Rightly regarded now as a classic movie whodunit and a milestone in the Film Noir movement, John Huston’s The Maltese Falcon was not considered a “prestige picture” by Warner Bros. during production in the summer of 1941. After all, Dashiell Hammett’s crime novel had already been shot–twice–by the studio during the previous decade. What’s more, leading man Humphrey Bogart was best known for playing villains; leading lady Mary Astor was still recovering from an adultery scandal a few years earlier; and it was Huston’s first time in the director’s chair.
These factors led to a very convivial shoot and also gave rise to a series of elaborate pranks the neophyte filmmaker and his cast pulled whenever visitors came onto the set. In her autobiography “A Life on Film,” Astor recalled how, as a group of clergymen stopped by, she deliberately raised her skirt up and complained about a run in her stocking as the red-faced men of the cloth were ushered away. Eventually Huston would call out numbers for specific gags, like Bogart and debuting co-star Sydney Greenstreet getting into an on-set argument, or when Peter Lorre was seen coming out of Astor’s trailer, hastily zipping up his trousers, as he was summoned for a shot.
One on-screen joke that was a tad more subtle comes in the first half-hour of the film. Upon learning that his partner Miles Archer (Jerome Cowan) has been shot and killed on a San Francisco street corner, private eye Sam Spade (Bogart) heads to the scene of the crime. As Spade talks to police detective Tom Polhaus (Ward Bond) about the incident, a torn and faded poster on a building wall is seen advertising the 1938 Warners movie Swing Your Lady.
As described here years ago by Yours Truly in a look at some of Bogey’s less-highly regarded films, Swing Your Lady was an unfunny and unsuccessful comedy where sports promoter Ed Hatch (Bogart) and his star wrestler Joe Skopapolous (Nat Pendleton) arrive in the Ozarks looking for competition among the hillbilly residents. Hatch arranges for a match between his “Greek Adonis” and the local blacksmith, who turns out to be an attractive widow (Louise Fazenda) that slow-witted Joe falls for.
Made before Bogart was considered an A-list star and pretty much had to take any role that the studio presented to him, the picture was continually referred to by the actor as one of the worst he ever made. The inclusion of its poster may have simply been a set design coincidence. Or, perhaps, maybe it was a gentle jab by the director at his sometimes moody protagonist. Bogey should have considered himself lucky that Huston didn’t decide to go with a poster for 1939’s The Return of Doctor X. His sole horror outing, Return had Bogart playing a mad scientist revived after his execution with a skunk-headed haircut and a thirst for human blood. Hillbillies and wrestlers don’t seem so bad by comparison.