The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of

Not too many people know that the Humphrey Bogart Maltese Falcon is a remake - actually the third time the story had been filmed. Want to see the other two? Check out this disk: The Maltese Falcon / Satan Met a Lady.

The first Maltese Falcon (1931) stars Ricardo Cortez as Sam Spade, Bebe Daniels as Ruth Wonderly, andUna Merkel as Effie Perrine. I've never heard of Cortez, but Daniels is pretty well known from 42nd Street. Dwight Fry, Renfield from Dracula is the gunsel Wilmer. As good as Elisha Cook Jr, but with less screen time. The Cairo and Gutman roles are pretty well done, although very different from what we are used to.

Now, this is not a very good movie. The Bogart Maltese Falcon was a B movie, and so is this, but the acting is much worse. The writing isn't bad, though, and neither is the direction. Cortez is a much less likable Spade - a skirt chaser and probably crooked. He shows his teeth a lot, like Bogart, but in an insincere grin, not Bogart's grimace. Still, the story is there, and some scenes are very similar, like Spade meeting Cairo, and the scene in the DA's office.

Satan Met a Lady is a different beast - it takes place in San Remo, and features Warren William as private eye Ted Shayne and his search for an antique horn. The Gutman character is called Madame Barabas, a nasty old lady. Effie calls herself Murgatroyd. And so forth. Everything changed just enough.

Warren William has the wrecked face of an aging roue and he plays Spade - I mean, Shayne - as a creep. The Wonderly/O'Shaughnessy character is played by Bette Davis, and I've never seen worse line delivery, even by non-English speakers who learn their lines phonetically. Shayne's secretar Murgatroyd, though, is played by Marie Wilson, radio's My Friend Irma. She's a great dumb blonde character, with a classic voice (reminiscent of Marilyn Monroe). I've always like Effie Perrine - more than the Wonderly dame - but this version is the best.

Satan is really The Maltese Falcon done as a comedy. William may be trying for a William Powell/Thin Man drollery. It might even work in places. But the only real funny comes from Marie Wilson (N.B. - not to be confused with raven-haired noir goddess Marie Windsor). I'm tempted to watch My Friend Irma / My Friend Irma Goes West, but they also feature Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin.

In conclusion: Fun to watch, but not classics. Although Warren William had a hand-tooled leather pipe box, but no one made roll-you-owns like Bogart.