There are some movies that are improvements on their books. The producers of the Swedish-language version of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo did Steig Larsen a huge favor, for example. I'm not sure why anyone would prefer the book to the movie.

And then you have the Maltese Falcon: where the book IS the movie — as though the screenwriter simply stripped out the text with a word processor and kept the dialogue more or less intact. In no particular order then, some thoughts on that iconic story:

 — The level of material well-being in the 1930s seems radically different. Sam Spade didn't even own a car, and lives in a tiny apartment (he has to fold up the Murphy bed to have a living room). Furnished apartments are commonplace: meaning that people don't own their own homes, or even have their own furniture.

 — The casting of the movie was genius. Peter Lorre, Sidney Greenstreet, and all the rest. Almost impossible to imagine anyone else playing these parts—and these are the faces that populated the book as I read it.

 — The only glaring exception to the excellent casting is Bogie, himself, who’s not even close to the man Hammett describes as Sam Spade. I think it was because Bogart got his start playing gangsters that his physical presence somehow seems intimidating. In fact, when you take away the hat, and the guns, and the wiseguy dialogue—in other words, creating “Charlie Allnut”—you have a guy of average height, slope-shouldered, with a kind of sunken chest. The Sam Spade of the novel is a real tough guy. I guess we should give Bogart credit for creating the illusion of toughness and making the film a success.

I adore the movie, one of my all time favorites. Bogie created himself, on and off the screen. He was the privileged son of a famous illustrator, Maud Humphrey. The tough guy act was built out of kicking around on Broadway for years in supporting roles, his heavy drinking, and at least one dangerously violent marriage. He finally got his break in Petrified Forest, in which he was a great hit. Still, when the property was bought by Hollywood, the company (Warner? Not sure.) didn't want him for the role he had created. The English actor Leslie Howard, who had co-stared with him on B'way, refused to make the movie unless Bogie was also signed for the film.

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I've got to read the book. It's been on my bedside table for months.

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I understand that Sean Connery is not the 007 that Fleming wrote, that the character is much more Roger Moore. But who doesn't prefer Connery in the role?

--edited by Mimi Speike on 6/4/2015, 11:23 PM--