![]() Spade greets them at the door, but refuses to let them in. At this point, the police show up, coincidentally, to talk to Spade. Eventually, O'Shaughnessy insinuates that Cairo is a homosexual, and Cairo insinuates that O'Shaughnessy simply uses her body to get what she wants, and the two begin to fight. The two then continue to talk about some events that happened overseas. ![]() They also refer to a mysterious figure, "G" ("the fat man" in the film), whom they seem to be scared of. Brigid O'Shaughnessy, however, says she does not have it at the moment. Cairo says he is ready to pay for the black figurine. When Cairo and Brigid O'Shaughnessy meet, they make references that the reader and Spade don't initially comprehend. She tells Spade that she must meet with Cairo, and asks Spade to arrange a meeting. O'Shaughnessy gets extremely nervous when she hears this. Spade senses a connection between O'Shaughnessy and Cairo, and casually mentions that Cairo has contacted him. She offers her sympathies for the death of his partner. Following this, Spade is again contacted by Brigid O'Shaughnessy. After cataloguing Cairo's belongings and questioning him in return, Spade returns Cairo's firearm and allows the man to search his office. But when he approaches Spade to search his person, Spade disarms him and knocks him unconscious. Suddenly, Cairo pulls a gun on Spade, and declares his intention to search Spade's office. While Spade has no idea what the man is talking about, he plays along. Later, Spade is visited by another man, Joel Cairo, who offers Spade $5000 if the private eye can retrieve a figurine of a black bird that has recently arrived. He also finds out that Brigid never had a sister, and Thursby was her acquaintance who had betrayed her. He then goes to a new address left in a note from his client, whose name he learns is Brigid O'Shaughnessy. Spade dismisses her and tells her to leave, and coldly orders his secretary Effie to remove all of Archer's belongings from the office. ![]() The widow asks Spade if he killed Miles so that they could be together. The next day, Spade gets a visit from Archer's wife, with whom he has been having an affair. They have no evidence against Spade at the moment, but tell him that they will be conducting an investigation into the matter. The officers say that Thursby was also killed and that Spade is a suspect, since Thursby likely killed Archer. Spade asks what the visit is really about. Even later that night, two officers visit Spade at his apartment and inquire about Spade's whereabouts in the last few hours. ![]() That night, Detective Tom Polhaus informs Spade that Archer has been shot and killed while tailing Thursby. The two accept the assignment because the money is good, but Spade also implies that the woman looks like trouble, though she projects wholesome innocence. ![]() "An almost perfect visual equivalent of the Dashiell Hammett thriller.It is (and this is rare in American films) a work of entertainment that is yet so skillfully constructed that after many years and many viewings it has the same brittle explosiveness - and even some of the same surprise - that it had in its first run.Private eye Sam Spade and his partner Miles Archer are approached by Miss Wonderly to follow a man, Floyd Thursby, who allegedly ran off with her younger sister. But it is the fraught, febrile relationship between Bogart’s Spade and Mary Astor’s femme fatale – who persuaded his partner to take on her case – that shapes the deep, dark core of desire, doubt and duplicity pervading the film from beginning to memorable end. ( The Big Sleep, The Killing) as his gunman. Inspired casting included Peter Lorre ( M, Casablanca) as volatile Joel Cairo, Sydney Greenstreet ( Across the Pacific, Casablanca) as menacingly amiable Kasper Gutman, and Elisha Cook Jr. Adapted from Dashiell Hammett’s novel about a San Francisco detective’s investigations into the murder of his business partner, Huston’s snappily witty script retains the plot’s labyrinthine complexity while revelling in colourful characterisations of the villains Spade encounters during his quest. ![]()
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