NEXT INSTALMENT: FOURTH TOP 10 + 2

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The next instalment of the next Top 10 + 2, the fourth of such lists.

As I have I have previously posted, my Top 10 + 2 films is based on “watchability”, those films which you (meaning me) like to watch more than once and enjoy thoroughly for whatever reasons. Hence Groundhog Day was on the list, Citizen Kane is not, at least in my case never having had the urge to watch Citizen Kane more than once. My friend Steve cringes at my choices .

The reason my first list was called Top 10 + 2 was that I had difficulty whittling the list down to 10.

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The Maltese Falcon

The Maltese Falcon is a 1941 American film noir written and directed by John Huston in his directorial debut, based on the 1930 novel of the same name by Dashiell Hammett.

It stars Humphrey Bogart as private investigator Sam Spade and Mary Astor as his femme fatale client. Gladys George, Peter Lorre and Sydney Greenstreet co-star, with the last appearing in his film debut. The story follows a San Francisco private detective and his dealings with three unscrupulous adventurers, all of whom are competing to obtain a jewel-encrusted falcon statuette.

It's on my list because there is no finer example of the 1940’s private eye film noir than The Maltese Falcon and no better person to portray the private eye than Humphrey Bogart.

Plus a raft of great actors, a great director and great script, it deserves to be on the list.

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Movie trivia . . .

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Three of the statuettes still exist and are conservatively valued at over $1 million each. This makes them some of the most valuable film props ever made; indeed, each is now worth more than three times what the film cost to make.

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At 162 kilos/357 pounds, 60-year-old British newcomer Sydney Greenstreet was so large that the studio had to specially manufacture his entire wardrobe for the role of Kasper Gutman. The chair in which Greenstreet sits while talking with Sam Spade (Humphrey Bogart) in the hotel room was also specially made for him; the chairs the prop department was going to use weren't wide enough to accommodate Greenstreet's girth nor strong enough to support his weight.

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Eight Maltese Falcons were used for the movie - two lead and six plaster ones. The lead falcons weighed about 50 pounds each, and Lee Patrick accidentally dropped one on Humphrey Bogart's foot during shooting. It is on display in the movie museum at Warner Bros. studios, and its tail feathers are visibly dented from when it was dropped.

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It was producer Henry Blanke who gave John Huston what he recalled as the single greatest piece of advice he would ever receive as a director: "Shoot each scene as if it was the most important scene in the film."

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"The stuff that dreams are made of" (a line suggested by Humphrey Bogart) was voted as the #14 movie quote in 2005 by the American Film Institute. The line is paraphrased from William Shakespeare's "The Tempest":

"We are such stuff as dreams are made on,

And our little life is rounded with a sleep."

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There is an inordinate amount of smoking done by the main actors in this film. According to then-studio employee (and future screenwriter) Stuart Jerome, this resulted in a feud between studio head Jack L. Warner and stars Humphrey Bogart and Peter Lorre. Warner hated to see actors smoking on the screen, fearing it would prompt smokers in the movie audience to step out into the lobby for a cigarette. During filming, he told director John Huston that smoking should be kept to a minimum. Bogart and Lorre thought it would be fun to annoy Warner by smoking as often as possible, and got their co-stars, Mary Astor and Sydney Greenstreet, to go along with the joke. During the initial filming of the climactic confrontation, all four actors smoked heavily. After seeing the rushes, Warner furiously called Huston to his office and threatened to fire him from the picture if he didn't tell Bogart and Lorre to knock it off. Realizing their prank had backfired, Bogart and Lorre agreed to stop smoking on camera. However, when the next series of rushes came back, it was obvious that the "lack" of smoking by the actors was taking away from the sinister mood of the scene. Huston went back to Warner and convinced him that the smoking added the right amount of atmospheric tension to the story, arguing that the characters would, indeed, smoke cigarettes while waiting nervously for the Maltese Falcon to arrive.

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The "Maltese Falcon" itself is said to have been inspired by the "Kniphausen Hawk," a ceremonial pouring vessel made in 1697 for George William von Kniphausen, Count of the Holy Roman Empire. It is modeled after a hawk perched on a rock and is encrusted with red garnets, amethysts, emeralds and blue sapphires. The vessel, as of 2012, is owned by the Duke of Devonshire (Peregrine Cavendish) and is part of the Chatsworth collection.

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Sam Spade refers to Wilmer as a "gunsel", a term the censors assumed was a reference to a gunman. The Yiddish term "gunsel"--literally, "little goose"--may indeed be a vulgarism for homosexual (the word "faigle", or "little bird", is usually used in that respect), but it's more commonly an "underground" term that refers to a person who is either a "fall guy" or a "stool pigeon", in which case Spade is making both a direct and an indirect reference to Wilmer's character.

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For decades this film could not be legally shown on US television stations because of its underlying suggestions of illicit sexual activity among the characters (i.e., O'Shaughnessy's promiscuity and indications that Joel Cairo was a homosexual).

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