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<blockquote data-quote="Willie Oleson" data-source="post: 444482" data-attributes="member: 8">The Maltese Falcon (1941)[ATTACH=full]59643[/ATTACH]I was thinking, what previously unseen classic should I watch? Film noir is not my favourite genre, it&#039;s usually very dry stuff and apart from the more ambitious productions like the Billy Wilder or Orson Welles classics they&#039;re not very visually appealing.Of course these days all&nbsp;&nbsp; B&amp;W films are labelled as &quot;film noir&quot; but that&#039;s a different topic altogether.Furthermore, I wasn&#039;t sure if I had ever seen a film starring Humphrey Bogart, at least I&#039;m sure I&#039;ve never watched Casablanca (*loud gasps of disapproval*), therefore it was also a matter of killing two falcons with one stone.The film looks good and the actors are fabulous especially Peter Lorre, but story-wise this was a truly bizarre experience. There&#039;s all this hoo-ha about a precious artefact but at the end of the day the only thing that matters is the question &quot;who killed Sam Spade&#039;s partner?&quot;Every now and then I had to rewind a part of a scene because I was zoning out and I didn&#039;t want to miss any important details. But this kept happening over and over again and I thought, wait a minute. There&#039;s something funny going on here.It&#039;s almost as if they deliberately made it impossible to follow the dialogue. Instead of using dialogue to progress the story (or just a scene) there&#039;s a lot of talking about what other characters are saying, and within those heaps of lines they may or may not have hidden a piece of important information.There&#039;s also a surprisingly self-aware approach to the femme fatale trope, including a comment about the way these characters sometimes distract or try to avoid an unpleasant situation.Sam Spade as the fast-talking hard-boiled detective borders on caricature, surely that wasn&#039;t coincidental? Not to mention Gladys George as the veiled widow who&#039;s playing in her own noir storyline.In the final act - which is one long boring scene - they explain the whole situation in chronological order but it&#039;s so extremely convoluted that I couldn&#039;t even bother to understand how-when-why happened, and I started to laugh.To be fair, there is some&nbsp; genuine dramatic tension regarding the character of Wilmer Cook and the plan to make him the fall guy (don&#039;t ask me to explain how) and I even felt a bit sorry for him. That was the biggest emotion I felt while watching this film.And that&#039;s the whole thing about The Maltese Falcon, it&#039;s not a film noir, it&#039;s a film about film noir, a straight-faced parody. I wish I had understood this from the very beginning. And since it&#039;s all so very tongue in cheek it kinda looks as if it was&nbsp; made by Billy Wilder.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Willie Oleson, post: 444482, member: 8"] The Maltese Falcon (1941) [ATTACH type="full"]59643[/ATTACH] I was thinking, what previously unseen classic should I watch? Film noir is not my favourite genre, it's usually very dry stuff and apart from the more ambitious productions like the Billy Wilder or Orson Welles classics they're not very visually appealing. Of course these days [I]all[/I] B&W films are labelled as "film noir" but that's a different topic altogether. Furthermore, I wasn't sure if I had ever seen a film starring Humphrey Bogart, at least I'm sure I've never watched [I]Casablanca[/I] (*loud gasps of disapproval*), therefore it was also a matter of killing two falcons with one stone. The film looks good and the actors are fabulous especially Peter Lorre, but story-wise this was a truly bizarre experience. There's all this hoo-ha about a precious artefact but at the end of the day the only thing that matters is the question "who killed Sam Spade's partner?" Every now and then I had to rewind a part of a scene because I was zoning out and I didn't want to miss any important details. But this kept happening over and over again and I thought, wait a minute. There's something funny going on here. It's almost as if they deliberately made it impossible to follow the dialogue. Instead of using dialogue to progress the story (or just a scene) there's a lot of talking about what other characters are saying, and within those heaps of lines they may or may not have hidden a piece of important information. There's also a surprisingly self-aware approach to the femme fatale trope, including a comment about the way these characters sometimes distract or try to avoid an unpleasant situation. Sam Spade as the fast-talking hard-boiled detective borders on caricature, surely that wasn't coincidental? Not to mention Gladys George as the veiled widow who's playing in her own noir storyline. In the final act - which is one long boring scene - they explain the whole situation in chronological order but it's so extremely convoluted that I couldn't even bother to understand how-when-why happened, and I started to laugh. To be fair, there is [I]some[/I] genuine dramatic tension regarding the character of Wilmer Cook and the plan to make him the fall guy (don't ask me to explain [I]how[/I]) and I even felt a bit sorry for him. That was the biggest emotion I felt while watching this film. And that's the whole thing about [I]The Maltese Falcon[/I], it's [I]not [/I]a film noir, it's a film [I]about [/I] film noir, a straight-faced parody. I wish I had understood this from the very beginning. And since it's all so very tongue in cheek it kinda looks as if it [I]was[/I] made by Billy Wilder. [/QUOTE]

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Who played JR Ewing?