I saw this question on another board, but the same thing had occurred to me, too:
At the end of the movie, Caspar “The Fat Man” Guttman is chipping at the Maltese Falcon in stunned disbelief after he finds out that it’s only lead. His lines are dubbed–very obviously. Something like, “It’s a fake! It’s a fake!”
Anyone know why the lines were dubbed? (Obviously no one at the other board knew, either.)
What? These boards aren’t good enough for you so you have to moonlight?
Anywho, you can find the answer here, but it will cost you $15.
My WAG would be that the original recording of the lines was messed up and they were re-recorded in a different environment, which would make a noticeable difference.
You see (well, hear) this sort of thing pretty frequently in old movies. I imagine that when the film was new the audience wasn’t as sophisticated about the technical aspects of filmmaking and didn’t even notice the difference. Also, sound transmission wasn’t as good back then, so maybe you wouldn’t have heard a difference even had you known to listen for it.
–Cliffy, who knows that if one loses a son, he can always find another. There is only one Maltese Falcon.
Because in the first shoot, someone handed him by mistake the real Maltese Falcon, and he said “holy shit! this is the real mccoy!”
The authentic statuette was immediately snatched up by director John Huston and given to a stagehand for safekeeping. The stagehand, a larcenous fellow, immediately took off to Mexico but was killed in a car accident in Guadalajara. The statuette, which had been repainted black, knocked around from antique dealer to street vendor until it was bought by a turkish tourist.
Who cares to accompany me to Constantinople?
Okay, so why, when Grace Kelly swoops in on James Stewart for the first Big Lip-Lock in Hitchcock’s REAR WINDOW, does the film stock go all grainy and slo-mo?
(On the off chance that Ike isn’t kidding.) Because Hitchcock wanted it that way. “To prolong the kiss and make it appear more sensual, Hitchcock shot it in close-up and then double-printed each frame in slow-motion.”
From:
http://www.cnn.com/SHOWBIZ/9712/11/rearwindow.restoration.lat/