Clive Owen’s ‘Monsieur Spade’ Character Has a Long Hollywood History© Provided by Collider

Sam Spade is an iconic cinematic detective who first appeared in Dashiell Hammett’s novel The Maltese Falcon in 1930.

The Maltese Falcon adaptation directed by John Huston in 1941 became the archetypal noir thriller and is considered one of his best movies.
Humphrey Bogart’s performance as Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon solidified the character’s persona and made him synonymous with the noir genre.

The noir genre is one of Hollywood’s most enduring styles of films, as a hard-boiled mystery narrative can be endlessly reinvented by new generations of filmmakers. Although the genre is nearly as old as the medium itself, many of the best noir films have succeeded by blending in other influences; Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner told an iconoclastic mystery story in a science fiction world, and Rian Johnson’s Brick bound the genre to a modern high school setting. While it’s impressive that the noir genre has managed to keep evolving, it does so thanks to the success of classic detective characters from the earliest era of mystery films. There’s no cinematic detective more iconic than Sam Spade, a grizzled anti-hero that Hollywood has continuously returned to, most recently in the Clive Owen-led Monsieur Spade.

The Maltese Falcon

San Francisco private detective Sam Spade takes on a case that involves him with three eccentric criminals, a gorgeous liar and their quest for a priceless statuette, with the stakes rising after his partner is murdered.

Release Date1941-10-18

DirectorJohn Huston

CastLee Patrick, Barton MacLane, Gladys George, Mary Astor, Peter Lorre, Humphrey Bogart

RatingNR

Runtime101

Main GenreCrime

GenresDrama, Mystery, Thriller, Crime

WritersDashiell Hammett, John Huston

TaglineA story as EXPLOSIVE as his BLAZING automatics!

Studio(s)Warner Bros.

Who Is Sam Spade?

Although the roots of noir cinema can be traced back to the German Expressionist films of the 1920s, the mystery genre emerged when American Hollywood productions began to grow more ambitious in the 1930s. With its dark atmosphere, morally ambiguous characters, stark visuals, and shocking plot twists, early cinematic noir stood out in comparison to the more straightforward stories told in Western and adventure films at the time; it was an entirely new subgenre of cinematic entertainment that challenged the audience to keep up with the mysteries. Many of the earliest Hollywood noir films were based on literary characters, including Sam Spade. The literary basis gave these films a wealth of fascinating stories to draw inspiration from, allowing for more intelligent and thought-provoking screenplays.

Sam Spade was first introduced as the protagonist in Dashiell Hammett’s 1930 novel The Maltese Falcon, a detective story centered around the disappearance of a valuable statuette that is of considerable value to various criminal organizations. Although The Maltese Falcon was first published as a serialized story in the pulp magazine Black Mask, it was eventually published as a novel, leading Hammett to write several other short stories with the character. While The Maltese Falcon was intricately written, spinning a complex web of deceit surrounding the various players vying for control of the Falcon, it was also noted for its formalistic innovations. By telling the narrative as an external, third-person story, Hammett was able to keep the novel focused on the mystery at hand without giving away any characters’ motivations. The lack of the character’s inner thoughts also helped to make Spade himself more enigmatic.

Bogart has earned his place in the pantheon as one of the most expressive and uniquely American leading men in the history of cinema.

The Maltese Falcon established many key aspects of Spade’s personality. Unlike other pulp fiction protagonists of the time, Spade presented a less idealized version of a hardboiled detective. Although he is renowned for his pessimistic views on humanity, perpetual grumpiness, and immense intelligence, Spade is so doubtful of the authorities’ intentions that he often chooses to work outside the law to solve his mysteries. Despite claiming to have selfish intentions, Spade’s integrity is revealed as he finds himself working as a force of good. The notion of a disgruntled, reluctant hero was essential in the development of early noir cinema.

How Did ‘The Maltese Falcon’ Change Noir Movies?

Given the popularity of Hammett’s novel, it was only a matter of time before The Maltese Falcon was adapted to the big screen. Although the novel was first adapted in 1931 with Ricardo Cortez starring as Spade, Roy Del Bluth’s version of the story failed to capture the specificity of Hammett’s writing. While Warner Brothers tried again to adapt the novel with the 1936 comedy Satan Met a Lady, it took the genius of John Huston to bring Spade’s unique persona to life. John Huston’s 1941 adaptation of The Maltese Falcon became the archetypal noir thriller and led to countless imitators in the subsequent decades. Despite being Huston’s directorial debut, The Maltese Falcon is heralded as one of his best movies.

While Huston was able to flesh out the mystery storyline in The Maltese Falcon that had been lacking in the previous adaptations, Spade’s personality became synonymous with the excellent performance by Humphrey Bogart. Bogart’s dry sense of humor, diminutive physicality, and no-nonsense attitude created a unique protagonist who was as enigmatic as the mystery he was solving. It’s regarded as one of his best performances, as the film’s intimate setting required a truly charismatic actor to make each scene propulsively entertaining. Although Bogart returned to the noir genre with films like Key Largo, The Big Sleep, The Desperate Hours, and In a Lonely Place, Spade became the character he was most closely associated with.

Which Actors Have Played Sam Spade?

Despite the now iconic status of his performance, Bogart wasn’t the only actor who played Spade. The 1975 sequel The Black Bird attempted to take a comedic spin on Hammett’s story with George Segal as Spade, but is generally regarded as a critical and commercial failure. The Black Bird’s failure indicated that it would be challenging for any new actor to take on the role, as living up to the precedent that Bogart set would be no easy task. While Mike O’Malley had a brief role as Spade in the 1975 spoof film The Strange Case of the End of Civilisation as We Know It, it served as little more than a passing reference to the history of mystery films.

Although the character was long seen as untouchable, the new AMC+ series Monsieur Spade attempts to tell a new Spade story. Rather than once again adapting The Maltese Falcon, Monsieur Spade stars Clive Owen as an older version of Spade who is brought out of retirement by a new case. Although he’s content to relax in the South of France, Spade begins to investigate the murder of six nuns that may be connected to a mysterious child. While the strong positive buzz surrounding the series suggests that Owen gives a performance worthy of Bogart, the character has an outstanding influence on the entire genre. Characters like Phillip Marlowe, Easy Rawlins, and even Knives Out’s Benoit Blanc are in some way modeled on the precedent that Spade established for what a hard-boiled detective should act like.

The Maltese Falcon is streaming on Tubi in the U.S.