What's this about?

Lately, it seems like many of the movies/shows are just a rehash or reboot of things that have already been done. And so I started to dive into the past. It's been fun, but I find myself losing track of which ones I’ve seen and whether or not I enjoyed them. Sometimes the titles themselves just don't tell me enough to remember.

I wouldn’t have voluntarily watched a lot of these movies when I was younger. It’s strange how interests change. That goes for what I read, too. I have another blog that explores books. I’m mostly reading older fiction and memoirs, and some of the books have led me to movies/shows and vice versa. In those cases, I may post the book review over here as well.

There will be spoilers, which is different than my book reviews. That’s mostly because I want to have enough information to help me remember what I’ve seen. I’m getting older. The brain doesn’t cooperate like it used to. What can I say? The gray hairs are catching up with me!

Wednesday, February 14, 2024

The Maltese Falcon - 1941

This movie is based on a book by Dashiell Hammett. It's a noir mystery where a private detective gets involved in the hunt for a gem-encrusted statue.

It all starts when a woman comes to the office. She claims her sister is being held against her will, but in reality, she just wants a man followed. Sam's partner takes the job and ends up killed. Now the woman says it isn't her sister and starts to trickle out information. Not much of it is true, but somehow Sam is falling for her.

Later, after three people are dead, it all comes out that the falcon was stolen from a Russian man. There are a couple people involved trying to get it, the most serious being a man called Gutman. They play cat and mouse, and in the end, they discover the statue is a fake and head off to find the Russian. After that, Sam confronts the woman and accuses her of murdering his partner. Then he spews some nonsense, and she's sent off to jail.

I am not a fan of Humphrey Bogart, but I did see him actually do some facial expressions in this movie. So that was good. I'm not sure how the book is, I have it on my list of things I want to read, but some of this movie irritated me. I'm not even sure there's a hero in it. Sam is having an affair with his partner's wife, and at the end, he's only turning in the woman because "when someone kills your partner, no matter what you thought of him, you do something about it." What? I'm also not sure why everyone thought the falcon was real. If the bird was supposed to be covered in jewels, I don't know where people thought they would be. Unless they put so much lacquer on it to make the settings smooth, they were extremely silly.

The movie was okay. With no one to root for, it was just a mystery to solve. I'd like to read the book and see if the character of Sam Spade was any different. Immediately taking the man's name off the windows after he died was callous, the way he was having an affair with the wife is messed up, and just "doing something" about the partner's death didn't endear him to me as a character. I think the person I felt the most pity for was the boat captain, and I only saw him for 30 seconds.



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