Feminist Fridays: The Women of The Maltese Falcon

Chapter Three of Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon is titled, appropriately enough, “Three Women.” It opens with Sam Spade chastising his exhausted secretary, Effie Perine, for allowing Iva Archer, his dead partner’s widow, into the office. Spade is impatient with the woman–his secret lover–and extricates himself from her clutches as soon as possible. He later…

“I don’t mind a reasonable amount of trouble.”

As part of our week-long celebration of the 70th anniversary of The Maltese Falcon (1941), today we are taking a look at the third and final film version of Dashiell Hammett’s pulp crime novel. For a brief introduction to this movie, check out our post on Falcon from last year. For a more in-depth synopsis of the film’s plot, we recommend…

“Giant squid astern, sir!”

In 1954, Walt Disney and company decided to tackle their first science-fiction venture, a full-length live-action adaptation of Jules Verne’s 1870 novel 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Originally, the plan was to animate Verne’s story–after all, Disney’s animation studio had found undeniable success in adapting literary works ranging from Felix Salten’s environmental novel Bambi, A…

TCM Spotlight: Frank Capra

Tonight, Turner Classic Movies will show a lineup of some of director Frank Capra’s best. SET YOUR DVR. Now that I’ve gotten the warning/mild-threat-of-violence-if-you-don’t-comply out of the way … If you’ve read my introduction page (in the links to the right), you know that I consider Capra one of my five favorite film directors of…