We’ve talked about Sam Spade, the archetypal detective, before. However, we were unable to really discuss how both the character and various portrayals of Spade were reflections of typical masculine beliefs within the eras they were produced.
As proof that the portrayals dealt with specific needs of the eras, one need only look at the changing portrayal of Sam Spade in the three film adaptations of Dashiell Hammit’s "The Maltese Falcon." Earlier Spades were portrayed as "suave, charming, 'soft-boiled' gentlemen.” Philippa Gates labels them as upper-class, but working men who embodied “elegance, eloquence... and wealth.” These characters allowed men to forget the struggles of the Great Depression and live vicariously as carefree, art deco playboys.
Bogart’s Spade is, by contrast, conservative and unwilling to put hedonistic pleasures before justice and principle.
The other driving force behind "The Maltese Falcon" is its titular Macguffin. A Macguffin is an object, the capture of which drives the plot. The object itself is of little value, although it may have symbolic ties to the theme.
In the case of "The Maltese Falcon," it represents wealth and corruption— the quest that wealth brings with it. The opening shot cements this in seemingly paradoxical way. By giving the viewer a close-up of the sought-after falcon and a detailed text crawl detailing its history, it robs it of its mystique and reduces it to a mere curio. On the other hand, by giving it such an imposing position onscreen Huston conveys the power the bird has over those that seek it. The film opens with Effie, Spade’s help-meet (Lee Patrick) notifying Spade (Humphrey Bogart).
Effie is, in some ways, a foil for the femme fatale and Noir’s idealized woman. She’s dutiful (as evidenced by her punctual, professional altitude and willingness to help Spade with the unpleasant aspects of his job, such as letting a client live with her, and using her position to help Spade break off an affair) and has a familial warmth (indeed she’s the only woman Spade acts remotely warm to, calling her "angel" and "precious"), while not asking for too much emotional commitment from Spade. Spade displays a mix of of affability and stoicism to the client, Brigid O’Shaughnessy (Mary Astor), despite her beauty, a tactic he will take in his dealings with most of the other characters.
However, he does show emotion in private, such as the mournful, pensive look he gives when he hears of his partner’s death, expressing the confusing mixture of emotions ranging from dislike to duty, he felt for his partner (compare this to his public reaction of a curt, “Yeah sure!” when asked if Miles was a good man). As well as a strategic use of anger to get the police to see him as having a serious case against the charges of murder. This scene also brings up an important motif in Noir films: Social drinking to smooth over new or unpleasant relations, in this case, Spade with the police to end the animosity brought on by his murder charges. The Noir idea of the Femme Fatale soon works its way into the movie in the figures of both Iva Archer and Brigid O’Shaughnessy. Iva is Spade’s former partner’s wife who “didn’t like him” as Spade puts it and soon began an affair with him.
However, unlike his previous portrayals who engaged in similar affairs with no consequences, Bogart’s Spade is dogged by guilt and frustration from his affair with Iva. His relationship with Brigid is similarly unfulfilling. Despite her beauty and alluring facade of emotional vulnerability, he is constantly frustrated in her refusal to tell him anything but oblivious, manipulative lies. The parallels between between Spade’s relationship with Brigid and the fears about female betrayal of the time are obvious. However, as Spade later says he sticks with Brigid because “she’s the only chance of getting to the falcon” and his partner’s murderer.
The villains, too, reflect contemporary fears. Joel Cario (Peter Lorre) with his foreign last name and accent and gardenia-scented cards give him the perfect air of foreign otherness. His foppish manners, lisp, fashionable dress, and emotional behavior (he cries in a moment of stress) all mark him as a homosexual. So, as fitting with the tough guy mentality of the world of Film Noir, this threat to masculinity is neutralized as Cario is easily disarmed and beaten by Spade and even Brigid. When Cario does manage to get Spade at gunpoint Spade merely laughs, treating him as a joke.
Another threat comes in form of Wilmer Cook (Eliza Cook Jr.) and the competitive challenge his youth and skill pose Spade, just as the men watching this film would have felt a threat from the young men eager to take the jobs they were displaced from either by the Depression or by the war. However, Spade easily takes care of him as well, disarming him effortlessly in each encounter, mocking him by calling him a gunsel (slang of the time for a homosexual), and even setting him up as a fall guy.
Leading the gunmen is Kasper Gutman (Sidney Greenstreet), who represents less a threat to Spade’s masculinity and more a foil to Spade. Whereas Spade is brutish and cold, Gutman is aristocratic and jovial; both use social drinking to smooth unpleasant relations over. Spade’s earlier drink with the police was a peace offering, whereas Gutman’s drink with Spade is a Trojan horse meant to drug Spade and get him out of the picture. Both conduct their legally gray operations with businesslike tactics, demanding cash upfront before they work. Both sell out someone dear to them to achieve a higher goal.
Gutman allows Wilmer to be used as a fall guy so he can have access to the falcon, and Spade “sends Brigid over” to achieve justice for his dead partner. In the end, Spade serves as a model for a conservative masculinity that is committed to justice and the principal that you avenge your partner “regardless of what you thought of him." The type of man who can successfully combat the threats posed by the foreign Other and homosexual and reject both the femme fatale’s emotional pleas and the allure of the falcon as "the stuff dreams are made of.”
