Let's Talk About the Black Bird

~ Before we begin, and this will be true for every movie here: Here Be Spoilers. Endings will be discussed, plot twists revealed. It's just what we do here. If you've not seen the 1931 version of The Maltese Falcon, it's on you. You've literally had 85 years to do it. My conscience is clear. -- SM ~

Ricardo Cortez, like Ramon Novarro and Rudolph Valentino before him, was a smooth Latin lover with dark eyes and a winning smile. He'd worked as a stockbroker before entering the movie business in the '20s, and he soon became a popular romantic leading man. His New York accent translated well to the talkies, and he also took on some roles as tough guys and heavies. Ricardo Cortez was everything a Latin leading man should be, except he wasn't Latin at all. He was born Jacob Krantz to a Jewish family in New York City in 1900. He made well over one hundred films before he retired in the '40s to again work as a stockbroker on Wall Street. In Warner's 1931 adaptation of Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon, he's the first screen personification of Samuel Spade, a flawed man who usually tries to do the right thing even though he's been sleeping with his partner's wife. 

Spade's partner Miles Archer (Walter Long) agrees to follow Floyd Thursby, a suspect that a mystery woman, Ruth Wonderly (Bebe Daniels), claims has abducted her younger sister. Spade is awakened in the middle of the night to the news that Archer has been killed in San Francisco's Chinatown, but declines to view the body at the scene. This arouses the suspicion of police, who in these movies are always suspicious of everything anyway. After saying he needs to tell Archer's wife, Spade chats briefly with a Chinese man loitering in a doorway, but then goes home. Sgt. Polhaus (J. Farrell MacDonald) and Lieutenant Dundy (Robert Elliott) then visit Spade at his apartment later that night to inform him that Thursby has also been shot dead in the street. Sam had not told Archer's wife the bad news himself, but had put it on his secretary Effie (Una Merkel) to do instead. The police think Spade killed Thursby for revenge, and he has no explanation where he's been for the previous few hours. But they don't have any real evidence against him and leave.

The next day, Spade confronts Ruth Wonderly and tries to get her real story. She admits she was lying about her sister but doesn't offer much information, except that she and Thursby were actually working together and now she feels her life is in danger. Sam leaves, but not before taking $500 more of Miss Wonderly's money to stay on the case. Back at the office, Sam tells Effie to have Archer's name removed from the office door and he's visited by Joel Cairo (Otto Matieson), who offers him $5,000 to retrieve a black bird statuette. Spade knows nothing about it, but Cairo pulls a gun on him and searches his office anyway. 

Samuel Spade (Ricardo Cortez) and Effie Perine

 (Una Merkel) hint at a more personal relationship

 than was seen in any later version of the story.

Later that night at his apartment, Spade asks Ruth about Cairo and the Falcon, and she tries to seduce him when she fears she'll lose his help. They're interrupted by Dundy and Poulhaus, and he talks to them outside the door about his relationship with his late partner's wife. As they're leaving, Ruth screams. They enter Spade's apartment only to find her holding a gun on Cairo. Spade makes up a ridiculous story on the spot about it being a joke, that he and Cairo are old college chums, and he leaves at the same time as the police. The next morning (the indication being that Sam and Ruth have had "the sex"), Sam takes Ruth's keys as she's sleeping and goes to search her apartment. He doesn't find anything and when he returns to his own place he's confronted by Iva Archer, who is upset that Ruth has slept there. Soap opera much? Well, there's a lot of plot in this one, much more than in the typical detective story. Iva is pissed and leaves, making threats to tell the police everything she knows. Spade gets a note from Casper Gutman (Dudley Digges) wishing to discuss the Falcon. Gutman offers to cut Spade in on a fortune if he'll locate the statue. Spade lies and says he can deliver it in a few days and Gutman gives him a $1000 bill. Cairo then arrives and informs Gutman that Spade does not have it, the Captain of the La Paloma does, that that ship arrives from Hong Kong tonight. Gutman gives Spade a drugged drink and takes back his money when he passes out. That night, when Spade returns to his office, he finds Effie sleeping at his desk. His door opens and a man carrying a suitcase staggers in. It's Captain Jacoby of the La Paloma, having been shot many times. He collapses to the floor, dead. The suitcase contains the Falcon statue, so Spade checks the bag at a baggage check to keep it safe and sends himself the ticket in the mail. Meanwhile, Iva has been singing to the police, and Spade is called in to see the District Attorney (Morgan Wallace). He convinces the D.A. to give him 24 hours to wrap up the case and clear himself. Back then you always got 24 hours to clear yourself and find the real murderer. Fair was fair back then. It was a different time.

Thelma Todd as Iva Archer, one of the pre-code 

elements that kept this film out of circulation for years.

Wonderly meets Sam outside his building, claiming she's being followed. They go upstairs to his apartment and are confronted by Cairo and Gutman. Cairo is pointing a gun at them, as is Gutman's hired gunsel, Wilmer Cook (Dwight Fry, almost unrecognizable as this was the same year he was Renfield to Bela Lugosi's Dracula). Gutman now knows that Spade has the Falcon, and gives him ten $1,000 bills in an envelope. Spade insists that someone has to take the fall for the three killings, and that it should be Wilmer. Gutman says no, and Spade then suggests that Cairo be the patsy. Cairo nixes that, and says Spade should just shut his yip yap and cough up the bird. I'm paraphrasing, of course. Spade says he'll produce it the next morning, and everyone settles in to wait. Wonderly offers to make snacks, and Gutman accuses her of stealing one of the bills from the envelope. She denies it, so Spade takes her in the kitchen and makes her peel down (off-screen, of course...it's 1931, let's not get crazy here) to prove she doesn't have it. She doesn't have it, so when Spade returns to the living room he accuses Gutman of palming the bill, which he admits to doing. Honor among thieves? Not even! Spade now tells Gutman that Wilmer will be the fall guy. Gutman and Cairo have a huddle session where they discuss it, and Wilmer pulls his gun on Spade. Spade clocks him, and all agree that Wilmer will be the patsy. Spade calls Effie and asks her to retrieve the suitcase, and Gutman reveals that Wilmer had indeed killed Thursby and Jacoby. When Effie brings the Falcon, it's revealed that it's a fake...a previous owner has made a duplicate copy. Gutman and Cairo quickly decide to go find the real one. As they leave, they hold a gun on Spade and demand the $10,000 back. After they've left, Spade calls Polhaus and tells him to get Gutman, Cairo, and Wilmer. He then confronts Wonderly and accuses her of killing Archer so she could throw suspicion on Thursby and deal him out. She admits to it, and Sam says he loves her but he's still turning her in for the murder. Dundy and Polhaus arrive and reveal that Wilmer shot both Gutman and Cairo dead before being captured. Spade tells them that Ruth killed Archer and they take her away. A newspaper headline is shown on screen informing us that Spade produced the only eyewitness to the Archer killing, the Chinese merchant he spoke to at the scene, at Ruth's murder trial. Spade, smoking a cigarette, visits Ruth in prison and tells her he's now Chief Investigator for the D.A.'s office. He tells the prison matron to treat her well and give her whatever she wants. The matron asks who'll pay for the special treatment, and Spade says to send the bill to the D.A.'s office, and that he'll okay it. 

It's a fake!

I admit I'm not completely scholarly on the book version. I listened to the audio book but I don't remember if Sam visits Ruth in jail or if they just added that to make it seem a little more hopeful. I know that certainly didn't happen in the 1941 remake, and 1936's  Satan Met a Lady...that's another matter entirely. That was just a flat-out comedy for the most part. We'll get to that. This version was made before the self-imposed Hollywood censorship of the mid-1930s, so after its original run it was rarely shown at all unedited. There is much sexual suggestion here, and the Gutman-Cairo relationship (Hammett had strongly implied they were homosexuals) is more pronounced. Spade taunts Dundy by calling him "sweetheart" and "darling". The off-screen stripping is one thing, but at one point Ruth Wonderly is seen in a bathtub and you almost for a second see nip. It had to have been a huge deal way back when. No, seriously. They didn't do that then. I mean bathe. No, I'm kidding, of course. By 1936, Warner wanted to re-release it, but was denied approval by the Production Code Office because it was deemed "lewd". At that point, the studio just made a new film with a new cast and some major re-writes. That film was Satan Met a Lady. Again, we'll get to that. It's a fun one.

Unlike the 1941 version, Sam visits Ruth in jail. 

I first saw this version of the movie as an extra on a Maltese Falcon DVD years ago. I disregarded it and didn't think much about it because I was such a huge fan of the Bogart remake. I certainly had no idea that Satan Met a Lady was a thing until fairly recently. But I've watched this one a few times now. It's getting better every time. Ricardo Cortez is believable, the guys who play the cops are suitably grumpy, and the villains are oily and sleazy. It's good casting all around. Bebe Daniels had a long career in silent films and was a huge star when this came out, and she's gorgeous. I'm definitely an Una Merkel fan, though. She's stunning, and I may have a thing for secretaries. In fact, Marie Wilson, who played the Effie part in Satan Met a Lady, is another one I'll be sure to go on and on about when I discuss that one. And Thelma Todd is always great to look at. It's a fine film in my opinion. Nothing wrong with it. I don't rate thumbs or stars. I either like it or I don't. This one I like.

Ricardo Cortez, age 76, died in 1977. Bebe Daniels ultimately made 230 films. She retired from film and moved to the U.K, were she and her husband did radio shows for the BBC. She died in 1971 at age 70. Despite a 1952 suicide attempt, Una Merkel died in 1986 at 82. Dwight Frye died of a heart attack in 1943, age 44. Thelma Todd died in 1935 at 29 of accidental carbon monoxide poisoning, though there were unproven allegations it was murder. Otto Matieson, 38, died in a car wreck in Arizona in 1932, and this was his final role.