>>BTW, the thing that gets me about Huston's film is
not how close it is
>>to the novel, but how close it is to *the other
films.*
>
>I've never seen the other films made from the Falcon,
but I keep seeing
>references to 'em. Guess I'll have to make an effort
to see them. Are
>they on video?
Unfortunately not *easily* available---at least, nafaik on
this side
side of the pond. I was lucky enough to bump into the first
version on
UK TV. The second version was kindly found and supplied by a
fellow
rara-avian. You *might* find a copy of either/both lurking in
a dusty
corner of the local video shop, but I think you're more
likely to
stumble across them as cheap late-night or daytime TV fodder
or in a
library. If you take a look at The Maltese Falcon FAQ you'll
find some
stills from the first two _Maltese Falcon_ films (btw, look
out for the
secret link in the FAQ;->).
Little has been written about the early Falcon films, though
some
interesting stuff is (re-)printed in William Luhr, ed., _The
Maltese
Falcon: John Huston, director_ (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers
University
Press, 1995).
I've written a 50-odd page critique of the Huston film, which
argues
that the 1941 film uses some visual devices and other aspects
of
mise-en-scene that appear to be drawn *not* from Hammett's
novel but
from one or other of the earlier films. If anyone is
interested in
wading through it, I'll html it and put it on the website
over the
christmas hols.
If anyone on the list has seen the other _TMF_ films, maybe
we could
develop a sub-thread.
ED
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