#36: The Maltese Falcon

Starring: Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor
Dir: John Huston (1941)

I KNOW, I KNOW. In my defense I have technically seen this before, only it was when I was super little and really scared of movies where people hit each other so I barely let myself remember any of it. Just a fat man and a bird. Which, to be fair, is still pretty much what it's about.
The one thing I definitely did not notice as a wee one, however, was that The Maltese Falcon is CHOCK FULL O' SEX. Like, TONS. Sex is EVERYWHERE, and totally in the cool way.
Sorry, let me just reiterate --
CHOCK
FULL
O'
SEX.

Ahem.

Before I go on to the evidence, let me break it down for you real slow. The number one thing you need to know about Old Movie Sex is that it only gets to operate within a range of very subtle to barely subtle, and it NEVER happens in front of you. Kisses are the basic expression, although you must not forget that kisses are sometimes just kisses (like in Deanna Durbin movies. Deanna Durbin is a FOREVER VIRGIN and you are OKAY WITH IT!!!). The two primary ways that Real Live Sex takes place in old Code-era movies are:
1) Smoking cigarettes, and
2) Fading to black.

In The Maltese Falcon there are LOTS of cigarettes and LOTS of fade-to-blacks, so ta-da there you have it, newbies! As an added bonus there is also just plain ol' lots of Humphrey Bogart grabbing women exasperatedly by the shoulders and saying "Look, angel," which is Advanced Old Movie Scoundrel-Speak for "Look, girl I banged and no longer want to deal with." Nobody's an angel until after you've had sex with them. And in old movies, guys throwing around a word like "angel" are typically pretty tough.

TOUGH, you say??
HOW TOUGH?

SLAPPING PETER LORRE TOUGH!

BREAKIN' SHIT TOUGH!

SMOKE IN YOUR FACE TOUGH!

GO TO JAIL BITCH!

Oops, I'm ahead of myself.
Now that you've completed your prerequisite course we can resume 101: Introduction to Girls Sam Spade is Banging in The Maltese Falcon.

#1: His secretary (Effie)

Evidence: SHE'S HIS SECRETARY. He calls her doll AND angel AND sweetheart AND darling. He puts his hand on her knee when they talk. And look, she rolls his cigarettes for him. Cigarettes!

I grant this scene a sexy status equal to the famous cigarette-lighting maneuver in Now, Voyager.

Effie is definitely my favorite Hit That Girl. She is the dependable secretary who is basically Sam's right hand and gets to know all his dirty secrets and help him out of scrapes. She is a dame, a little worldly-wise, not naive so you don't have to be romantic, a nice grown woman perfect for him... but still a bottle blonde, nothing classy. She's not glamorous or irresistible. She's not a vamp. She may be the girl he'll visit most nights a week, but he'll never marry her. Sorry, Eff!

#2: His partner's wife (Iva)

This is the kind of desperate you get when you think Humphrey Bogart might want to stop having sex with you.

Iva and Sam have an affair for quite a while before Miles gets bumped off at the start of the story. Iva assumes Sam has done it so that they can be together. Sam is like, "Um, no, no I didn't," and then gets Effie to take care of Iva and basically keep her away from him as much as possible. We assume that Sam is losing interest because Iva is kind of old and also kind of super definitely clingy. Also has wrong ideas about commitment. Also, VERY CLINGY. At one point in this story Iva sees Sam going into his apartment with #3 and ACTUALLY SENDS THE POLICE UP to disturb their rendezvous. She watches from a taxi cab in the street and looks like she's about to cry. Yes, Iva is very, very sad. And very, very jealous. We think we would never be as pathetic as her, but look - she is kinda old, her husband just got shot, and she might not be banging Humphrey Bogart anymore because of some fresh new ho on the block... you'd do it, too.

#3: The femme fatale (Brigid)

Brigid is the lying scheming manipulative ho-bag that works her fatale-y magic on Sam throughout this entire movie and ALMOST gets him to let her off for murder. Brigid and Sam have lots of sex and they want you to know it. Probably two fade-out's and one kiss's plus one cigarette's-worth, and maybe a "sweetheart" thrown in, and what the what they think they're in love?!? WHY this happens I do not know. Brigid is kind of mysterious and plays the distressed-dame card pretty craftily, but she is also a total beezy! Plus Sam already has Effie who is obviously better. WHY does it even take place, then? Because men are pigs. Or something. Whatever the cause, they do have an affair and it almost leads Sam to his death...

HOW??
PLOT!!

Sam Spade is a detective at Spade & Archer in San Francisco. When the film opens he is approached by the lovely Ruth Waverly (real name: Brigid O'Shaughnessy/HO!) who asks for a tail to be put on a very dangerous man called Thursby. Sam's partner takes the assignment and is shot to death that night, supposedly by Thursby. Thursby himself shows up dead elsewhere. Sam is approached by police hours later and treated as a suspect (it is common knowledge that he has an affair with Miles' wife and may want Miles out of the way), so to clear himself of the double-murder, Sam finds Ruth/Brigid the next day and forces her to spill the truth, or at least part of the truth - her real name and her real relationship to Thursby. She admits Thursby probably shot Miles Archer and she knowingly placed him in danger, but she claims to have no idea who shot Thursby afterwards. Sam senses she isn't being truthful about everything yet he decides to keep investigating the murders. Brigid is kind of a shifty little ho but he obviously thinks she's hot. (We'll go with it for now.)

Later that day, a man called Joel Cairo (Peter Lorre) enters Sam's office and offers him $5,000 to bring him a black bird. Joel has reason to believe that Sam already knows where it is. (BRIGID!)

In this scene, Joel sits down and immediately begins playing with his cane, even putting it in his mouth. This is kind of awkward to see. Simultaneously, Sam begins smoking a cigarette. Now while I strongly doubt that Sam and Joel have sex in this story (though Lorre's character is gay), the tension is obviously meant to be there... I mean, Peter Lorre puts a CANE. In his MOUTH. And Humphrey Bogart makes that FACE.

I told you this movie was about sex.

Moving on, speeding up, etc: Sam establishes that Joel and Brigid are connected, the three meet in Sam's apartment and Brigid attacks Joel with a pistol... they know each other and are both trying to recover the black bird, which is apparently quite valuable. Also apparently there is a "Fat Man" involved too, whom they are both very afraid of. He is coming to San Francisco.

Sam and Brigid spend some nice alone time together as Sam tries to get Brigid to be honest, giving him anything to help them both track down the falcon. The tension builds because (again, lost on me) Brigid is apparently some kind of sexpot and Sam basically kills time sitting around looking at her like this:

Number One sign you are about to have sex with Humphrey Bogart = this face.

In spite of the inducement, Brigid remains secretive while insisting on Sam's loyalty. Finally, he gets fired up: "What have you ever given me besides money? Have you ever given me any of your confidence, any of the truth? Haven't you tried to buy my loyalty with money and nothing else?"

To which Brigid replies,

"What else is there I could buy you with?"

Then this happens.

Answer: SEX.

Now thoroughly invested in the booty case, Sam goes to the Fat Man for info and is offered a ton of money to deliver the falcon to HIM (again, everyone seems to think he has access to it already. He doesn't. He is going to figure it out, though. He is HUMPHREY BOGART). Fat Man is kind of a dick, unfortunately, so Sam gets really mad at his condescending attitude and does this:

YEAH! BREAKIN' SHIT AGAIN!

He storms out, but Fat Man's hired goon brings him back the next day at gunpoint. They spike Sam's drink and once Sam passes out Fat Man leaves with Goon. They are going to meet a ship that may be bringing the falcon to New York. When they search it, the falcon is nowhere to be found. By this time Sam is conscious again and (blah blah finds clues blah blah) races to the dock, but when he arrives the ship has already been set on fire by Fatty Vindictive-Pants. Sam goes back to his office to flirt with his secretary for lack of anything better to do at that point.
A dying man stumbles in the door moments after he arrives, bearing the falcon wrapped in newspaper! He drops it at Sam's feet and then dies. The man was the ship's captain.
O'Shaughnessy dials Sam's office with a (fake!) distress call! Apparently they are in love now, so he cares about this. (Old movie sex - immoral, yet still inseparable from love! The  confused standards are fantastic.) He puts the falcon in a safe place and goes to meet her, but he is cornered by Goon and taken to his apartment where Fat Man and Joel are waiting. Brigid comes with because the ho was in on it.

Fat Man offers Spade big money for the falcon again, this time in front of everybody. Sam says okay, I can get it to you in the morning, but we need someone to take the fall for the murders if this is going to shake out. The Goon is nominated as fall guy and Fat Man agrees. Sam knocks Goon out to simplify things. Then he makes everyone tell him what really happened murder-wise so he can formulate a believable story for the police. OMG!! BRIGID SHOT EVERYBODY! (Except for the captain, Goon shot the captain.) WE HATE HER!!!
Sam is obviously pissed but he controls himself. Brigid plays it up like she had no choice... she was just SO emotional... she felt threatened... you know. Sam is like "UGH" but since they are all going to be there for a while he goes along with it and sneaks a quickie with Brigid in the other room.

In the morning Effie brings the falcon to Sam's apartment, but it turns out to be a fake. Gutman and Joel abandon the apartment and Sam sends the police after them. Then he chews out the scheming ho he just had sex with (sheesh! men!) and is like I MAY HAVE BEEN HAVING AN AFFAIR WITH MY PARTNER'S WIFE BUT GOD DAMMIT NOBODY KILLS MY PARTNER BUT ME GOD DAMMIT. Brigid tries the womanly wiles again and is like "Noooooo, you looooooove me, you'll never turn me in" but he's like "ACTUALLY I WILL. ALSO YOU LIED TO THAT NICE CAPTAIN MAN WHO DIED IN MY OFFICE AND THAT TOO IS UNFORGIVABLE."
(More specifically, he says "I hope they don't hang you, precious, by that sweet neck" and does this:

which also means sex.)
And then the police show up and then she DOES have to take the fall! Hooray!!

Elevator doors = cell bars, oooohhhh imagery!

And that's the end!

Can you tell I liked it?

Stars: 4.5 of 5