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Julie G (please restore our notifications)'s Reviews > The Maltese Falcon
The Maltese Falcon
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Julie G (please restore our notifications)'s review
bookshelves: books-with-birds-on-the-cover, california-dreaming, 30-from-the-1930s, private-dicks
Jun 12, 2024
bookshelves: books-with-birds-on-the-cover, california-dreaming, 30-from-the-1930s, private-dicks
Sam Spade is sooo manly.
So manly, in fact, his creator, Dashiell Hammett, describes him as a giant phallus. A conical, pink-yellow colored man with a narrow head that leads down to a thicker base.
(You'd think you wasn't a dick yourself the way you bellyache over things).
He's so manly, Mr. Hammett uses the word “erect” 8 times in 217 pages to describe both Sam Spade and the various men and women who rise to attention around him, whenever he enters a room.
So manly, he smokes Bull Durham tobacco that he rolls into cigarettes himself, and he calls the one gay character, Joel Cairo, a “queer,” a “fairy” and a “lily-of-the-valley,” so that no one, and I mean no one makes the mistake of thinking he plays for that team.
His pockets bulge, and no one knows if he's just happy to see them, or he's packing heat. Either way, he's always smoking.
And. . . somehow he works, like a superhero stepping out of a Marvel comic. You just can't take this guy too seriously, so you might as well sit back and enjoy the show.
I didn't take to Sam Spade in the same way I did to Philip Marlowe in Chandler's The Big Sleep, another prize from the 1930s, but I thought it was a helluva ride, regardless.
Up next: MISS MOLE by E.H. Young
So manly, in fact, his creator, Dashiell Hammett, describes him as a giant phallus. A conical, pink-yellow colored man with a narrow head that leads down to a thicker base.
(You'd think you wasn't a dick yourself the way you bellyache over things).
He's so manly, Mr. Hammett uses the word “erect” 8 times in 217 pages to describe both Sam Spade and the various men and women who rise to attention around him, whenever he enters a room.
So manly, he smokes Bull Durham tobacco that he rolls into cigarettes himself, and he calls the one gay character, Joel Cairo, a “queer,” a “fairy” and a “lily-of-the-valley,” so that no one, and I mean no one makes the mistake of thinking he plays for that team.
His pockets bulge, and no one knows if he's just happy to see them, or he's packing heat. Either way, he's always smoking.
And. . . somehow he works, like a superhero stepping out of a Marvel comic. You just can't take this guy too seriously, so you might as well sit back and enjoy the show.
I didn't take to Sam Spade in the same way I did to Philip Marlowe in Chandler's The Big Sleep, another prize from the 1930s, but I thought it was a helluva ride, regardless.
Up next: MISS MOLE by E.H. Young
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Quotes Julie Liked
Reading Progress
October 11, 2014
– Shelved
June 8, 2024
–
Started Reading
June 8, 2024
–
1.41%
"She was a lanky sunburned girl whose tan dress of thin woolen stuff clung to her with an effect of dampness."
page
3
June 8, 2024
–
4.23%
""He's broad-shouldered and carries himself erect, has what could be called a decidedly military carriage.""
page
9
June 11, 2024
–
11.27%
"She was a blonde woman of a few more years than thirty. Her facial prettiness was perhaps five years past its best moment."
page
24
June 11, 2024
–
32.39%
"Cairo, speaking with difficulty because of the fingers on his throat, said: "This is the second time you've put your hands on me." . .
"Yes," Spade growled. "And when you're slapped you'll take it and like it.""
page
69
"Yes," Spade growled. "And when you're slapped you'll take it and like it.""
June 12, 2024
–
Finished Reading
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Very well said, Julie. And I agree about not relating as well with Sam Spade as with Philip Marlowe.
This is definitely a book of its time! Men were men in the 1930’s. So manly!! Love your review! Hope you enjoy Miss Mole as much as I did!
These older noir reads always seem so farcical to me, no way can I take this seriously. I echo Antoinette, enjoy Miss Mole. She's a personal hero of mine!
Oh my goodness You’re killing me with those shelf titles!
Thanks fir the laugh, Julie. Gives new meaning to "private dick."
sam spade is written the way men in my family think manly men are 😂
I’d like to hear what kind of a girlie girl stands up to this guy. Everything she ever wanted with those bulging pockets and intimidated by gays.
Jonathan,You are correct! It WAS fun to write this, and it almost wrote itself, given my natural propensity toward snark and sexuality.
I thought it was bizarre (and interesting) how many times Dashiell Hammett described Sam Spade's face as "contorting" or "wrinkling" or "relaxing" or "grimacing," all the while turning different shades of yellow or pink. Hmmm. . .
Julie, I'll take both the fair warning and your general impressions, and thank you for the happy delivery. The day will come that I pick this up, I imagine. It's not like I haven't meant to for a decade or two.
I really enjoyed your review, Julie! And now I want to go watch some Bogart movies Haha
Lorna,I appreciate that feedback. I found Marlowe to be far more complex than Spade, though I do also acknowledge that this novel was the "original prototype," so to speak, and Ray Chandler had the advantage on building on this new genre with a deeper understanding of where he could take it.
Antoinette,You just brought to my mind the theme song of the famous show "All in the Family. . ."
Do you remember the song? There's a line in it, "Girls were girls and men were men. . . " That should tell us everything we need to know about that time in history: "Girls were girls and men were men." Notice: there were no women, just men and girls.
Diane,I completely agree; this isn't the type of novel that you need to dissect for its wholesomeness or its lack of morals. It's almost cartoonish in its delivery and impact and you need to take it exactly "as is" in order to appreciate it.
I am so looking forward to Miss Mole! Thanks to you and Antoinette for introducing us.
Kimberly,I take the naming of my shelves very seriously!! (And I have an unnatural amount of fun doing so).
xoxo
Julie, thanks for the smile; I enjoyed your review.My dad had many of the Hammet and Chandler novels on his bookshelf, and I read these all as a teen, accompanied by watching the movies (black and white reruns back in the day). Good memories.
I haven’t read this one, Julie, but I get your fondness for Marlowe. And I laughed a lot when I read your shelf name.
Julie - I'm surprised you gave it 4 stars. Your review kind of sounds like you didn't really care for it.
What an engorging....oops, I mean ENGAGING review. 😉
I love your line re: no one mistaking Sam plays for “that team.” Sam (in a gruff “manly” voice): “Put me in coach!”
I don’t know if you’ve seen the movie, Julie. Bogart somehow makes the dick come across as a smart dick indeed. That’s what the times were calling for and they all obliged…It’s good that competence (still) manages to deliver regardless of the times. Glad you enjoyed this.
BG, Private dicks are handy to keep around, especially if you can be in control of how they behave.
xoxo
Len,Maybe you could start imagining the different men in your family as actual penises? There are tall ones, short ones, narrow ones, wide ones, hairy ones, hairless ones. . . Oh, I think your family reunions just got a lot more interesting!
Well, Judith, he seems to find enough complicated women to keep up with him, and, of course they must go up on their toes and stretch their necks just to reach his manly lips.
😂 made my day and it’s still early 🤣
Nicely deconstructed, Julie.I don't think Hammett meant for us to "take to Spade," whom he describes in Mephistophelian terms. But when Bogart gave him new life, he also created a new "fan-base" for Spade.
I am particularly partial to Spade's speech at the end when he weighs the risks of putting himself out on another limb for Brigid 0'Shaughnessy
Charles,I would be sooo interested in what you would make of this book!
Hi Rowan,Thank you. If you can believe it. . . I have never seen the film, and I'm glad I was able to read the book without any visuals in my head. To be honest, I think it is BIZARRE that Humphrey Bogart was cast as Spade. Sam Spade was described as being about 10 years younger than Bogart, and he was a "manly" GIANT with curly, blonde hair. Instead they cast a man who was 5'8, brunette and middle aged. I don't get it, but I do have the movie in my possession now, and I'm going to see what all of the fuss is about!
Julie wrote: "Hi Rowan,Thank you. If you can believe it. . . I have never seen the film, and I'm glad I was able to read the book without any visuals in my head. To be honest, I think it is BIZARRE that Humphre..."
Looking forward to your thoughts on the movie, too, Julie
Lisa,I love fathers who read, and I always want to know WHAT they were reading, at different stages in their lives. It tickles me that your dad read these books.
My dad loved Louis L'Amour and any Westerns. When Lonesome Dove hijacked my life by its greatness, I begged my father to read it. Unfortunately, he was so overcome with health issues at that point, he could no longer concentrate on reading and I had to realize that those glory days were past us. It's a good reminder to us, to read whenever we can, and whatever we WANT to read.
Tatevik,I'm going to give THE MALTESE FALCON credit for making THE BIG SLEEP possible. I feel like Ray Chandler was able to give his own private dick the extra depth he needed. (Wink, wink).
By the time Chandler wrote The Big Sleep, he had been submitting shorter works to the Black Mask and pulp publishers for over a decade. Reading those shows how much he polished his earlier "nuggets" into full fledged novels.
Also important that the novel was written for almost exclusively a male audience, in a genre of low repute. Hardly porn, but nothing a family man would have left out on the coffee table. The movie's classic status also obscures what it was at the time: a low-budget crime drama, with no stars, and the kind of first-time director studio heads particularly loathed: a successful know-it-all screenwriter.
John Huston was a lifelong wild child more or less steered to success by his much-beloved movie star dad. Jack Warner probably okayed the project as a token of thanks to the Old Man, then never gave it another thought until the world went crazy over an aging B-movie mug no one had ever thought too much about before.
Jon wrote: "Also important that the novel was written for almost exclusively a male audience, in a genre of low repute. Hardly porn, but nothing a family man would have left out on the coffee table. The movi..."
Though Jon's description of the "negotiations" with Warner are beyond my knowledge, I would submit that Bogart was not just "an aging B-movie mug." The Big Sleep was made by 1946. Bogart was big box office in the half decade leading up to it with:
To Have and To Have Not 1944; Sahara 1943; Casablance 1942; The Maltese Falcon 1941. I don't think that success for The Big Sleep was such a surprise.
HBalikov wrote: "Jon wrote: "Also important that the novel was written for almost exclusively a male audience, in a genre of low repute. Hardly porn, but nothing a family man would have left out on the coffee table..."I think you're confusing his two detective classics. MALTESE FALCON launched his stardom in 1941. He had an astounding run of starring roles thereafter, including THE BIG SLEEP, which was directed by Hawks, not Huston.
Jon wrote: "HBalikov wrote: "Jon wrote: "Also important that the novel was written for almost exclusively a male audience, in a genre of low repute. Hardly porn, but nothing a family man would have left out on..."Your right, Jon. George Raft was the first choice for Falcon but he wasn't "picture-perfect" either for the way Hammett described Spade.
Christine,I thoroughly enjoyed this read, and I think it should receive the proper kudos for its iconic contribution. Maybe what you're sensing is that I wasn't totally "wowed." That is correct. It was just too tidy and too fluffy for me, like marshmallow cream!
Good one, James! (Ba-da-bam!)Yes, Sam Spade was certainly a handful, and you've gotta love the guy for placing his head on his assistant's hip, whenever the job got him down. That kind of shit never got old for women in the workplace.
Jay,The problem with that song is. . . if you even think of it, you end up singing it all day. I don't think Sam Spade would have made such a request to his coach, but I DO believe, wholeheartedly, that Philip Marlowe would!
Thank you, Violeta.Here's the thing. . . last night, I had "The Maltese Falcon" and "The Graduate" as my movie choices. I've never seen Bogart's famous performance, but, even though I'd watched "The Graduate" twice before, it had been a while. I chose "The Graduate, and I DO NOT REGRET watching it, because Wow, is that movie great, but I'm going to need to be a grown up and watch FALCON, even though black and white movies make me cringe.
Kimberly,Your reading choices often make my day, so I'm happy to return the favor!
xoxo
To Jon and H,I am devoted to books, and I often disappoint the "film students" in my life, because my fervor for books always supersedes film, but I do love a good, passionate discussion, regardless!
I have a copy of "The Maltese Falcon" here beside me, with that short, brown-haired Humphrey Bogart on the cover, demanding my attention (in black and white, no less), and I will try and use your discussion here as motivation to watch it!
xoxo
Julie wrote: "To Jon and H,I am devoted to books, and I often disappoint the "film students" in my life, because my fervor for books always supersedes film, but I do love a good, passionate discussion, regardle..."
It was the movie I showed my daughter to introduce her to film noir, as well as the private eye genre. She knew Bogart from AFRICAN QUEEN, but I think FALCON was a bit too seedy. We followed it up with CASABLANCA, which she liked a lot more, though she can never wrap her head around why so many old Hollywood movies have these beautiful young women who fall in love with men old enough to be their fathers.
Ha! I can totally relate. I recently had my daughters watch "Rear Window" with me. It's an all-time favorite of mine. I was excited, because they both seemed interested in the plot, but when Grace Kelly's character gets sweet on Jimmy Stewart's character, my middle child shouted out "Ewww! That's disgusting! Why is she making out with her grandfather??!" They were absolutely horrified. I looked up their ages and discovered that Grace Kelly was 25 when the movie premiered; Jimmy Stewart was 46. I was like, "Honey, to be fair. . . he's old enough to be her father, but not her grandfather." They both abandoned me to watch the ending alone.
My daughter loves Hitchcock, with REAR WINDOW probably her fave, as her own third-floor bedroom window looks across a lower building toward rows of windows in the next building over. Usually all dark or curtained at night, but occasionally the neighbors seem unaware they're walking and talking in brightly lit picture boxes. Marilee digs Jimmy Stewart because her grandpa is a total Jimmy type. She most recently loved Stewart's bantering with Katherine Hepburn in THE PHILADELPHIA STORY, while the old star/young ingenue pairing she laughs hardest about is John Wayne and Elsa Martinelli in the African big game adventure HATARI!
In the 1930s, wasn't a Private Dick the nickname for a PI. Am I just stoking the fire here? Anyhoo, that was a very entertaining review Julie.
Jon,Tell your daughter she has great taste. I was lucky enough to know Hitchcock's work at a young age, because of a particular neighbor friend of mine. He was obsessed with Hitchcock (he probably still is), and he made us watch his movies over and over again.
As far as I'm concerned, Jimmy Stewart was one helluva human being, and Grace Kelly was so extraordinarily stunning, I assume that people tripped over themselves while talking to her. I mean. . . come on, the woman was a modern Aphrodite!!
Peter!! It's good to "see" you, buddy.Yes, I suppose it was normal to call them "private dicks," for quite a while, actually. My inner 8th grade self thinks that is just grand!!
Love this review, you know I do! 🤣👏🏻💪🏻
Though, the phallus you describe might be in need of immediate medical attention! 😂