film is not available on DVD, but according to TCM’s website, it will be showing again on October 10th at 10AM EST.

The stuff that dreams are made of.

Posted on by under 31 days of oscar, 5-star films, brandie's faves, lit adaptations, noir

The Maltese Falcon (1941)

Airing March 2nd, 9:30AM EST

If you have never seen this movie, you have deprived yourself of something truly spectacular.

You should fix that. Immediately.

The granddaddy of film noir–the biggest and best of them all–The Maltese Falcon is one of those landmark films which ushered in an entirely new genre in movie-making, all on the very capable backs of director John Huston and actor Humphrey Bogart. This film launched Bogart into the stratosphere, helping craft the gruff, hardboiled, anti-heroic guise that would become his trademark in the latter half of his career. In Sam Spade, Bogie found a perfect match for his rather low-key, yet intense acting style, and the result is pure cinema magic.

In the film, Bogart’s detective Sam Spade and his partner, Miles Archer, are approached by the beautiful and mysterious Miss Wonderly (Mary Astor), who seeks their assistance in finding her runaway sister, whom she claims was seduced by a man named Thursby. The detectives agree to take the case, but Archer is killed that evening while following the purported suspect, and Wonderly disappears. When Thursby, too, ends up dead, Spade is suspected of committing both crimes, the motive being his secret affair with his partner’s wife, Iva. When Spade finally encounters Wonderly again–now under her real name, Brigid O’Shaughnessy–she admits that she had completely fabricated the story about her sister and claims to know nothing about the murders. When a man named Cairo (Peter Lorre) appears in Spade’s office and searches it for the statue of a bird on behalf of his criminal boss, the “Fat Man” Kasper Gutman (Sydney Greenstreet), Spade finds himself pulled into the search for the statue, all while trying to figure out who murdered his partner and fighting off the advances of both the alluring Brigid and the incessantly needy Iva.

The plot is somewhat convoluted, and upon the first viewing, it may be difficult to follow who is doing what to whom and for what reason. But in the end, the plot doesn’t matter overmuch; the real draw of the film is the cast and their fiery interactions throughout the film. In adapting Dashiell Hammett’s original story, not much was changed; the majority of the dialogue was retained in the film version, and the only omissions were some epithets and occasional references to sexual relationships as per the rules of the Hays Code. The gritty story stays very true to the spirit of the original; the striking cinematography, in which low lighting and atypical camera angles are used to create a rather unsettling mood, heightens the uneasy mystery of the tale.

Bogart is decidely brilliant as Spade, but the film’s real strength comes from its supporting cast. Astor, who until this point in her long career had been relegated to playing ingenue roles in silent films and light comedies, is an unexpected revelation in Falcon. She deftly portrays the alluring, conniving Brigid, switching easily between simpering femininity and leashed ferocity, all while allowing just a hint of reluctant sympathy to enter her performance. She practically snatches your attention from Bogart in their shared scenes–something incredibly difficult for any actor to manage, truth be told. And Astor is not the only one to accomplish this–as the criminal duo Cairo and Fat Man, Lorre and Greenstreet add their typical, respective gravitas to each role, and Greenstreet’s performance is especially impressive considering that, at the age of 62, this was his first time on film.

I own the three-disc special edition of this film, and it’s been one of the best additions to my personal classic movie library. Not only does the set include the digitally-remastered Bogart edition, but it also features both of the  earlier versions of the film. It’s great fun (well, in my world, it’s great fun) to compare the three versions of the story for yourself and see the strengths and weaknesses of each. You can also hear three different radio adaptations of the story! The set also includes some great extras, including an interesting documentary about the film and several Warner Bros. shorts and cartoons. For less than $25, the set is a true bargain.

Should you miss it this time, The Maltese Falcon will air again later this month, at 10PM on March 22nd.

Oscar checklist:

Nominations: Best Supporting Actor (Greenstreet), Best Screenplay, Best Picture