The flood of remakes is definitely one of the most annoying trends in contemporary Hollywood. It seems that every outstanding film made twenty-five or thirty years ago is about to get a modern makeover. Judging by the way Hollywood has handled those remakes in the past few years, it is almost certain that many great films are about to have their reputations forever tarnished by uninspired and usually abysmal modern versions.
Remakes, like the sequels of the past few decades, are viewed as a manifestation of the creative crisis in modern Hollywood and its inability to deliver anything original in its products. However, remaking films is hardly a contemporary phenomenon in Hollywood; movies were remade in previous decades just as in our own. And on some rare occasions, remakes turned out much better than the original.
The best example is, of course, one of the best-known films of all time – The Maltese Falcon, the film noir classic directed by John Huston in 1941. The plot is based on the "hard-boiled" detective novel by Dashiell Hammett, which had been adapted for the screen twice before – in 1931 and 1936. The protagonist is Sam Spade (played by Humphrey Bogart), a tough and streetwise private investigator from San Francisco who shares a firm with his partner, Miles Archer (played by Jerome Cowan). One day their services are hired by the mysterious and good-looking Miss Wonderly (played by Mary Astor). What was supposed to be a routine surveillance job goes terribly wrong for Archer, who is killed, while Spade becomes the prime suspect.
Almost immediately afterwards, Spade is approached by the peculiar yet sinister world traveller Joel Cairo (played by Peter Lorre), who wants to hire his services to get his hands on a certain object. Spade is convinced that the two events are connected, and his suspicions gradually appear to be correct – not only Cairo, but several other interested parties are involved in a case that revolves around an ancient and priceless artefact known as the "Maltese Falcon". That includes Miss Wonderly, who is not what she claims to be, yet that does not prevent Spade from falling in love with her.
The Maltese Falcon is often seen as Hollywood's first film noir. The genre of hard-boiled detective stories existed before, namely in the realm of pulp literature, but this film was the first to bring it to the silver screen in its recognisable form. Because of that, The Maltese Falcon has great historical importance – it represents something of a milestone in the development of American genre cinema. It is also the reason why many of the characters and situations might look like clichés, but to view them this way would be a great injustice to the film that actually inspired such clichés. However, when we watch the film we are hardly aware of them – the plot and character types, despite being utilised in numerous other films in subsequent decades, are still interesting, and the movie provides a lot of entertainment.
This accomplishment is even greater when we consider that The Maltese Falcon was actually the first film directed by John Huston, one of the greatest American filmmakers of the 20th century. It could be argued that his first film (in which his father, Walter, appears in a small cameo role) is actually the best film in his entire career, making this the second such instance in 1941 – the very year when Orson Welles made his Citizen Kane.
One of the reasons why The Maltese Falcon happens to be as great now as it was more than half a century ago can be found in its timeless quality. The story, characters, and situations are universal, and you could sense that they might exist in any era, including our own. This is due to the extremely clever and tight script by John Huston, who took each scene and each piece of dialogue from the original novel and packed it into a coherent whole, as faithful to the dark world of Hammett's fiction as was possible in early-1940s Hollywood. Because of that, the film looks incredibly modern – its content, with hidden and some not-so-well-hidden layers, might very well belong to our time.
The protagonist is an anti-hero with an utter lack of a conventional moral code – he is cynical, adulterous, lacks any compassion, and sometimes manifests a sadistic pleasure in using violence. There is hardly anything that separates him from the villains in this film, except for the fact that he is more experienced and more intelligent and therefore uses manipulation instead of the acts that would brand him a villain in the classical sense. Even his final act, when he does the right thing, is motivated more by common sense than adherence to even the most basic ethical principles.
In the world of The Maltese Falcon, almost everyone (with the exception of Spade's loyal secretary, Effie, played by Lee Patrick) is bad – each and every character is motivated by greed or instant self-gratification in the form of sex (like the character of Iva Archer, played by Gladys George). Even the forces of law and order, which are supposed to provide some kind of moral compass, are presented as inept or violent. Because of that, The Maltese Falcon, with its cast of exclusively immoral characters, might remind a contemporary audience of Tarantinoesque films about criminal enterprises gone wrong.
Huston's flawless direction was in many ways helped by a truly stellar cast. The most recognisable of all the actors, Humphrey Bogart, used this role of a morally questionable protagonist as an excellent opportunity to make his transition from playing traditional villains in the 1930s to the noble heroes he would play in the 1940s. The cynical and near-psychopathic Sam Spade is, therefore, one of his most recognisable screen incarnations, although not as loveable as his next greatest role in Casablanca.
His partner, Mary Astor, is also great – she might not look enchantingly beautiful compared to other femmes fatales of film noir, but she nevertheless manages to ooze wickedness on screen in a manner that is, in a sense, more sexy than physical looks alone. Of course, the rest of the cast is even more interesting. Peter Lorre's role as a homosexual gangster is legendary, and it is no wonder that he became one of the greatest character actors of his time. Sidney Greenstreet as the seemingly cultivated yet equally ruthless criminal (with a large belly as a character trait, which Huston emphasised with clever camera angles) is also great, and his accomplishment is even greater considering that this was his first major on-screen role. Finally, Elisha Cook Jr. is equally impressive as the young wannabe thug.
The good acting was essential for the success of this film because the complicated plot would be quite uninspiring without interesting characters and a cast capable of presenting them on screen. Huston again shows his great directing skills by managing to tie up every loose end and maintain an appropriate pace at the same time, making this film slightly more than an hour and a half long.
The Maltese Falcon, with its great direction, truly stellar cast, and interesting story and characters, is a film that managed to transcend its time and is still able to entertain audiences six decades after its making. To countless new generations of viewers, this film is more than an important piece of film history. It is a true masterpiece.
RATING: 10/10 (+++++)
(Note: The text in its original form was posted in Usenet newsgroup rec.arts.movies.reviews on September 17th 2001)
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Critic: AAA