Leonard Maltin's 151 Best Movies You've Never Seen - Maltin, Leonard [56]
The trick isn’t merely to carry out their plan without calling attention to themselves, but to keep at it without spilling the beans to outsiders—or spending any of the money while it’s still hot. Easier said than done.
Why did I like Mad Money? First off, it made me laugh. I also like that it’s smart—just believable enough to make sense and outlandish enough to be entertaining. You’d expect no less from director Callie Khouri, who made her reputation as the writer of Thelma and Louise. It’s based on a British TV movie, cleverly reinvented for American audiences by screenwriter Glen Gers. And it has a perfect cast. The three leading ladies are absolutely believable, including the much-maligned Katie Holmes, who’s both likable and funny. Ted Danson adds a battery of wisecracks as Keaton’s sardonic husband.
So, you can trust those other critics who said awful things about this movie, or you can sit back and have a good time, as I did. Your move.
77. THE MALTESE FALCON (1931 VERSION)
(1931)
Directed by Roy Del Ruth
Screenplay by Maude Fulton and Brown Holmes
Based on the novel by Dashiell Hammett
Actors:
BEBE DANIELS
RICARDO CORTEZ
DUDLEY DIGGES
THELMA TODD
UNA MERKEL
ROBERT ELLIOTT
DWIGHT FRYE
It is a truism that remakes of famous movies are seldom as good as the originals. The Maltese Falcon was filmed three times by Warner Bros., and while John Huston’s 1941 film is the only one that deserves to be called a classic, it’s fascinating to compare it to the first screen adaptation made ten years earlier. Huston’s is superior in every way, but because he hewed so closely to Dashiell Hammett’s groundbreaking detective novel, and so did the original, the 1931 version holds up surprisingly well. It wasn’t always easy to see, although it circulated on television for some years under the title Dangerous Female, to distinguish it from the Bogart movie. (That wasn’t a problem for the 1936 retread, a camouflaged version of the story called Satan Met a Lady.)
The 1941 movie marked Huston’s directorial debut, and he was on fire. His casting was especially brilliant. Humphrey Bogart cemented his stardom with an unforgettable portrayal of the hard-boiled Sam Spade. Mary Astor, a fading leading lady in real life, was every bit his match as the lying, coquettish Brigid O’Shaughnessy. And imagine sitting in a theater in 1941 and seeing Sydney Greenstreet for the first time in a Hollywood movie as the eloquent criminal mastermind Casper Gutman. Every actor is ideally chosen: Peter Lorre as the sinister, effeminate Joel Cairo; Elisha Cook Jr. as Gutman’s shifty gunsel; Jerome Cowan as Spade’s hard-luck partner Miles Archer; Gladys George as his sultry widow; and Lee Patrick as Spade’s indispensable girl Friday, Effie.
If those performances are seared into your consciousness, as they are in mine, it’s especially interesting to see how well director Roy Del Ruth and the Warner Bros. team selected actors almost as colorful—and certainly as appropriate—for those roles. The weak link, you might say, is leading man Ricardo Cortez, a capable actor who has the right tone but none of the shading that made Bogart’s Spade so memorable. But Bebe Daniels, a big star of the 1920s, is quite good as the woman who sets the case in motion, Ruth Wonderly.
Irish-born character actor Dudley Digges makes a fine Casper Gutman, every bit as pompous and eccentric (if not as physically imposing) as Greenstreet. Film buffs will remember him from such prominent films as The Invisible Man, Mutiny on the Bounty, and The General Died at Dawn. Perky Una Merkel, with her honeyed Southern accent, is a great choice as Effie. Beautiful Thelma Todd, who specialized in playing femmes fatales when she wasn’t