The Maltese Falcon Essay, Research Paper

The Changing Of Fictional characters

Many clip in our lives, we have seen the

transmutation of novels into films. Some of them

are equal to the novel, few are superior, and most

are inferior. Why is this? Why is it that a narrative

that was certainly to be one of the best written

narratives of all time, could turn out to be Hollywood

floating-point operations? One ground is that in many transmutations,

the chief characters are changed, some the manner they

expression, others the manner they act. On top of this,

scenes are cut out and secret plan is even changed. In

this essay, I will discourse some of the alterations

made to the characters of the Maltese Falcon as

they make their transmutation to the? large

screen. ?

The first character that we read or see is Sam

Spade. In the book he is written as being tall and

lanky with blond hair, and a repeating v-motif

that makes him out to be what Hammett describes as

a? blond Satan. ? With these descriptions, we can

easy do out a powerful image of what Sam Spade

must look like in our caputs. When we have an image

of what something is traveling to be like and it turns

out to non at all be what we expected, we are

frequently allow down, disappointed.This is due to the

casting of Humphrey Bogart as Sam Spade. His hair

is brown, and his, unit of ammunition, soft face is the

farthest a face can come from holding a demonic

v-motif. Although Humphrey Bogart? s playing was

really good, it was intruded by my perceptual experience of

what Sam Spade was supposed to look like.

Brigid O? Shaunessey is the villianess of this

narrative, the? femme fatale?

as we sometimes refer to her in category. She is

ever lying and intriguing to acquire what she wants.

In the book, her pursuit is aided really good by her

gorgeous expressions. The first image we get of Miss

O? Shaughnessey is that of a tall red-header with long

legs, ruddy hair, and beautiful ruddy lips. This image

of her may hold been influenced by the image

that is on the screen of the book, but the

publishing houses wouldn? T have pout it at that place if that

wasn? t the image they got of her either.

The film does non make Miss O? Shaughnessey justness

as the fresh really good does. In the novel, she is

portrayed as a immature, juicy, beautiful adult female.

Although she is slightly beautiful in the film,

she does non make the criterions that are set for

her in the novel. The legs that Sam Spade sees as

she enters his office offer an thought as to what

sort of individual Miss O? Shaughnessey is: person who

uses her gender to carry others. This is a

really of import portion of the narrative, and the film

failed to cover with it. A technological

disadvantage that the film had was the absence

colour. In the novel, Miss O? Shaughnessey? s hair is

described as? darkly red. ? Her ruddy hair helps to

develop a diabolic subject that goes along really good

with her purposes and her personality. This is

besides missed in the film.

The character Joel Cairo is one of the most

interesting in the book, and the film every bit good. I

idea he was absolutely cast by the production

cre

tungsten and they did a really good occupation of including the

necessary inside informations about him: the perfumed concern

card, the white hankie, and his girlish

voice. I thought the portraiture of Cairo in the

film was better than that of the book mostly due

to the fact that he was a homosexual. We could

hear his voice and see his motions much better

in the film. When we hear a voice, if it is

crying plenty, we can about automatically state

if person is a homosexual. The same goes for the

motions that they make, or how they react to

being hit or punched. These things can non be

picked up in the book and I think they are

of import to his character. I believe that the

film has a better portraiture of Joel Cairo than

the book does.

Samuel Spades secretary, Effie Perine, is one of

the most of import characters in the novel.

Constantly she is taking attention of Sam, doing certain

he knows what he is making. You could state that she

is slightly of a scruples for him. Sam trusts

her really much. In fact, she is the lone 1 that

he does trust. I believe that the film and the

novel are really near in their portraitures of Effie

Perine. The one thing that was non good about her

portraiture in the film was her visual aspect. In the

book, Effie is portrayed as a little, bantam,

mousy, sort of hoydenish adult female. This helps to

do her be the sort of adult female that Sam could ne’er

autumn for. Yet in the film, she in a tall, blond,

juicy, sexy adult female that is in no manner the Effie

Perine that we have in our heads oculus.

Then there is Wilmer, the male child, the? gunsul. ? He

is Gutman & # 8217 ; s right manus adult male and handles all of his

dirty work for him. The film and the novel are

rather equal in their portraiture of Wilmer. He

expressions, negotiations, walks, and Acts of the Apostless like he did in the

book. They did a good occupation doing Wilmer semen to

the? large screen. ?

Now that brings us to Casper Gutman. The

originator ( or shall we merely say head ) behind this

adventure. His name is a instead amusing drama on

words as Mr. Gutman is a big adult male with a really

big intestine. The film did a really good occupation in doing

Casper Gutman into a film scoundrel. Everything

that he is in the book, he is in the film. The

manager uses camera really good to stress the

size of Gutman? s belly which is rather amusive.

Casper Gutman in the film is precisely how I

pictured him to be in the book. I was really pleased

and I don? t think that the film audience will

lose a thing about him.

I must state that The Maltese Falcon is one of the

best books i have of all time read. I besides must state that

the film was nil particular, although I enjoyed

it. The Maltese Falcon in no manner strays from the

stereotype that films which are made from novels

are non of the same quality as the novel. The

films normally do the books a ill service as

characters are changed and frequently scenes are left

out. I think that it is awful how Hollywood

alterations the secret plan and characters from what the

writer originally intended. The consequence is losing

secret plan, and absence of necessary subject. When T