I just finished listening to the CD of the radio plays of
Casablanca and Maltese Falcon (thank you very much to whoever
posted that it came free with the August Sight and Sound; I
found it in Borders).
It made me realize how, to me, Bogart is the voice of
hardboiled. Of course, he portrayed both of the iconographic
PIs, Spade and Marlowe, so it's not surprising that his voice
is now so identified with the genre.
It makes me wonder, though, if it came as a revelation at the
beginning. I'm guessing it did. Both movies were popular from
the beginning, right? Without belittling the skills of John
Huston, Howard Hawks or any of the costars, I'm guessing a
lot of that popularity was due to Bogart. He was made for the
role and the sneer in his voice is just so perfect it
probably played a part in that. These movies were relatively
early in his ascent to stardom, right? Among his first roles
as the good guy instead of as a heavy, a shift from Petrified
Forrest and High Sierra, right?
Now his depiction seems definitive, but does anyone know how
he was felt to compare with other movie PIs at the time? I
know Chandler felt Cary Grant best suited the role of Marlowe
and didn't he prefer Dick Powell's portrayal to
Bogart's.
Mark
ps -- although it comes from Casablanca and not the Falcon,
the line "I think that underneath that cynical shell beats
the heart of a sentimentalist" is a perfect description of
the Marlowe lineage of PIs.
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