Runtime:
74 minutes
Directed
by: William Dieterle
Starring:
Bette Davis, Warren William, Alison Skipworth, Arthur Treacher, Marie
Wilson
From:
Warner Bros.
Yes, in barely more than a decade Warner Brothers made three versions of The Maltese Falcon:
A few times in my life (including not that long ago for this site)
I've seen the legendary 1941 version of The Maltese Falcon, and about 6
months ago I watched the 1931 version. Well, as absurd as it sounds even
today, Warner Brothers did three versions of the film and this is the
last version I had to watch. '31 and '41 were quite similar but this is
different; if you ever wanted to see the story done as a light comedy,
you are in luck. Dashiell Hammett is credited but only for “based on a
novel by” and not mentioning which novel it is.
The lead isn't even Sam Spade; instead it is Ted Shane. Versions of the classic characters appear, including an overweight lady replacing an overweight man, and someone having the absurd surname of Murgatroyd. In general, the story is similar, just with more laughs. Not all of the humor worked for me and some of the characters are annoying; the cast as a whole was fine and I wouldn't have minded seeing some of them doing different characters. Truth be told, the biggest laugh I got was quite the film flub: a scene is set in a cemetery and the establishing shot gives the name of the cemetery, only it's called a “cemetary”. Really!
The leads being Bette Davis and Warren William does help, although not enough to make me rate this as above average. One of the heels being the constable from Mary Poppins was amusing, at least. I'd say that those actors were better in plenty of other flicks but I know there's a decent amount here on Letterboxd who enjoyed this more than I did... at least the movie is not hard to find if you do the right search. An obvious influence was The Thin Man and boy, did those do the comedic mystery aspect better than this.
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