The Maltese Falcon

Dashiell Hammett has been called "the father of the hard-boiled detective novel" and creator of one of the 20th century's most famous sleuths, Sam Spade. Last week I found and finished one of his most well known works, The Maltese Falcon. Within a dozen years of publication it had already been made into three motion pictures, the most famous featuring Humphrey Bogart as the personification of Sam Spade.

Hammett purportedly worked for seven years with the Pinkerton detective agency, so he brings realism to his stories in a first-hand manner that conveys a believable jadedness. Even so, when I initially read The Thin Man years ago, it failed to make a deep impression. And I can't say I found this book compelling either. Maybe it was the story itself, or maybe Spade didn't hook me like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Holmes.

Perhaps Hammett's significance is that of creating a genre, the tough guy detective who is his own man, in cahoots with no one, the modern existential hero solving life's problems against the backdrop of a murder mystery setting. Evidently someone considered his work significant enough to have him listed among the greats (501 Great Writers) and there are critics who rave over him, but this Amazon.com review by a typical reader seemed to adequately capture my mood on finishing it.

"The Maltese Falcon is nothing to write home about. It's a good book, and I recommend it, but it is nothing discernibly 'special.' You don't finish it and go, 'Wow!'"

On the heels of completing the book I decided to track down and revisit the Bogie film of the same name. I perked up when I saw that John Huston (The African Queen, Moby Dick, Under the Volcano) directed the film. The casting was pretty much perfect, even if Bogart is not blond. But to be honest, I don't know what all the fuss is about.

Yes, there are a lot of raves about this film. It's considered by many critics to be one of the top one hundred of all time. And many of the reviews at imdb.com support this claim. Still, there are naysayers such as Jake, who wrote, "After having heard so much about this movie over the years I was surprised to find it so dull and so poorly executed."

This review, by someone named dogspit, also indicates disappointment. "I tried to like The Maltese Falcon, but it didn't quite do it for me. Bogart & Astor each were plastic in their roles, and the rest of the cast fared little better. The film lacked ANY character development and tried to push the pace too much to be very enjoyable. Watch it for the nostalgia of it, but do not expect a lot."

Actually, I don't entirely agree with dogspit. I found the opening section compelling. Bogart does reek with an aura of smooth cool. But the noir style has so pervaded the Hollywood atmosphere I just can't get past the caricature. Whereas the setup drew me in, the story made me tired.

Though more can be said, for now I let it pass. What's your take?

Who's Got The Power?

Well, last night was interesting here in the Northland. I was watching The Maltese Falcon while organizing some files on my laptop and vwoosh.... suddenly all is dark (except the laptop which reverted to battery mode.) I slipped on some boots, grabbed a flashlight and went out to the road. In all directions, darkness.

It wasn't a fuse, so we were powerless to do anything about it, but it set in motion a number thoughts. First, that I am glad it is early spring and not mid-winter where temps can be minus twenty or thirty at night. Second, at what point will the frozen goods in the freezers need to be dealt with?

In 1979 I spent a year in Puerto Rico, where blackouts and brownouts were a weekly routine. Evidently the infrastructure we take for granted here in the U.S. was not yet a reliable part of life elsewhere, something I did not know due to my limited experience with such things.

In fact, there was a lot I didn't know about Puerto Rico, that many Americans probably didn't, though I did know my favorite baseball player, Roberto Clemente of the Pittsburgh Pirates, was from Puerto Rico. I also knew that the country was under U.S. jurisdiction, and not a free state. But I did not know that Puerto Rico had four political parties. Two wanted the country to break free of the U.S. and become independent. One of these wanted a Capitalist democracy and the other a socialist state. There third political party wanted Puerto Rico become the 51st state in the U.S. and the last group wanted to keep the status quo, which was good for those in power and not so good for the fifty percent who were unemployed.

It was this last group which held the power, and so it is that Puerto Rico remained a "subject" of the U.S. Actually, people born in Puerto Rico are considered U.S. citizens who can vote.

My thoughts flew to Puerto Rico because whenever the power went out, the refrigerators and freezers had to be left closed. After eight hours they would be opened and we'd all eat the semi-melted ice cream, and cook the meat. The younger people all liked the ice cream part and when five or six hours had passed, they were very attentive to the passage of time.

Last night here, we weren't sure how long the power woulf be off. About a half hour after going to bed all the lights came back on, and the radio. Up we jumped, to take care of everything needing attention.

This morning I went online to find a news story about it, but am not seeing anything. A falling telephone pole snapped some lines and put out the power in a section of Salt Lake. The city of Niles had a brief power outage yesterday, as did the Whittier Middle School on Monday, which sent kids home early. There were also power outages due to winds in Monterrey County, CA, and a pickup us truck that hit a pole somewhere else.

We take it for granted, our roads and electricity and cell phones. Our infrastructure, however, didn't appear out of nowhere. Last night we had candles and a lamp to light the house. This is how it had been done for centuries until Edison came along. In the grand scheme of things, our modern era has been but a blip on the most recent page of history. Where it will end up is anyone's guess, but for now, I like it when they keep the power on.