The movie opens in Chicago in the summer of 2007. (Yes, Chicago. There are cities other than Los Angeles and New York.) Spade and Archer are two cops who respond to a call of a vehicle that’s behaving erratically. They arrive to find a BMW which is deliberately crashing into parked cars, garbage cans, and other random objects. They roll down their window and shout at the guy driving. It quickly becomes obvious that the guy is in the middle of an acid trip, and thinks he’s in a bumper car at a carnival. Spade and Archer try to talk him down, when suddenly the guy spots a little girl. Thinking she’s a garden gnome, the guy steps on the gas and tries to run her over. At this point, Spade and Archer have no choice but to draw their guns and shoot the guy, killing him. They should be celebrated as heroes, but fate has other plans. It turns out that the guy they killed is the son of a city councilman. Daddy refuses to believe that his baby boy could do anything so bad, and leans on the police chief to have the shooting declared unjustified. Spade and Archer are fired.
One year later, we find Spade and Archer working as bond enforcement agents (ie, bounty hunters), when a totally hot woman strolls into their office (a dingy, run-down storefront in a bad part of town), and asks them if they want to perform a side job for a few extra bucks…
As for the bad guys, here’s how I’d write them:
Joe Cairo is openly gay. He’s somewhat effeminate, but not so much that he starts to look like a sitcom character.
Gutman’s sexuality is ambiguous; he might be Cairo’s parter, or just his boss. We never find out one way or the other.
As for Wilmer, the first thing we need to do is change his name. “Wilmer” is totally not believable in this day and age. Let’s just call him Will. Will is Gutman’s stepson from a previous marriage. He’s about 18 or 19, and dresses like any teenager today would. He thinks of Gutman as a father, and calls him Dad. This makes the ending (when Gutman sells him out) actually somewhat tragic.
I’d guess that it would be near-impossible for somebody to film a modern noir movie without getting all hip and ironic and satirical of the noir genre itself.
No reason you could do that, either – Jacoby could be, say, the pilot of a plane who brought in the package as a favor to O’Shaughnessy.
It certainly can be remade (after all, the Bogart version was the second remake of the story). It might even be interesting to try remaking the Satan Met a Lady version.
Wasn’t L.A Confidential a noir film? Mind you, it was not set in the present day, so if that’s what you mean by a “modern” film then it doesn’t qualify. The Wikipedia article on film noir mentions Christopher Nolan and the Coen brothers as making modern noir films (as well as Brick and Veronica Mars).
I could see Scarlett Johansen as a modern O’shaunessy.
And I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that, very broadly speaking, Brickis a remake of Falcon. Our hero is working his way through the bad guys to find out who is responsible for the death of someone important to him, plays them off against each other, sees through and sets up the femme fatale, while being smitten with her nonetheless. Hell, the final scene is practically lifted from Falcon.
I could see Kevin Spacey doing the Cairo role. Think the Usual Suspects without the physical contortions and just a wiff (but just a wiff [probably gardinias]) of affectation.
Otto, I hate to break the news to you, but you’re gay. Your concept of a sexy woman is probably about as accurate as my concept of a sexy man. (Humphrey Bogart, by the way. )
I don’t see any reason the movie couldn’t be remade in a modern style using basically the same script. Could be good; could be bad; could be another classic - who knows?
My only issue with it would be that Bogart typecasted not only his roles, but his movies. I’d have a hard time settling into watching it without having him in the back of my mind. That’s not to say that a good actor of today couldn’t get me over that hump, it’s just something that would be there.
Harrison Ford pulls off a convincing Bogie in the Sabrina remake - and Blade Runner is basically Sam Spade of the future. He may be too old now to do a convincing Sam Spade, but I think if you stick to type, you might be able to do it…it isn’t Bogie - nothing is, of course.
I thin Jolie can play a character part. I know early Crawford could, per the aforementioned “Grand Hotel.”
I am? Son of a bitch!
I can from an academic standpoint figure out if a woman is sexy or not. It’s not like they cut that piece of your brain out at gay school or nothin’. And I’m sorry, but Mary Astor in that role was not sexy.
Resurrecting this thread because I watched the movie yet again last night on TCM. I tried to look at Mary Astor through more objective eyes. I think the problem of putative lack of sex appeal has to do with her clothes and her hair style. She wore a short-ish style close against her head, so it didn’t flow or move (although it did get mussed). This gave her the quality more of a gamin than a vamp, except that she was too old for the gamin effect. That plus the unflattering dresses made her look a little dowdy at times.
Then in the last scene, with her mascara running and with the shape of her face, she reminded me strongly of Tammie Faye.
I still think she was very good in the role, and that no-one even now would think her unsuitable if she’d had better clothes and possibly a different hairstyle.
p.s. I still want to know who the hell Gladys George was and why she got third billing. Clearly they edited the hell out of her last scene in the movie, was she as awful as that?
Roddy
Yeah, I would. I hope my point didn’t come across too ham-handed, but on further reflection it wasn’t a good point - there are no doubt plenty of straight guys who agree with you that she’s not sexy. So forget it, I was wrong.
I could see Ginger Rogers doing it–but the role seems to call for a dark haired woman (in my head). One of the surprise elements of the plot is the twist in Mary Astor’s character. Go too hard boiled and the gig is up. Go to femme fatale and the shock value is gone.
Since when is the criteria of good casting the potential fuckability of the female lead?
<vows to not share popcorn with any of these deviants>
I again refer those gathered here to early Joan Crawford. Watch her in “Rain” go from (story arc spoiler) hard-boiled to terrified to pious to relapsed in the space of 90 minutes.