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Samspade2 bitmessage12/19/2023 ![]() ![]() The first attempt at bringing Spade to the big screen was The Maltese Falcon (subsequently known as “A Dangerous Female”), directed by Roy del Ruth and starring Ricardo Cortez as Spade. ![]() The Maltese Falcon is one glorious exception. Next time some meathead loudly proclaims “Remakes suck!,” kindly inform him that it isn’t always the case. From the 1941 film, left to right: Spade, Cairo, O’Shaugnessy and Gutman. ABOUT THOSE MOVIES Hail, hail, the gang’s all here. As if writing The Maltese Falcon wasn’t enough, he was also responsible for such enduring characters as The Continental Op and Nick and Nora Charles, husband and wife sleuths who were introduced in The Thin Man, and became the basis for a string of popular movies. Hammett’s one of the seminal creators in detective fiction. They were eventiually collected and published in book form as A Man Called Spade.īut the black bird’s impact was not only literary - the third film adaptation, rookie director John Huston’s 1941 version, became one of the most popular and important films in history arguably the first film noir, and pretty much defined the hard-boiled private eye for the general public for decades to come. They were all pretty solid, but the general consensus was that hey paled in comparison to the original novel, but Hey! - any Hammett is well worth reading. Spade’s favourite cash-hungry son in the early thirties. ![]() The novel’s success even prompted Hammett to churn out three subsequent short stories featuring Mrs. And oh, what a cast of characters he has to deal with: Brigid O’Shaughnessy (or is it Miss Wonderly), a dame who tells so many lies she can’t keep track of them all Joel Cairo, an effeminate art dealer whose motives stink worse than his corsage the jolly chunk of corruption and greed that is Casper Gutman, whom everyone refers to as “The Fat Man,” and Gutman’s “gunsel” Wilmer, the Fat Man’s boy toy, who wants desperately to be seen as a tough guy. Even today, the novel stands as a true classics of the genre a vastly influential piece of work, chockfull of memorable lines and featuring one of the very first P.I.s “with his own private, unorthodox, but absolutely inviolable code of ethics,” according to William DeAndrea, in Encyclopedia Mysteriosa. But when Miles is murdered, he swings into action, and ends up mixed up with a quest for a priceless, black enamelled statuette, a rara-avis called the Maltese Falcon.Ĭollected and published in book form in 1930, the novel was an instant bestseller (it caused such a sensation that within the next twelve years years, it would be adapted into a movie not once, not twice, but three times). Sure, he likes Effie Perrine, the secretary, and he probably wouldn’t kick a small dog, but he’s not above cutting a corner or two, and he doesn’t particularly like his partner - nor is he above sleeping with his wife. Spade’s a “hard and shifty fellow,” a partner in the Archer and Spade Detective Agency of San Francisco and nobody’s idea of a hero. He made his debut in 1929 in the pages of Black Mask, in which the The Maltese Falcon was first serialized, and crime fiction has never been the same since. The original blonde Satan, Dashiell Hammett‘s SAM SPADE is one of the most important figures in the entire private eye genre. Well, when one of your organization gets killed, it’s-it’s bad business to let the killer get away with it, bad all around, bad for every detective everywhere.” And it happens we’re in the detective business. He was your partner and you’re supposed to do something about it. It doesn’t make any difference what you thought of him. “When a man’s partner is killed, he’s supposed to do something about it. ![]()
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