I just saw the famous film-noir classic - THE MALTESE FALCON. Great performances, especially by Mr. Greenstreet (as the evil Casper). I have seen Greenstreet (mostly holding bit parts), but I don’t know a great deal about him. Anybody know more about tghis largely-forgotten actor?
I can briong in his NYT obit if you like next week . . . And I suggest his brief bio and filmography at Imdb.com. He was a terrific character actor!
Interestingly, the mini-bio at the IMDB is a thinly reworded and paraphrased version of what Ephrain Katz published in his The Film Encyclopedia. The kind of job I would have expected from my 9th grader.
Yes, please post the obit…I just saw another old flick “CUSTER” with Greenstreet as Genral Winfield Scott. I understand that Greenstreet had been a stage actor for most of his life, and came into the movies quite late in his career.
Anyway, he had real personality, and a great voice.
Greenstreet also played with Bogart and Lorre in “Casablanca” (he’s the owner of the Blue Parrot).
That’s Mister Gutman to you, Slick.
This thread reminds me of Peter Lorre by Jazz Butcher.
I have it on 12". I wonder if it’s on CD?
Greenstreet reputedly turned down a number of roles in the 1930s, but I only vaguely recall one of them. There is also a story about how he was talked into doing The Maltese Falcon, but I can’t recall it, either. Here’s part of what I remember, perhaps not so well:
I think that the Dashiell Hammett story was instrumental in dragging Greenstreet onto the screen. He appears to have been a fan of Hammett and his girlfriend, Lillian Hellman, although I don’t know if they were personal friends or not.
I think I recall once reading that Greenstreet was considering an earlier role offered by an early script treatment of Hammett’s The Thin Man, as the title character. How can that be?
The “Thin Man” was actually a very obese fellow, murdered and buried with a thin man’s clothes in order to throw off the authorities as to his identity. In one of those classic misassociations, the “Thin Man” title became tied to William Powell’s Nick Charles, and followed him and Myrna Loy through the entire successful series of sequels.
As it happened, the script of The Thin Man diverged widely from the book (and as best I can tell, the script Greenstreet eyeballed must have done the same but in a different direction), and the role all but disappeared. Hope I’m not wrong about all this.
If you like watching films purely for the actors involved, you may be interested in seeing Greenstreet, Mary Astor, and Bogart essentially reprising their Falcon roles in a much less entertaining film, Across The Pacific, also directed by John Huston but apparently while he was sleepwalking.