TT 427: MONSIEUR SPADE, George V. Higgins, and other entertainments
A few things I've watched and read over the summer
My friend Vince Keenan suggested I check out Monsieur Spade, the recent six-part series created by Scott Frank and Tom Fontana and starring Clive Owen. I’m glad I did! (Also because the show was fodder for a two-part phone call with Vince analyzing the show’s strengths and weaknesses.)
Sam Spade was Dashiell Hammett’s creation for the novel The Maltese Falcon and portrayed by Humphrey Bogart in the famous film adaption. Vince suggested, “My sense is that Owen wanted to honor Bogart's interpretation of Spade while also adding his own shading to the character.” This is Monsieur Spade’s great success: Clive Owen, who reminded me of Kate Winslet in Mare of Easttown. There’s nothing like a multi-part series to give a fine actor a chance to shine while playing detective.
Of course, Humphrey Bogart also starred in Casablanca, which is another obvious reference for Monsieur Spade. (It’s obvious, but I didn’t actually notice this until Vince pointed it out.) Since the show is set in France and concerns political intrigue, it is easy to access that Casablanca-esque “international” feeling.
All that is not just fine, it’s good. The series has great cinematography, wonderful old cars, and believable acting by a solid cast. Compared to a lot of what is out there, Monsieur Spade is eminently watchable. The show is currently streaming on Netflix. (I signed up specifically to watch this take on Hammett, and scrolling through the other Netflix options is a strange experience. There's so much there, but so much nothing there at the same time.)
However, Monsieur Spade doesn’t stick the landing. Indeed, the final episode is uncomfortable enough that it made me reconsider the whole show. I’ll keep this post spoiler-free, so go ahead and enjoy, but the original Sam Spade was a go-between, someone who could talk his way out of any situation with either the cops or the crooks. I believe Hammett more or less invented this kind of go-between character, and this character proved very popular and influential in all genre work since, partly because a go-between can easily drive the plot.
Unfortunately, in Monsieur Spade, Clive Owen spends a bit too much of his time looking cool rather than working to move the story forward. Indeed, this French Spade often just ends up being just part of the furniture.
The great revelation of the summer was George V. Higgins, specifically the books written in first person about lawyer Jerry Kennedy.
Kennedy for the Defense (1981)
Penance for Jerry Kennedy (1985)
Defending Billy Ryan (1992)
Sandra Nichols Found Dead (1996)
Higgins made a splash in 1970 with his debut novel, The Friends of Eddie Coyle. Some would argue that this is the most influential crime novel of the last 60 years. Many would also argue that The Friends of Eddie Coyle was Higgins’s main contribution to the literature, that he never again wrote a book nearly as good.
Until recently I accepted that conventional wisdom. But my friend Tom Myron suggested I give later Higgins another chance, and I trust Tom’s taste. After I started getting into the Jerry Kennedy books I also read the detailed biography by Erwin H. Ford II, which is full of amazing stories about this one-of-a-kind author.
It turns out that Higgins was a famous lawyer who petitioned to reduce Watergate collaborator G. Gordon Liddy’s jail time. He began in the pages of Newsweek with an article called “Free Gordon Liddy!” The cause was picked up by others including the editorial board at The New York Times; two years later, President Jimmy Carter commuted Liddy’s sentence from 20 years to eight.
The voice of this article is indistinguishable from the voice of Jerry Kennedy in Kennedy for the Defense. The conclusion is memorable:
The man’s done the better part of what would have been a flat four-year sentence, for a lousy B & E. While it’s the rule that stand-up guys do time, he’s done his time for standing up, and done enough of it. It’s time to let him go.
I’m planning to write a full essay about Higgins and the Kennedy books. I even have a working title: “Defending George V. Higgins.”
For now, let me recommend the Jerry Kennedy books to connoisseurs of crime fiction. Kennedy for the Defense is a lot of fun and introduces the cast, but the meat is actually in Penance for Jerry Kennedy and Defending Billy Ryan. What happens to the main character is utterly remarkable. The final pages of both stun with unexpected conclusions. They are simply masterpieces of the genre. (Sandra Nichols Found Dead is a bit disappointing, but it is also very late in the game for Higgins. He would finish drinking himself to death three years after publication.)
Bits and pieces:
I’m currently reading The Boys of Summer by Roger Kahn, which is one of the famous books of sports reportage. Baseball is not my game but great sportswriting is fantastic entertainment.
As a boy I watched The Cincinnati Kid with Steve McQueen starring as a gifted poker player. What a fun thing to see it again. Each face of the cast is amazing: Edward G. Robinson, Ann-Margret, Karl Malden, Tuesday Weld, Joan Blondell, Rip Torn, Cab Calloway…
The only drawback to The Cincinnati Kid is the lesser score by Lalo Schifrin, including a bland title song that can’t quite be redeemed by Ray Charles.
Chris Welty suggested to me that The Cincinnati Kid pairs with Cool Hand Luke, as they both have a strong cast and conclude with “a very ‘60s moral.” Nice comment, especially since Cool Hand Luke also has a score by Lalo Schifrin, and in this case, the score is an unqualified success. That’s another essay I should write, a close listen to Schifrin’s work in The Cincinnati Kid (1965) and Cool Hand Luke (1967).
Speaking of soundtracks, I did a rather epic double bill of Klute and Chinatown, because Donald Sutherland passed away the same day it was the 50-year anniversary of the release of Chinatown. Michael Small supplied the amazing experimental music for Klute, while Jerry Goldsmith’s trumpet theme for Chinatown is famous. (The inoffensive credit music for Monsieur Spade is a sound-alike of the Chinatown trumpet theme.)
Like everyone else, I love Chinatown, but the revelation was Klute. '70s crime movies are so subtle, dark, and messy. Jane Fonda is amazing in a chaotic role that still has the power to shock.
It is unthinkable that a major studio would green-light such a script today.
The little free library on my block had a copy of The Crooked Hinge (1938), which was my choice for representing John Dickson Carr on the big list. If “golden age” mysteries are your bag, The Crooked Hinge definitely holds up. Like his peers Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers, Carr supplies plenty of comic touches in addition to a satisfying central puzzle. He is famous for his “locked room” mysteries, but what truly sets Carr apart from the rest is his ability to create unease, even horror.
If I want to provide an example of “deus ex machina”, I will now refer to Monsieur Spade!
I enjoyed the first 5 episodes and half of episode 6. You are too kind in saying it doesn’t stick the landing. I’m not sure it ever landed! Was that supposed to be a comment on American military and economic dominance in the early to mid-60s? I mean, WTF?