Maltese Falcon series

  • The Maltese Falcon (1931)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, September 2022) For movies being remade, the best-case scenario is a forgettable, inferior remake that is soon forgotten and leaves the original with its original lustre. The worse case scenario is pretty much what happened with 1931’s The Maltese Falcon: The remake ended up being a genre-making classic that completely eclipsed the previous version (to the point where it’s often explicitly presented with the caveat that it’s NOT the best-known version) and whose interest is almost entirely measured in comparison to its remake. So it is that the 1931 The Maltese Falcon is… not good. Not as good, anyway. Even putting aside the extraordinary contributions of John Huston and Humphrey Bogart to the 1941 remake, there are two crucial ways in which Roy Del Ruth’s 1931 version falls short. First, obviously, is the technical polish of the production. Dating from early in the sound era and not exactly being a prestige production for the studio, this Maltese Falcon is marred by vexing technical shortcomings: frequent dead audio, incredibly rough editing, static camera shots—no wonder it seemed like a prime candidate for a remake: Even the in-between comic remake titled Satan Met a lady would greatly improve on those aspects even five years later. But the more crucial difference illustrates the importance that tone and style can make on even the same kind of narrative: 1931 was one decade too early for film noir, and so the first Maltese Falcon offers, to seasoned noir fans, the utterly bizarre spectacle of an archetypical noir story being done is rather bland mystery style—missing the added layer of shadowy cinematography, downbeat tone and urban decay that made film noir such a landmark. It does make for hypnotically bemused watching—especially if you’re familiar with the other versions. There is one important aspect, however, in which the 1931 is superior and will surprise viewers, and it’s in the Pre-Code frankness of the script: the sexual aspects of the original novel are toned down but far more obvious than the later versions of the film: it feels harsher and occasionally more honest about its own subject matter. Strike another one up for Pre-Code Hollywood. This version of The Maltese Falcon is, without many realizing it, a modern treat—as with many Pre-Code films judged too racy for the Production Code years, it was unavailable for public viewing from 1934 to 1966. Ironically, this may be why we ended up with the 1941 version—a way to remake it according to the strictures of the time, and accidentally producing a classic along the way. So rests the 1931 version of The Maltese Falcon—forever in the shadow of its successor.

  • Satan Met a Lady (1936)

    Satan Met a Lady (1936)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, August 2021) It’s hard to argue that Satan Met a Lady is an interesting film by itself — while it features a killer title (especially for a film released so soon after the enforcement of the Hays Code), it’s executed like many jocular detective movies of the 1930s, and there are far better examples of the form than this one. But where Satan Met a Lady becomes truly special is in the exemplary lesson it offers in how tone can reshape a film adaptation. For this is, amazingly, an adaptation of Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon, five years before the John Huston adaptation that would help ignite the film noir genre and launch Humphrey Bogart to superstardom. The protagonist here, played by a twinkle-eyed Warren Williams, couldn’t be farther away from Bogart — he’s a smooth romantic operator and a constant one-liner generator who barely takes himself seriously. Not that he is the most outrageous deviation of the adaptation, which takes so many liberties with the source material than even viewers with fresh memories of the 1941 version will have trouble spotting the similarities. But the frankly comic tone is where the film is most distinctive, and perhaps most enjoyable as well. It’s not a good movie — Bette Davis, one of the film’s lone bright spots as the femme fatale, famously rebelled and refused to show up on set for the first few days of shooting—but it becomes fascinating when you put it against the film noir style of telling roughly the same story. Then again, film noir wasn’t even in the cards in 1936 — amateur sleuths and high-society escapes from the Depression were the vogue, and Warner Brothers was clearly aiming at chasing trends of the time. Despite a plot that becomes unpalatable late in the film’s brisk 74 minutes, Satan Met a Lady is not an unbearable watch, but it’s far best appreciated as the second feature in a Maltese double (or triple) bill.