The Maltese Falcon

Humphrey Bogart and Mary Astor star in this 1941 film that some consider the best detective drama ever, as well as the first true film noir. Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre and Elisha Cook Jr. are featured as the criminals who will stop at nothing to get their hands on a priceless, jewel encrusted statuette. John Huston directed and wrote the screenplay based on the Dashiell Hammett story. 101m. CC.

Director Huston's version is a very faithful adaptation of Hammeth's 1929 story, and is extremely well written and photographed. The DVD comes with two earlier adaptations that are virtually unwatchable today. Credit must go to Huston and the unforgettable cast he assembled.

Humphrey Bogart became a star with this film and his portrayal of Sam Spade established his screen persona. Mary Astor was at the top of her form in 1941. She garnered no awards for her portrayal of the femme fatale, but her performance was as spectacular as her Best Supporting Actress performance that year in The Great Lie with Bette Davis.

Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre, and Elisha Cook Jr. made up one of the quirkiest, most unforgettable trio of villains in film history. Greenstreet, in his screen debut, excelled as the Fat Man, Casper Guttman. Who can ever forget his voice or mannerisms? Equally unforgetablel was Peter Lorre's portrayal of the obviously effeminate shady character, Joel Cairo. Finally, Elisha Cook Jr. establishes his own screen persona as the perennial "fall guy", playing a young gunman who is repeatedly slapped around by Bogart.

Eddie Muller, host of Turner Classic Movies' Noir Alley has a fine intro to this film, the first he ever presented on Noir Alley. ###

  

Humphrey Bogart, Peter Lorre, Mary Astor, Sydney Greenstreet

  

The Asphalt Jungle

The Asphalt Jungle. John Huston directed this 1950 classic heist drama that has often been copied but never equaled.  Huston humanized all the characters in this great cast. They are all flawed human beings who in one way or another elicit our sympathy. It is hard for an audience not to hope they will succeed in pulling off the heist.

 Sterling Hayden, Sam Jaffe, and Louis Calhern star as the principals in a plot to steal a fortune in jewels. The film also features Jean Hagan and Marilyn Monroe in the role that launched her into stardom. The musical score is by Miklos Rozsa. 112 minutes. CC.

 Sterling Hayden portrays one of the classic good bad guys in film history. He is a "hooligan", a menacing street tough barely eking out a living pulling off petty armed robberies, but he has a sense of honor. How can we not pull for him as mortally wounded he tries to make it back to the family horse farm?

 Sam Jaffe gives an Oscar nominated performance as a criminal mastermind with an obsession for pretty young women. Louis Calhern is somehow sympathetic playing a crooked attorney who two times his bed ridden wife for an incredibly sexy young woman played stunningly by Marilyn Monroe. 

Jean Hagan plays a down and out B-girl who remains faithful to her man right to the end. Two years later she would become immortal playing Lina Lamont, a blonde silent screen star in Singing in the Rain.

Here is a link to the movie trailer that highlights each of these characters. ###

Jean Hagan and Sterling Hayden

High Sierra

High Sierra. This ground-breaking 1941 film stars Humphrey Bogart and Ida Lupino. Bogart plays a prohibition era gangster released from prison only to find himself out of place in a new world. Even the criminals are not up to the old standards. Written by John Huston, and directed with gritty intensity by Raoul Walsh, High Sierra signaled a new era in film. 100 minutes. CC.

High Sierra marked Bogart’s first role as a sympathetic leading man, and established his persona as a tough guy with a hard exterior cloaking a soft, caring inside, a persona immediately evident in two subsequent iconic films, The Maltese Falcon (1941), and Casablanca(1942), that made him a huge star. Roy Earle, Sam Spade, and Rick Blaine were roles that it is now hard to imagine anyone playing but Humphrey Bogart. 

Ida Lupino matched Bogart scene by scene as well as any of his more famous leading ladies. She would go on to have a fine career as a film actress, writer, and director. 

Here is a link to Eddie Muller's short intro to the film where he discusses its making and significance. 

Ida Lupino and Humphrey Bogart