The Stuff Dreams Are Made Of

This weekend's flashback movie at the Continental Theater was a true rarity to come across on the big screen these days -- The Maltese Falcon. And actually, until today I had never seen it before in any venue.

Ordinarily, the so-called "classics" don't do it for me... not the ones I've seen, anyway. Casablanca nearly put me to sleep. Citizen Kane seemed like a thoroughly boring film, only interesting when considered not on its own merits, but in the historical context of how much controversy it stirred in its day.

I'm happy and surprised to say that The Maltese Falcon bucked the trend for me. I actually really enjoyed this movie. Yes, the acting was still a little unreal in the manner of movies from that era, but it somehow seemed less over-the-top here. Or perhaps it was simply more fitting in this, the prototypical hard-boiled detective movie. After all, the slightly unreal performances that go with this genre are still very much a convention today that audiences can recognize and accept, and I can fit in with that audience.

I was struck by how much the movie actually felt like a stage play to me. Each scene was more packed with dialogue than action (I mean that in a good way). They were long scenes with plenty of room for the characters and the words to breathe and play, not the rapid-fire, often image-driven stuff of today. With the exception of only two or three short scenes (a cross-town attempt to evade a tailing thug, a quick stop to see a ship on fire at the harbor, and so forth), every scene took place in very conventional "room" sets -- an office, a hotel room, an apartment, etc. It was quite easy to imagine quick set dressing changes allowing the whole story to be told on stage in live theater instead. Which is perhaps another reason I responded so favorably to it.

There were a couple of plot points that did rub me the wrong way, though. The biggest one of these was the beginning of the final act. After being a relatively clever hero for most of the movie, Sam Spade has the item everyone's fighting to get almost literally just fall in his lap. (A heretofore unseen character just shows up unannounced at his office, mortally wounded, to hand off a package to him.) It really seemed a too-convenient way to bring on the climax of the film, and undermined the main character in the process, too.

But all things considered, I have to again say how pleasantly surprised I was to enjoy this movie. I give it a B+.