The WAY to WOW Shows
Cocktails & The Maltese Falcon
August 29, 2024
Automatically generated from YouTube captions; names and wording may contain errors.

[0:02] good afternoon and welcome to jigger's place I'm your host Kevin bemel and we are here every other Thursday at 5:00 pm Pacific time to just relax have a cocktail and talk about all those things not related to our business and professional lives so today I'm going to be talking about one of my favorite things the maltes falcon And discussing so which is better the the book or the movie right this is a

[0:38] perennial discussion among um book and movie fans and uh hopefully we're we're we're GNA get some uh interesting thoughts about that uh for for you this afternoon so in honor of our subject the maltes Falcon so um while um people who who know Humphrey Bogard who is the actor best known for his version of the maltes Falcon he drinks bardi rum in in the maltes Falcon not bourbon which

[1:15] seems like he drinks in every other movie he's ever been in and so I I looked for a cocktail to make with bardi rum and I came up with something called a blood orange Negron now now why blood orange well we are talking about fil Noir and and so you know blood orange uh seemed like the right theme to to go with it and you know rum orange definitely go together uh and so so this this sounded like something that would be worth trying out so um I have my my

[1:53] my rack rum this is bardi white rum and the other things in a in in this particular version of a neoni are compari which is a a bitter lure you know compari is is very very famous this is a coaster bottle of of H compari for those of you saying wait a minute I thought you keep coer yes I do this comes all the way from Israel and then um blood orange lure hence the name blood orange Negron this happens to be quantro now contro is is is a an orange

[2:33] lur this happens to be the blood orange version of it and what's what's nice about you using quantro um aside from it comes from France and you all know I'm a Franco File I suppose and it you know was founded in 1849 is in another fantastic Humphrey Bogart movie Kaza Blanca um the uh the the other love interest of of ilsa and I'm going up on him he's the the the underground leader so he orders a quantro when he's at at the bar um at Rick's place the bar in

[3:10] Casablanca so this kind of has a reminiscence of of Humphrey Bogard and uh what many consider to be his his greatest movie and then orange bitters and my favorite orange bits is stirrings um this happens to be blood orange bitters which is even better than orange bitters and if you've never had stirrings all I can say is just just just I can smell it it's just I don't know it's it has a wonderful wonderful smell okay so we're g to make this this Negron I've got my little

[3:45] recipy here we're going to start out with an ounce of um white rum find my here we go yeah okay okay we're GNA we're going to make this in a mixing glass okay so an ounce of white rum and then a half oun of compar which sounds a little bit like Volari but it's not at all the same

[4:22] thing although they are both Italian for those of you who who know the famous Dean Martin song you're going to stop watching the show now because I'm singing I'm sorry I will stop singing okay and a half ounce of uh the quantro blood orange liquor now by the way it looks like it's red right because of but but the quantro is actually um clear okay so the color is coming from

[5:00] the compare and it does look kind of bloody okay and then just a a couple of dashes of um of of the orange bitters two okay maybe a little bit too much but that's okay okay and then going to put some ice in

[5:38] and um as as you've heard me mention uh several times before when mixing cocktails if ice you really want to mix them down and and and it's not just about getting them to to cool down it's also about mixing the various liquor together and and and um diluting it a little bit with the ice um so that uh um the the flavors have an opportunity to open

[6:13] up and see doing here start the glass is starting to get Frosty that's good okay and I'm going to get in I meant to have this ready I'm going get an oldfashioned glass my old fashioned glasses go okay this is an oldfashioned glass it just looks like your basic tumbler okay and a

[6:48] strainer and here we go blood orange necron and and look at that look at the color of that can you see that here I'll move it move a little bit closer so you can look at the color isn't that beautiful yes let's have a little taste here oh yeah fantastic okay so I'll see you on the other side

[7:46] all right so here we are H it's Thursday afternoon and I had to make make a Mad Dash through traffic through downtown LA to get here in time I know I started a couple minutes late [Music] it's time to relax so the maltes Falcon uh I don't know about you but I'm a huge film Noir fan so whether it's uh the

[8:23] maltes Falcon whether it's double indemnity probably two of the best known film Noir or whether it's a really obscure um film Noir film Noir um like a lonely well a lonely Place probably not as obscure as as as others certainly but um many many people have heard of Double Indemnity and uh the maltes Falcon but um probably not very many people have heard of a Lon place that's also a hrey Bogart movie you can tell who one of my favorite actors is um uh

[9:00] the the the the look of these films the grittiness the dialogue the interaction between the characters um so I I mean I'm nowhere near um an expert on film Noir compared to Eddie Müller uh who who um is the host of Noir Ali and um and and mounts the various Noir film festivals around the country um but um think I got my love of uh film Noir and and really

[9:35] detective novels from my father so one of the things that I inherited from my dad was a collection of very hardboiled detective stories so um uh Steven Marlo Richard pra um AA Fair who is actually that's a pseudonym for um uh the same writer as the Perry Mason series um all this very sort of um uh you know rough language tough guys

[10:10] femals it's always uh intrigued me and um and and you know ever since I was a kid but periodically I have to come back to the maltes Falcon so the maltes Falcon was written written by dashel hamut dashel hamut is one of the early um Noir writers um the the malti Falcon was written in 1930 it's one of his earliest books and

[10:45] um as you can see on the front cover the the name comes from this Falcon statue of a falcon um and uh it's this is actually I think adapted from from the movie it's covered in Black enamel um but in reality the maltes Falcon was a a um a gift that the Knights of Malta um supposedly put together to I believe it was King Charles as rental on the island of on the for the island of

[11:22] Malta um and the rental was one Falcon a year and so the first year instead of giving them him giving him a bird they gave him this fantastic Jewel en crusted statue right and that's that's sort of the the impetus for this whole story and and I I don't know I used to have the DVD of the males Falcon but I went to my box of early 1940s DVDs and the box was empty so I'm not sure what happened there um but the the the most famous

[11:57] there was a version of the maltes Falcon made in 1931 shortly after the book came out um but the most famous version of the maltes Falcon was the one where uh Humphrey Bogart plays the detective Sam Spade and that movie came out in 1941 it was directed by John Houston one of the great you know directors of the classic era of of of Hollywood and Sam Spade is a detective he he lives and works in San Francisco and uh you know not

[12:33] withstanding what San Francisco is today um in its in its time San Francisco was perhaps the classic Noir city um especially when the fog rolled in which happens often in San Francisco and and the Beautiful buildings there the the streets the Steep streets up going up and down the winding street of of Lombard Street all of these things very very evocative of the film Noir uh genre so Sam Spade is a detective uh who who

[13:09] works lives and works in in San in San Francisco so um I've read the book multiple times I've seen the movie Oodles of times and so I was thinking about this a few weeks ago you know which is better and normally I think what we hear is oh the book is always better and maybe that's true maybe that's true um certainly uh a a well-written book is is

[13:48] just it's so good so um I I I'm particular for example I love the um nuro wolf books um by Rex Stout and I read them I have I think I don't know 20 25 of them and and I reread them about once every year or 18 months they're just so good and and they're detective novels too uh and but by the time I reread them I've forgotten what the solution is and and that's a

[14:25] sign of a great detective story I think is even if you've read them before you can read them with equal relish the next time so right now I'm rereading several of Agatha Christie's books I just finished the murder of Roger akroy one of her earliest books and I kept thinking I I I know I know who did it I know who did it and then I get to the end of it and I was completely surprised by it even though I'd read the book before you know Agatha Christie was such a brilliant writer um that it's just you know it's a

[15:02] pleasure to read her books over and over again some of her books I've read now three or four times so the thing about reading the book is uh because you know typical detective story is going to be anywhere from 150 to around 300 pages so at least at the rate I read um you know you're talking about anywhere from Two and a half three hours to maybe 6 hours to read a detective novel so in that length of time which is obviously much longer than a movie especially a 1940s

[15:37] movie you have a lot more time to deal with plot twists to deal with character development to deal with just the interplay of the characters so um Sam Spades you know every detective of this genre has a girl Friday so to speak in in the case of Sam Spade it's Effie and the interaction between Sam Spade and Effie is one of the fascinating aspects of any of the dashel hamut based Sam

[16:12] Spade books because on the one hand it seems like there's something going on between them and yet Sam Spade is he's got a girl over here and a girl over there it's like how would she possibly put up with you know what would probably at best be called you know womanizing uh you know if if they were together so that that ambiguity between the two of them about their relationship is is is again it's it's so much fun to just see that or to to read how it's

[16:48] played out in in the book because you get much more of that and also again just the interplay of the characters uh the the the you know the immersing in the language of the book all of that is is just so wonderful also the book has a a much slower has it has a I don't want to call it a slow pace because it's not exactly slow but it's not a frenetic Pace it's it's a pace

[17:23] appropriate for taking you know in the case of the multi F it's about 250 pages I think uh okay yeah 229 Pages at least in this Edition right so takes about four or five hours to read and the the pacing of the book is appropriate to the length of the book you don't feel rushed you don't feel like like you're being overwhelmed to absorb it all it's just you're you can relax but really climb into the story and feel intrigued by what's going on so that's really I think

[18:00] the the aspect of the book now the movie first of all the movie in addition to its starring Humphrey Bogart uh supporting characters include Peter lorri who who plays uh another of the characters um I'm trying to think of his name all of a sudden I'm going up on his name but he's also looking uh trying to find the the the the Mal malse falcon but it has one of my all-time favorite actors in it's Sydney Green Street who plays Gutman otherwise known as the

[18:37] Fatman Sydney Green Street is nothing short of brilliant in this movie and he brings the character of Gutman absolutely to life in a way that the book just doesn't now I I saw the movie before I read the book for the first time time and and Sydney Green Street's performance makes the book more enjoyable I think if I had I'm trying to remember gutman's first name it's not Arthur Gutman uh doesn't doesn't matter

[19:13] anyway being able to read the book through the sort of portrayal of Gutman by Sydney Green Street he's just he's just brilliant now uh for those of you who haven't seen the maltes Falcon but maybe have played um Ian maybe have seen Casablanca so Sydney Green Street is also in Casablanca he plays the owner of the Blue Parrot Cafe I believe it is and again just just a brilliant brilliant performance by the way one of the things I most love about Sydney Green Street is he did not start his movie career until

[19:50] he was in his 50s right and and I think the maltes Falcon was his first movie um and and just across the board brilliant prior to his movie career he had a a big career in uh in theater um but so the cast of care oh and and the the the love interest in the movie is Mary Aster who is I wouldn't call her beautiful in terms of how we usually think of H Classic Hollywood Beauties but she has a kind of attract

[20:29] to her uh an achievable attractiveness that's what it is right so you know most of us are never going to Aspire to a Betty grael uh or you know in more contemporary terms you know a Jennifer Aniston you know for for men you know she she's out of our league but Mary AER is so beautiful and yet it's we can totally believe that a woman like Mary Aster would be interested in us and that's why I think

[21:04] it's it's such brilliant casting she's such a wonderful actress as well and the the you know the character she plays uh Bridget o shanesy she has several different names during the course of the book and the movie is is so great um and she's so kind of ambiguous and Mary AAR plays it so well so first of all in the movie you have this this one Wonder F cast of characters to a person it is brilliantly cast so that's number one the second thing is the the whole look of the movie

[21:41] is such classic no are uh I don't think it was shot on location by the way but if you've been to San Francisco and you've been out on the streets in San Francisco on a foggy night you would just think that the movie had been shot on location and there is nothing more classically film Noir than black and white and fog right because it creates that kind of sinister background that is just the the absolute

[22:18] uh icon of of film Noir and so just just the the flashing neon signs and and and the the the sidewalks and the buildings everything is the the art direction is is again it's it's it's it's superb it it is absolutely iconic now the film has a has faster pacing than the book because after all it is a movie I think the movie is about an hour and a half long right so you're taking something that that's roughly four or

[22:53] five hours to read and you're compressing it down into an hour and a half long movie and so you know they have to leave a lot of things out and kind of speed up what's going on and yet you know I like I said the first time I saw it I had never read the movie it made perfect sense so while they cut a lot a lot of things that happen in the book out they retain the essence of the story and you're not sitting there going wait what just happened there I I you you've lost me you never feel lost

[23:29] you're you're mystified as to wait you know who killed uh Humphrey Bogart's partner Sam Spates partner which happens in the very beginning of the movie I'm not giving anything away it it is it happens in the first I think 10 pages of the book and the first five minutes of the movie right and and and the plot is basically Sam spayed trying to find out who killed his partner miles miles Archer uh so um you you you you never feel lost even though you you're not you're just not sure who

[24:06] committed the murder right and so the pacing is is is is really correct for a movie and and so you know the fact that it's faster and leaves things out does not at all detract from the movie a little more Negron and then the impact of the movie so while there is nothing better than curling up in front of my

[24:41] fireplace which is right over here with my electric logs but they do give off heat because the chimney is damaged and so I can't put a real fire in it on this couch with this throw and you know a nice whiskey or maybe some cognac or whatever on a Friday night reading a great book like the maltes Falcon the impact of the movie to not only see to not only in essence hear in like you do in your mind's ear right when you're reading a book but to see it

[25:18] the impact is is so embracing I think is the word it's not overwhelming you you feel a part of it so and this is one of the things for example Sydney Green Street being in the movie is he pulls you into the movie in a way that is different than you're pulled into the book so generally speaking when I read this book I read it straight through in one sitting even if it means I'm staying up until you know 1 or two in the morning because it is an engrossing book and and and there is

[25:55] nothing like a book that you just can't put down still to hear and to see is much more engrossing than than to read and and and and the maltes Falcon definitely is an engrossing movie so so what's what's the verdict which is better the book or the movie right that's that presumably that's what you tun tuned in to hear me answer that question um I'm gonna I'm going to keep you in suspense for a minute longer while I have more berron

[26:31] H yeah if I had to make this again I would go a little bit lighter on the compari and and let the the orange come out a little bit more um it's it's it's good but the I I went too heavy on the Kari so you know you're going to call me a cop out I will tell you generally speaking like what you typically hear I prefer the book to the

[27:10] movie however with the malti Falcon and another of dashel hammet's famous famous books the Thin Man which is actually a series of movies starring uh oh my gosh moloy and William Powell the book is brilliant and the movies are brilliant as well so I don't know if it's just that the books that

[27:46] were written by dashel Hammet and the movies that were made from his books are both just so brilliant it's impossible to determine whether one is better than the other or if they Delight different parts of us or different parts of me but I reread the malse Falcon at least once a year and I probably watch the movie two or three times a year so if

[28:22] I'm if I'm watching you know some streaming service and I see the malti Falcon on it I'm watching it even if I'm coming in partway through it because at this point I know the plot so well I don't care that you know I haven't seen the first part of it uh but to see the characters acting out these brilliant roles written by dashel hamut in in the maltes falcon and a lot of it I think has to do with the high quality of the cast Humphrey Bogart uh Peter lorri Mary Aster Sydney Green Street and and again with um with the Thin Man um William

[28:57] Powell and moloy again so brilliant and by the way one of the Thin Man movies I think it's the first Thin Man movie also has a very young Jimmy Stewart in it if you can believe he plays a bad guy oh my gosh it's so great so I maybe because these movies were cast so brilliantly the movies absolutely stand up to the books so that you can enjoy both of them just in different contexts now we're so used to to watching movies at home of course but there is nothing to supplant seeing the

[29:34] maltes Falcon in a movie theater with a crowd of people who love film Noir and really appreciate all of the various aspects of it so I will say this for a stay-at-home enjoyment uh in many cases the book is is maybe like this much more enjoyable than the movie because to watch a movie by myself is just not the same thing is being in the movie theater experience and enjoying it with other people

[30:10] hearing other people laughing when humorous things are said hearing other people gasp when certain things happen and seeing in that big huge screen the wonderful Noir environment that's created in the in the movie so comparing the theater experience to sitting home by the fireplace with a you know a whiskey or a cognac those two I I can't pick one over the other uh I you know I'll I'll anytime I hear that the malti Falcon is playing in a in a theater environment I I will go see it um and

[30:47] and and and and it just it it overwhelms me every time even though like I said I know the movie so well so I I think that the the what what what is the takeaway from this well first of all if if if you have have not seen film Noir but but you like mystery and you like uh the the the the the who done it challenge uh first of all check out some film Noir um it is far and away my favorite genre of of films um and that

[31:25] and I and I love by the way m movie musicals I love movie musicals but but still film Noir is just there's something about it it just grips you right and won't let go uh so if you haven't tried out film Noir and if if you like police novels or detective novels and you haven't read some of the especially the early um more noirish novels the pardon me the the dashel hamut um um Mickey Spain is already a little bit later and he's not so he's

[32:01] not really Noir he's more of the hardboiled um but um dashel Hammond is probably the quintessential uh Noir um writer um give them a try see what you think about them uh you know I mean I'm a big fan of detective fiction across the board so I mentioned Agatha Christie and and uh Rex Stout so those are more Agatha Christie is of course the sort of classic English drawing room detective fiction Rex Stout would be sort of the American equivalent of that because uh nuro wolf almost

[32:38] never leaves his Brownstone on in lower Manhattan to solve the cases that he's asked to solve so there's no there's nothing Noir about Agatha Christie or Rex Stout uh you know they they are very classic sort of like I said drawing room detective fiction so so but if if you're used to the more contemporary sort of hardboiled detective fiction uh again Mickey Spain was kind of the beginning of that uh James Elroy who's who brilliant uh

[33:13] hardboiled uh detective novel writer I I I was fortunate enough to to meet James Elroy at a book signing many many years ago um I forget which one of his books of his he signed for me um it may have been the Black Dalia that's one of his his great great books he signed the book I this is I'm I'm digressing now for a moment he signed the book Kevin die like a rabid wombat James Elroy and I thought wow that is just really bizarre but you know

[33:48] his books are very hardboiled very bizarre it wasn't until years and years later I was telling someone about this and they said to Mew don't you get it I said don't I get what and the person explained to me wombats can't get

[34:26] rabies e

[35:01] go uh there was a blip there for some reason it it it blipped out so you know to get away from business to get away from professional stuff there is nothing better than the malt Falcon and in this case book or movie you're G to be equally enthralled I think so a toast to dashel Hammet to Humphrey Bogart Mary Aster Peter Lori and espe to Sydney Green Street and and to you my viewers a little bit more

[35:36] Negron thank you for joining me this afternoon hope you had a nice contact cocktail while we chatted and uh this is our last this is my last show for the week so I do wish you a wonderful evening and a wonderful rest of the week which only encompasses about a day and then we're at already at uh we're already at the weekend next week just a quick reminder so on Monday is going to be a special Labor Day episode okay so please tune in for that

[36:11] on tues at 10:00 am Pacific time on Tuesday at 10: a.m. Pacific time is my show business lessons from the military and on Wednesday at 10: a.m. Pacific time is the next version of next edition of people making money and then for jigger's place I'll be back in two weeks and we'll share another cocktail and talk about all the things that make life worth living that don't involve business and professions so again thanks so much for joining me uh I I I love it that I get to spend a half an hour or so each

[36:48] week with you kind of coming back to the roots of the way to wow shows and uh hopefully easing you into the end of the week a little more enjoyably and hopefully setting you up for a restorative weekend so signing off as I always do Marie darling you are my bell if life had been a Noir movie you would have been my fem fatal and I would have been protecting you from whatever nefarious men were out there who wanted

[37:23] to cause you harm and and and it would have been my great great honor to do that courage at all