I just watched it now for the first time. I don’t understand a few things about the murder of Capt Jacobi (the guy who staggers into the office with the package and dies). Was it Wilmer who did it? If so why didn’t he take the package?? If it wasn’t Wilmer, who was it and again why not take the package?
In the book the shooting takes place in an alley in broad daylight outside Brigid O’Shaughnessy’s apartment. Wilmer can’t follow him due to an approaching policeman. All this is explained by Gutman.
I don’t think the movie mentioned it, mostly because it didn’t matter. I just thought it had to do with the fire.
BTW, the actor playing Jacobi in the film was John Huston’s fathretr, Walter Huston.
If memory serves, Wilmer went to the La Paloma to confront Jacobi, but shot him and started the fire, not necessarily in that order. In the chaos, Jacobi got clear with the bundle and took it to Spade, a name presumably given him by O’Shaughnessy.
The falcon hunters were a pretty inept band.
Gutman explains to Spade in the movie that Gutman/Cairo/Wilmer went to O’Shaughnessy’s apartment to get the bird, knowing that Jacobi was there with her. Before ringing the doorbell, Wilmer was sent to guard the fire excape. Indeed, Jacobi tried to escape down the fire escape, and Wilmer shot him, but Jacobi escaped though mortally wounded.
Well, a band can always get another drummer. But there’s only one Falcon.
My memory from the movie is that Wilmer shot Jacobi, but Jacobi still knocked him down and got away (though fatally wounded).
Outside of gunplay, Wilmer wasn’t much of a fighter.
Dammit, now I have to watch the movie again. (No bad thing)
What I always want to know is, whose voice is it we hear after the struggle with Cairo in Sam’s apartment, when Brigid says “why don’t you make him tell the truth?” (or something close to that). I swear that’s not Mary Astor’s voice.
I think there are post-dubs several places in the movie. Your example might be one, another is near the end where they discover that the falcon is a fake (several of the repetitions of “it’s a fake” sound like post-dubs to me). I imagine they used the same actors, but because they were not “in the moment” when the post-dubs were done, they sound different from the other lines as recorded during the filming. Possibly these actors weren’t accustomed to doing post-dubs, or the director didn’t care enough to make enough takes of them to get good ones.
That’s a plausible explanation (and you’re right, there is a conspicuously-odd “It’s a fake” in that scene).
Warner Bros. wouldn’t have known or guessed that the movie would be considered a classic, seven-decades-and-more on—or that people would be able to own copies of it and watch it over and over again. So they might well have cut some corners with the post-dubbing, assuming it wouldn’t be noticed.