FredCDobbs Posted July 6, 2006 Share Posted July 6, 2006 Hey! The original 1931 ?Maltese Falcon? is coming on Sunday morning at 2 AM Eastern time, July 9th. Everyone needs to see this one. Robert Osborn said this film?s title was changed to ?Dangerous Female? after the Bogart version of the film was made in the 1940s, but apparently TCM is using the original 1931 title so people will know what this film is. I like this version better than the Bogart version. Also, it?s pre-code. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sweetbabykmd Posted July 6, 2006 Share Posted July 6, 2006 Thanks Fred, I've been waiting for this one and plan on recording it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FilmBuffRich Posted July 6, 2006 Share Posted July 6, 2006 Hmmm.... Haven't seen this one in about 10 years or so. Though my memories aren't favorable, I just might revisit it. Off to set the VCR... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JonParker Posted July 6, 2006 Share Posted July 6, 2006 It's an interesting movie -- definitely precode. The gay relationship between Wilmer and Guttman is a lot more obvious, as is Spade's womanizing. It's not a bad film for an early precode, although Ricardo Cortez drives me batty with all his smirking. It's worth catching though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rickspade Posted July 6, 2006 Share Posted July 6, 2006 > Hey! The original 1931 ?Maltese Falcon? is coming on > Sunday morning at 2 AM Eastern time, July 9th. > I like this version better than the Bogart version. > Also, it?s pre-code. I've never seen the 1931 version, so I'm looking forward to seeing (or taping) it. Just curious, Fred, I've read a lot of your comments on several threads, and obviously from your poster name you're a Bogart fan, so why do you like the 1931 film better? I've read a lot about it, and the consensus is that while it's fairly well-done, no one ever has said it comes even close to the Bogart-Huston 1941 film. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FredCDobbs Posted July 7, 2006 Author Share Posted July 7, 2006 I think I like the ?31 version better because all the characters are more sleazy. I don?t like sleazy people in real life, but in movies it allows me to see how the criminal world works without having to get inside it. Bogart himself was very good in the ?41 version, but I didn?t care much for Mary Astor. She seemed like a school teacher on summer vacation, rather than a killer and a seductress. But Bebe Daniels in the ?31 version seemed like she could seduce men and kill them rather frequently. She seemed very dangerous. Lorre and Greenstreet seemed to be playing their same ol? duo that I?ve seen them play in several other films. I think the Dr. Cairo character in the ?31 version was an interesting guy. I read somewhere that that actor was killed in a car wreck a couple of years after he made the movie. The actor who played Gutman in the ?31 version, Dudley Diggs, did an excellent job and he seemed more sleazy and realistic than the Greenstreet version. I think Miles Archer in the ?31 version was a better character, being a really tough guy with a young wife, and the wife, Thelma Todd, seemed more like someone Sam Spade would date for a while and then try to get rid of. In the ?41 version, I didn?t care for either of the Archer characters. Richardo Cortez was a great leading man. I wish he had made a series of Sam Spade movies. I guess discovering the ?31 version is like being familiar with some modern opera stars performing La Traviata for years and then suddenly discovering a rare complete recording of a 1931 version with Caruso and Amelita Galli-Curci. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hhuzzy Posted July 7, 2006 Share Posted July 7, 2006 wow i had no idea there was an earlier Maltese Falcon. i'll have to attempt to stay up and watch it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JackBurley Posted July 7, 2006 Share Posted July 7, 2006 "I guess discovering the ?31 version is like being familiar with some modern opera stars performing La Traviata for years and then suddenly discovering a rare complete recording of a 1931 version with Caruso and Amelita Galli-Curci." Rare indeed! That would be quite a find (since Caruso died in 1921). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rickspade Posted July 7, 2006 Share Posted July 7, 2006 OK, Fred, that's a fairly concise, yet descriptive, rationale for your preference. For now, I have no point of comparison; I hope to see the 1931 version over the weekend, (or shortly thereafter if I go the taping route), and then I'll get back to you via this thread. However, since the 1941 film is my Number 2 all-time favorite movie (right behind Casablanca), the Cortez-Daniels film has some "tall shoes to fill," as the saying goes. To be continued. . . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FredCDobbs Posted July 9, 2006 Author Share Posted July 9, 2006 Well, what did you think of the 1931 version? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rickspade Posted July 10, 2006 Share Posted July 10, 2006 > Well, what did you think of the 1931 version? Fred, I taped it last night, and haven't had a chance to see it yet. Hope to play it sometime in the next day or two, and then I'll let you know. I'm looking forward to making the comparison. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jarhfive Posted July 10, 2006 Share Posted July 10, 2006 FredCDobbs, I watched my recording of the 1931 version of "Maltese Falcon" Sunday morning. It was raining all morning and about half way through the "Maltese Falcon", I said to my wife, "...you know, this is a perfect rainy day movie". If I had had a couple of old Charlie Chan movies to fill out a mystery trifecta...why it would have been the best Sunday morning of my life. Of course, no Charlie Chan on DVD... Rusty Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LuckyDan Posted July 10, 2006 Share Posted July 10, 2006 I know what you mean with the smirking. I wonder if Cortez's use of facial expressions and body movement wasn't the result of the silent film acting style, where these things were all an actor had, being carried into the sound era, where they may appear excessive? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lzcutter Posted July 11, 2006 Share Posted July 11, 2006 Of course, no Charlie Chan on DVD...>> Rusty, Heads up and keep an eye out. Fox has just released some of its Chans on DVD. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jarhfive Posted July 11, 2006 Share Posted July 11, 2006 lzcutter, I wrote my Chan comment before fact checking. Yesterday, I ordered the Fox box (sounds like a ca. 1980 discotheque). Reading reviews of Charlie Chan on DVD, a couple of notes. I read several complaints regarding the quality of source material for the Fox DVDs. I watched "Charlie Chan Theater" as a child. If I can clearly see Warner Oland's face on the Fox DVDs, the video will be 10 times better than the "Charlie Chan Theater" films. Reviewers of the competing DVD box set-"Chanthology" called the movies, "scraping the bottom of the Chan barrel". I'll wait on buying the Monogram "Chanthology". Order some Estes model rocket kits, buy some glue and paint, queue up a Charlie Chan DVD...sends me back to 1965. Except for the hemorrhoid donut. Rusty Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lzcutter Posted July 12, 2006 Share Posted July 12, 2006 Reading reviews of Charlie Chan on DVD, a couple of notes. I read several complaints regarding the quality of source material for the Fox DVDs.>> I have heard good reviews if that helps! Lynn in Sherman Oaks www.classiclasvegas.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rickspade Posted July 12, 2006 Share Posted July 12, 2006 > I think I like the ?31 version better because all the > characters are more sleazy. I don?t like sleazy > people in real life, but in movies it allows me to > see how the criminal world works without having to > get inside it. > > Bogart himself was very good in the ?41 version, but > I didn?t care much for Mary Astor. She seemed like a > school teacher on summer vacation, rather than a > killer and a seductress. But Bebe Daniels in the ?31 > version seemed like she could seduce men and kill > them rather frequently. She seemed very dangerous. > > Lorre and Greenstreet seemed to be playing their same > ol? duo that I?ve seen them play in several other > films. I think the Dr. Cairo character in the ?31 > version was an interesting guy. I read somewhere that > that actor was killed in a car wreck a couple of > years after he made the movie. The actor who played > Gutman in the ?31 version, Dudley Diggs, did an > excellent job and he seemed more sleazy and realistic > than the Greenstreet version. > > I think Miles Archer in the ?31 version was a better > character, being a really tough guy with a young > wife, and the wife, Thelma Todd, seemed more like > someone Sam Spade would date for a while and then try > to get rid of. In the ?41 version, I didn?t care for > either of the Archer characters. > > Richardo Cortez was a great leading man. I wish he > had made a series of Sam Spade movies. > > I guess discovering the ?31 version is like being > familiar with some modern opera stars performing La > Traviata for years and then suddenly discovering a > rare complete recording of a 1931 version with Caruso > and Amelita Galli-Curci. Well, Fred, I screened the 1931 version yesterday, so I thought I'd sum up my views on comparing it with the Bogart version. Frankly, the Bogart version is so much more faithful to the novel that the earlier version just totally pales next to it. The chief failure for me is in the writing (although Ricardo Cortez never for one minute convinced me he was a serious private detective); the entire tone and tenor of the script is not anywhere near as hard-boiled as the book; it seems to go back-and-forth from a mystery to a drawing-room comedy/romance. Parts of it for me were laughable. I certainly will admit that both Bebe Daniels and Thelma Todd (whom I always loved in her appearances in Marx Brothers movies) are very easy on the eyes, as they say; and I think with a better script Daniels' performance could have convinced me that she was indeed a seductress and a murderess. As it is, the script seems more interested in portraying Spade as a total womanizer, who barely has time to (a) find the murderer of his partner and ( solve the mystery of the Black Bird, because he's too busy juggling his romances. As another poster mentioned here, Cortez spends the entire film smirking and smiling, as if he's trying to impress women, even when there aren't any women in the scene! In addition, the "liberties" the script took with the story (A "witness" to Archer's murder? and if the Chinese man did see who killed Archer, and he told Spade right after the killing, why didn't Spade go to the cops right away?) As far as the Gutman-Cairo-Wilmer characters, in this film Wilmer is almost a non-entity, whereas in the 1941 film, Elisha Cook is memorable; and I didn't care for Dudley Digges or the Cairo actor nearly as much as Lorre and Greenstreet who in my mind were definitive and slimy and dangerous. Finally, the entire ending was so false as to be unbelievable. Where is all the great dialogue about why Spade is turning Wonderly over (a man's partner is killed, etc.), and combined with that phony visit to her in jail, where she's still pining away for him, and he feels guilty enough to ask the prison maiden to supply her with cigarettes, etc. and bill the D.A.'s office? Holy toledo! Anyway, everyone's entitled to their opinion, and maybe I'm such a hard-boiled person myself, I can't be objective about any other version of the Falcon. I will say, this, it was fun seeing another pre-code movie and the things they were able to get away with in 1931, that became taboo just two years later. Like the great scene of Daniels in the bathtub, and the fact that she and Spade have clearly slept together. Ah, those were the days! OK, that's my opinion, Fred; we just disagree. I'll bet we can agree on a lot of other films, particularly The Treasure of the Sierra Madre; it's number four on my all-time list. I just hope no one ever tries to make another version of that one! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jarhfive Posted July 17, 2006 Share Posted July 17, 2006 lzcutter, I received and watched the four 20th Century Fox Charlie Chan movies. I regret that I wrote a message regarding the quality of the DVDs, based on unreliable Amazon reviews of the box set. The DVD video is great. Three of the four movies are sourced from (seventy year old?) prints and one of the movies was thought "lost" until the 1980s! Some DVD reviewers appear to require perfect DVD video and audio and anything less is unacceptable. The one Amazon reviewer that mentioned unrestored film was used for the Charlie Chan box set had not watched the box set before contributing a review. Unfortunately, I mentioned the "unrestored film" comment in my last message (this thread). Why do I write the Amazon reviewer was reviewing unwatched material? The movie "Charlie Chan In London" includes an extra titled something like, "The Resoration Process". The extra feature is ten minutes of side by side comparison of restored and unrestored frames. The extra feature is impossible to miss...I mean, each movie has no more than three "extras". Well, another example of, "never trust an anonymous opinion and...the only reliable opinion is my opinion". Rusty Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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