The Maltese Falcon Film Review
The year 2012 is barely here, but as I look up at the calendar the damn thing tells me that January is coming to an end… already. Criminy! So, I mustn’t waste time. For those new to this site, this means the blogger otherwise known as the Scientist Gone Wordy and I are again restarting a certain practice of ours, following our end-of-year holiday break. Back in 2010 (why does that seem so long ago now?), we began a series of duo posts, though the credit for the idea (and the string of posts) was Rachel’s. In parallel reviews on our blogs, each of us per month would examine a noted book and its later film adaptation. Traditionally, my northern California colleague reviews the novel. “Why“, you ask? She’s good at it. Plus, she not only does this for her blog, but for the San Francisco Book Review and the City Book Review. I perform the film review duties in this partnership. Not that I’m any good at it, but because I’m such a sloooowwwww reader. For this inaugural pair, we will return to the ranks of a classic. Meaning, the oldest book and film pairing for we’ve ever done in this arc of blog posts.
We’ll examine plausibly the most famed detective novel there is. So glad there won’t be any pressure associated with this one. In this case, my colleague will be looking at the best known work by author Dashiell Hammett, The Maltese Falcon. The 1930 novel also sourced its most famous transference to film, which was released in 1941. Rachel’s book review can be found here:
The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett
A brief synopsis of the film: in San Francisco of ’41, the detective agency of Sam Spade and Miles Archer take on a seemingly straightforward case of locating the sister of the woman who has just walked through their front door. The beautiful Miss Ruth Wonderly has come seeking help in shadowing a man by the name of Floyd Thursby in hopes of finding and drawing her young sibling away from his nefarious clutches. The less than chummy partners agree to take on the case, and of course the high retainer proffered. Archer, the more titillated toward the comely client (and less smart) of the two, eagerly volunteers to start the trail that very evening. When his dead, gunshot body is found that night by police, Spade is called down to the crime scene and questioned. Thus begins the hardboiled P.I.’s search for his associate’s killer and the reason behind it all. He’ll find a perfumed grafter named Joel Cairo, a fat man name Gutman, a pretty woman he can’t trust, and an ancient treasure piece worth murdering for in his trek.
[spoiler warning: some key elements of the film could be revealed in this review]
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Reprise: (My) Essential Skill
I’m out-of-town at the moment attending a tech conference for work (what actually helps pay the bills and feeds the voracious beings in my home that are my children, btw). On these grounds, I’ll reprise what I think is an appropriate post from the distant past since I don’t have much time presently to write anything original (a server also decided to turn itself into an electrified brick right before coming to San Francisco). Perhaps, it’ll explain why I do what I do for a living…
Some years ago, a good friend, and the same guy I’ve known and played golf with for over two decades now, asked me a question related to the information technology field. While he specializes in a different segment, IT Security, he posed a question that he thought was still valid for my niche — managing fruit-flavored workstations and servers in the enterprise:
“What do you think was the key skill or training you received early that has proven to be the most important in your IT career?”
He had already been asked this very same question in a survey (probably at another tech seminar or conference) and answered it. Still, he was curious about how I would respond to that particular question. He’s also well aware that we come from different backgrounds and wanted to see how dissimilar it’d be. He’s right. We’re nothing alike. My friend is Sansei (third-gen Japanese ancestry), born in Utah and migrated years later to Los Angeles with his parents. As well, he always got good grades in school and majored in business computer systems at our local state university.
And moi? I was social butterfly growing up, cared little for school, and was way too concerned about being cool to care about any of that. Ahh… youth. Coincidentally, it didn’t take long for me to come up with an answer. It’s the reason behind this post. So, what was that answer?
Some context before getting to that, though. Were we (my friend and I) the nerdy kids in high school who signed up for the computer or chess club? No — well, maybe he did (Hehe). Did we learn to love math or puzzles at a young age? Nope. Studied programming or music as kids? Not hardly. We both answered with the exact same response, and it occurred during a similar timeframe in our lives. We both learned to type in junior high. That’s it… his and my answer to the question. We were some of the few males who choose (it was an option for students at that time within the Los Angeles Unified School System) to take that class.
Why were we the few? Most guys that age took shop class, instead, back then. Remember, in the mid-to-late 60′s junior high-aged girls in the United States were still steered toward taking typing and home ec in preparation for their supposed later lives as secretaries and housewives. Ironically, I didn’t marry one of those – she-who-must-be-obeyed is a Health Physicist. Why did I take such an atypical class in that day and age? I don’t know the rationale my golf bud did, but for me it was just to meet and talk to the opposite sex. Yes, my life in tech (years later) came down to just biology and raging hormones. And it was that sole familiarity with a keyboard that spawned my entry into the computer field… and taking calls when something breaks. Go figure.
TMT: “Let’s see what this baby can do.”
This is the next entry in a Theatre… a Movie… and a Time series that was begun here. Once again, my good friend and author John Kenneth Muir has triggered another memory download by posting a new piece in his recurring feature called “1982 in Film”. His series reviews movies from the great genre year of 1982 on its 30th anniversary. In this case, it was a film that was a product of its time:
“Some audiences may see this whole subplot as propagandistic or nationalistic, but remember the context: this film was produced at the height of the Cold War, after the Soviet Union had advanced into Afghanistan. The film reflects that worrisome time, and more so, reflects the American perspective of that conflict.”
Theatre
Images c/o Cinema Treasures site
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Time
June 20, 1982: During this time, if I wasn’t in the neighborhood of Westwood Village watching a movie on a weekend, I just wasn’t anywhere. This area really was the closest facsimile to a college town on the westside of L.A. The locale right next to the U.C.L.A. campus had it all back then for college students or anyone else taking a date. Westwood had a number of multi-ethnic restaurants, places to hang out, and, of course, a load of movie theaters clustered within blocks of each other.
The term ‘theater’ shortchanges some of these venues, though. Few multiplexes existed in the little shopping village turned theater district back then, and more than a few were of the iconic variety. In point of fact, ‘movie palace’ would be a more apt description for my favorite of the bunch. The Village Theatre was built in the Spanish Mission style and remains eye-catching. Since 1931, it has dominated the village intersection it was situated with its distinctive structure and 1500 seat capacity.
If there was a movie to be seen, especially if best watched on a big screen with 70mm projection and a high-powered sound system, like Clint Eastwood’s go with the techno-thriller Firefox, well of course this is where I’d watch it. For a Sunday matinée on the film’s opening weekend, I did just that. All by my lonesome, too (a certain someone else was working and a little uninterested, at that). No matter. Bar none, it was the best place to have seen the Craig Thomas novel-based thriller. Still is… studios continue to do their film premieres there to this very day.
The entire TMT series can be found here.
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Friday Forgotten Song: Superwoman by Noel Pointer
- Cover version (AKA cover song, or simply cover)
- - a new performance or recording of a contemporary or previously recorded, commercially released song or popular song.
Forty years ago, teens roiling in the caldron that was my high school were listening to a variety of tunes. The tumult of the 60s music scene continued its impact back then. Some artists born of this period carried over with similar success. The ones that stood the test of time, though, evolved their music going into and throughout the 70s. Stevie Wonder for one. The wunderkind began his career at a young age and had early pop/soul hits with the Motown Record label. Yet, it was his Music of the Mind album which really started to separate him from the pack. It wasn’t, as was the practice of the studio, a collection of singles, B-tracks and covers of other original song. This LP was presented by Stevie as a statement piece. As Wikipedia details what stood out about the work:
“Wonder’s lyrics dealt with social, political, and mystical themes as well as standard romantic ones, while musically Wonder began exploring overdubbing and recording most of the instrumental parts himself.”
One particular song showcased the changes and directions the artist began to explore very well: the almost jazzy and unexpected Superwoman (Where Were You When I Needed You). Reportedly, the song tells of Stevie’s then wife, Syreeta Wright, who sought a career and stardom on her own. At least, as told by an interested third-party in the song. The track is divided into two parts — the first recounts Mary’s striving for her dream of success, while the second part wonders why didn’t she come back when he thought she would. It remains one of the singer/songwriter’s notable tunes, and is hardly a forgotten song. But, that is not what I’m spotlighting here.
As I mentioned last year, a bit after this stretch in the mid-70s, I entered my jazz fusion period as a music listener. Along with the saxophone and keyboard artists I referred to, the most intriguing instrumental pairing of all with this jazz, funk, and R&B approach with music, in my mind, was the violin. Along with likes of Jean-Luc Ponty, it was another music prodigy, Noel Pointer, which drew and centered me on this fusing of rhythms and the amplification to the time-worn and honored, though now very much electrified, string instrument. At age 13, Pointer debuted with his solo of Vivaldi with the Symphony of the New World Orchestra and proceeded to make a name for himself:
“He began playing jazz on the violin while a student at New York City‘s High School of Music and Art. While attending college at Manhattan School of Music, Pointer earned a reputation as a New York session musician. By age 19, his experience as a free-lance musician had included steady work in The Apollo Theatre Orchestra, The Unlimited Orchestra, The Westbury Music Fair Orchestra, The Radio City Music Hall Symphony, The Love Unlimited Orchestra (US Tour), The Dance Theater of Harlem Orchestra, The Symphony of the New World Orchaestra, and the pit orchestras of several Broadway shows, including Guys and Dolls and Dreamgirls.”
Out of the seven albums in his too short career, it was his second, Hold On, that still warms my heart. I think it showcased the performer’s talent like no other. The title track was funky and fun, while “Stardust Lady” showed off Pointer’s surprising vocal skills and range. The violinist didn’t forget his classical roots by incorporating the cut, “Cappriccio Stravagante”, among the jazz fusion mix. Even Patti Austin, another frequently played vocalist from my time in this light jazz variant, showed up for a wonderful duet in “Staying With You”. Even so, among the album’s tracks it was his rendition of that pivotal Stevie Wonder song from that earlier LP that got the most play with me.
While it’s solely an instrumental, Superwoman under the jazz violinist’s interpretation remains a different piece entirely without obliterating Wonder’s infused feathery melody (and one that masked its lyrics’ serious tone). Even without words, the sound from Pointer’s bow elicited a voice-like quality to the number, still. It’s almost mournful in this rendering, yet his version of the song remains surprisingly upbeat and unusually hopeful. Given that 1978 was a most painful time for me, I found surprising solace listening to this cover song that year. Given its healing and collaborative nature, music has that tendency to unknowingly help the listener. I probably replayed his tune more than I ever did with the original song for this very fact.
Perhaps, because the classically trained violinist was born in 1954, like me, I connected with him. Noel Pointer, who would also succeed later as a record producer, played with the Blue Note, United Artists, Liberty, and finally the Shanachie record labels. His last CD, Never Lose Your Heart, came out in 1993. He died from a stroke on December 19, 1994 at the too young age of 39. Though Stevie Wonder’s song has been covered many times, by various artists and stylists down through the decades, I think this one was the most unusual and unique. At least for me. So, it is for this reason — plus the fact he kept me going with his music through a time I needed the uplift — I sincerely hope this artist and his version of the song are not forgotten.
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TMT: House of Hur
This is the next entry in a Theatre… a Movie… and a Time series that was begun here. Since I began with the Epics category with the start of my Versus AFI: 10 Top 10 arc, it was only fitting I’d chronicle a couple of them in this series.
“May God grant me vengeance! I will pray that you live until I return!” ~ Judah Ben-Hur to his childhood friend, Massala, who has sentenced him to the slave galleys
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The Nuart Theatre:
Images c/o Cinema Treasures site
Movie
Time
Summer 1981: first, a definition.
- Art House
- noun
- 1. a cinema which specializes in showing films which are not part of the commercial mainstream.
- 2. a movie theater that shows art films or revival screenings of notable older film.
Growing up surrounded by movie-going relatives, I’d heard, a lot, of great epic films of yesteryear they had seen first-run. William Wyler’s Ben-Hur chief among them. Every so often through the 70s the film would play on some local or network television broadcast, which allowed me to pick up bits and pieces of the feature over the years. Nevertheless, I’d never watched it in its entirety or in a movie theater during this span.
On the other side of the city, the Nuart Theatre had become the preeminent art house venue during that same decade for Los Angeles. In fact, its midnight screenings of The Rocky Horror Picture Show (and other unique and transgressive films) remain the stuff of legend. Yet for all the socially relevant cinema, foreign and independent film that’s been projected on to their hall’s screen, the westside venue was well-known for routinely screening repertory (classic) cinema.
Luckily for me, these two articles coalesced one Sunday afternoon during a certain summer. She-whose-name-is-not-to-be-uttered, who’d never seen the film at all, accompanied me. After lining up for the film’s first of two showings that day, and experiencing all of its 212-minute length (not including the intermission), along with that incredible chariot race sequence on a big screen, I finally understood what my family meant about the epic in general, and this film in particular.
The entire series can be found here.
