About Sweet and Kind
Post 441:
Oh, every now and then, a fella needs to stop down and put his feet up. Maybe turn on an old black and white movie and travel back to the good old good olds. It’s a kick for the ticker, see.
Okay. I’ll stop communicating like it’s 1940 and just get to it. I revisited The Maltese Falcon last night, an adaptation of the great Sam Spade novel by Dashiell Hammett.
To break down all the plot twists would take longer than the film, but I made a ton of notes, trying to get at why this mystery works when so many falter or cause the viewer (or reader) to lose interest.
It is a great plot, sharp and dense. Every move and every line has a purpose, and that’s important. You have to pay attention, so you do. There’s no scene where Bogart is taking a walk through San Francisco, thinking about buying a tie and the one that got away or any other nonsense. From the jump, he’s got things to do.
Everyone’s lying to him, or only telling him some of the truth. The whole movie. He does it right back. Laying all his cards out could get him killed around this wily cast of miscreants, after all.
Even with all the murder and danger surrounding him, he seems to take pleasure in it. He’s almost as amoral as all the bad guys and gals, and I think this is where the fun is. We see the mystery from his perspective, liars coming and going, plotting and trying to get over on each other, and it’s a blast. He’s not getting all weepy over it, so why should we?
It’s a heightened version of real life. Nobody’s telling you everything, and you’re not giving every Tom and Dick the whole lowdown. (I’m back to speaking 40s). But in real life, you care. You can’t be detached and cool and calculating to the last like Sam Spade, because you have feelings. Frigging feelings. Don’t tell me. I’ve got all the feels. It’s worse than a bad cold.
In the end, Sam has a little arc and makes the decision to be as decent as he can be—he conjures up some sort of code that’s a little iffy but it gets him to go with the right decision, though in the end he’s just watching his own butt.
Sound familiar? No… none of us would ever think like that. None of us would ever do the right thing because reasons when we secretly wish to run off with the saucy minx and make a break with the cash. We’re all really sweet and kind.
If we were all sweet and kind, we wouldn’t like Sam Spade so much. Then again, you may not like his style. I’m no scientist, but that probably means you’re a little boring.
Go on and get yourself in over your head. “It’s the stuff dreams are made of.”
Cheers. And this is Discount Turner Classic Movies signing off. See you after.
