Joaquim da Silva Fontes, Significação e Estabilidade do Género no ...

unsettling when for example shooting Sydney Greenstreet (Kasper Gutman) from low
angles to emphasise his massiveness (fig. 2). In the scene below, the major characters are
all around the precious bird, and in balanced, low-contrast lighting, the four protagonists
are filmed in a diminuendo, with Gutman appearing from a low viewpoint accentuating his
bulk. I should also add that the film’s major resources are its brittle dialogues and the
performances of (essentially) its male characters, with references or allusions to their
mannerisms or the homosexual suggestiveness in their behaviour, as in the case of Cairo
and his infatuation with Wilmer (Elisha Cook, Jr.). This issue will be mentioned again in
particular in Part III.
Figure 2. The Maltese Falcon
Another Hammett novel, which some consider to be his best book, The Glass Key,
became a movie in 1935 (with George Raft in the role of Ed Beaumont) and again in 1942.
This latter version is for me the best adaptation of a Hammett story, though one could
argue that the film lacks the ending of the original novel, which is a more hard-boiled
version, especially in its love triangle story. Here, the character of Ed Beaumont is played
by Alan Ladd, whose devotion to crooked political boss, Paul Madvig (Brian Donlevy),
takes him into the murder investigation of Senator Henry’s (Moroni Olsen) son. This time,
the happy ending in which Paul watches with a smile on his face Ed and Janet Henry
(Veronica Lake) departing together is not a noir feature, but rather a typical saturnine
Hollywood ending. It is this examination of the filthy underworld of apparently respectable
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