By Joe Gores
If you read reviews, you’ll find the usual discontent with a prequel. You take on “The Maltese Falcon” and Dashiell Hammett the guy generally recognized as the premier detective novel writer, and what should you expect but criticism. For me, there were very few moments while reading “Spade and Archer” that I felt ill served. I thought Joe Gores was true, to the point of obsession to the Dashiell Hammett style. If I was a reader looking for a Sam Spade movie, I would sure give Mr. Gores’ agent a call, and try to lock down a deal.
I got that ‘noir’ feeling reading Chapter I, as I found a young Sam Spade at thirteen minutes before midnight, staked out in the shadows of a waterfront pier, a cigarette cupped in his hand, watching disembarking passengers from a ferry boat. To find him soon opening a San Francisco office in a rundown building, hiring Effie Perine, who Hammett memorably described in his seminal version as “a lanky, sunburned girl whose thin woolen dress clung to her with an effect of dampness”, immediately warmed me to Gores’ updating, and I looked forward to knowing more about Effie, Miles Archer and his wife, Iva. It wasn’t long until the predated Sam Spade would cross paths with his nemesis, Lieutenant Dundy and Sergeant Polhaus of a San Francisco Police Department, not above corruption in the 1920s.
You never escape the chilling fog that crept through the streets of San Francisco as you follow Sam Spade, and the brutal clash of “commie” agitated waterfront confrontation with the powers that be in the city by the bay. A seething discontent lurks over the shoulder of Spade as he solves a scheme to steal a shipment of gold from a passenger liner arrived from the Orient.
Years pass, as Sam Spade’s reputation as a sleuth gained an upscale business address where Effie Perine would answer calls from elite clients. Still, she rolled Bull Durham cigarettes for Sam, while he poured Bacardi Rum into a shot glass. The master criminal, Saint Clair McPhee, who had escaped with most of the stolen gold, and eluded Spade’s detection would return.
As the novel brings Sam Spade finally to the moment when he has shaken off the worst that can happen to a man in love, found revenge on the forces that delivered personal tragedy, and proved his detective skills, Joe Gores made me smile with his conclusion:
:…Spade was smoking behind his desk when Effie Perine came in. He looked up at her.
‘Yes, sweetheart?’
She finished shutting the door behind her, leaned against it and said, ‘There’s a girl wants to see you. Her names Wonderly.’
‘A customer?’
’I guess so. You’ll want to see her, anyway. She’s a knockout.’
‘Shoo her’, said Spade, ‘Shoo her in.’
So “The Maltese Falcon” begins with a backstory.
I got that ‘noir’ feeling reading Chapter I, as I found a young Sam Spade at thirteen minutes before midnight, staked out in the shadows of a waterfront pier, a cigarette cupped in his hand, watching disembarking passengers from a ferry boat. To find him soon opening a San Francisco office in a rundown building, hiring Effie Perine, who Hammett memorably described in his seminal version as “a lanky, sunburned girl whose thin woolen dress clung to her with an effect of dampness”, immediately warmed me to Gores’ updating, and I looked forward to knowing more about Effie, Miles Archer and his wife, Iva. It wasn’t long until the predated Sam Spade would cross paths with his nemesis, Lieutenant Dundy and Sergeant Polhaus of a San Francisco Police Department, not above corruption in the 1920s.
You never escape the chilling fog that crept through the streets of San Francisco as you follow Sam Spade, and the brutal clash of “commie” agitated waterfront confrontation with the powers that be in the city by the bay. A seething discontent lurks over the shoulder of Spade as he solves a scheme to steal a shipment of gold from a passenger liner arrived from the Orient.
Years pass, as Sam Spade’s reputation as a sleuth gained an upscale business address where Effie Perine would answer calls from elite clients. Still, she rolled Bull Durham cigarettes for Sam, while he poured Bacardi Rum into a shot glass. The master criminal, Saint Clair McPhee, who had escaped with most of the stolen gold, and eluded Spade’s detection would return.
As the novel brings Sam Spade finally to the moment when he has shaken off the worst that can happen to a man in love, found revenge on the forces that delivered personal tragedy, and proved his detective skills, Joe Gores made me smile with his conclusion:
:…Spade was smoking behind his desk when Effie Perine came in. He looked up at her.
‘Yes, sweetheart?’
She finished shutting the door behind her, leaned against it and said, ‘There’s a girl wants to see you. Her names Wonderly.’
‘A customer?’
’I guess so. You’ll want to see her, anyway. She’s a knockout.’
‘Shoo her’, said Spade, ‘Shoo her in.’
So “The Maltese Falcon” begins with a backstory.
Reviewed by Don Mac Brown
1 comment:
A must read! I'll add Gores to my library look-for list.
Ken
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