I rented the Swordfish DVD last week, and decided to play the “alternate endings” to the movie. During one of the alternate endings, Travolta is on a boat, and describes the end of The Maltese Falcon, and how it was an effort in futility.
AAARGH!!! I’ve NEVER SEEN THE MALTESE FALCON! Couldn’t they have at least given me a little warning that such a spoiler existed?? Sheesh…Now I know why they abandoned this ending for the theaters!
Are there others out there that I should avoid??
I think they assume that classic movies that old are fair game, but you probably realize that already…
Though this makes me wonder if, for example, how many modern moviegoers have ever seen, say, Psycho or Citizen Kane with unblemished eyes, ending-wise…
Gee, I guess there’s no point in seeing The Maltese Falcon now.
Seriously, if you haven’t seen it, how do you know that it’s a spoiler? In this case, I guess you could say that it is, but I doubt it would ruin your enjoyment of the film at all. Come on. Go see it right away, and let this be a lesson to ya. 
The movie’s fifty years old, and is one of the mose important American films ever made. If you haven’t seen it by now, you deserve to have it spoiled.
[sub]No, I haven’t seen it either.[/sub]
The point of The Maltese Falcon is not the ending, but the story itself. There’s no such thing as a spoiler for it, IMHO, because despite the fact that it is a mystery, it’s not a whodunnit. It’s not like they could say “The butler did it!” or something.
I’ve seen the movie, but I’ve read the book more often than I’ve watched it on film.
The Maltese Falcon is about verbal style and the carachters attitudes. What happens is almost beside the point.
SPOILER
That’s the only reason I can think of Falcon as a great movie and love Spade even tough he’s a homophobe.
If you haven’t seen it by now, you would of never seen it.
I wouldn’t call him a homophobe at all. And some have argued that he’s quite the opposite.
[spoiler]True, he jokes about Cairo’s scented business card – a signal he’s gay – but he generally accepts their behavior as being their own business.
Cairo, Guttman, and Wilbur are all gay, and Spade knows it (he calls Wilbur a “gunsel,” a word that does not mean what most people think it means). Yet he works with them and is very matter-of-fact about it all. “You tell your gunsel to stay away from me.” At no time does he show any hatred or disgust toward them because of their sexuality.[/spoiler]
One of the great things about seeing the movie today is to spot the strong homosexual subtext throughout the film.
Do you have a cite for that? The only definition I know of is a “gun-carrying hood”.
Here here! It’s bad enough people complain about spoilers so much on the board, but to be upset that a 50 year old film was discussed in another film and “ruined it” for you is just ridiculous! Hell, even if someone on the boards talked about the ending, to be upset about it is silly. Basically, any movie that’s 5 years or older, if you had any interest in seeing it and really cared, you should have seen it by now. Obviously, you didn’t care enough to watch it the multitude of times it’s come on television or been on the shelves in the video store, so don’t get so bent out of shape.
It’s like when someone in a television show is watching Citizen Kane and another character screams “It’s his sled!” Big spoiler, but I don’t think there’s a single person alive who doesn’t know that fact. To scream “Foul” is just childish.
Check this out, Johnny:
Main Entry: gun·sel
Pronunciation: 'g&n(t)-s&l
Function: noun
Etymology: slang gunsel catamite, perhaps modification of Yiddish gendzl gosling
So then I looked up catamite:
Main Entry: cat·a·mite
Pronunciation: 'ka-t&-"mIt
Function: noun
Etymology: Latin catamitus, from Catamitus Ganymede, from Etruscan Catmite, from Greek GanymEdEs
Date: 1593
: a boy kept by a pederast
Mebbe that’s what he meant?
(From M-W Online.)
Although I definitely agree in the case of a true classic, such as MF, I don’t think this applies for every movie more than five years old.
As the years go by, there are more and more older films that one wouldacouldashoulda seen but hasn’t gotten to just yet. If you told me in 1945 I should have seen all of the classics from the 1930s, I’d say you’re right, I shoulda! But to tell me in 2003 that I shoulda seen all the classics from 1900-1998 isn’t quite reasonable, although I’m trying my goldangest.
Besides, it’s not necessarily that the person doesn’t care enough to watch the movie (and again, I’m not saying MF applies in this case at all); perhaps they simply haven’t had the time to do so. Not everyone places a heavy emphasis on watching movies, and perhaps it’s not anyone else’s job to tell them that they darn well ought to.
Nifty hyperbole! The sled “spoiler” isn’t a real spoiler now because so many people have repeated it to others, which was your point anyway. The ones that probably shouldn’t be spoiled are the older movies that most people haven’t seen, such as Kiss of Death, After the Thin Man, M, and so forth.
Interesting. Spade didn’t strike me as one who would speak Yiddish. Of course, there were probably a lot of writers who did. I always thought Spade was using a weird word for a henchman, but now it looks like it may have been an intentional double entendre.
I never picked up on Guttman being gay, though. Cairo was effete, but I can’t see Guttman being interested in him that way. I’ll have to dig out the DVD and watch it again.
Let me chime in with the others: knowing the ending doesn’t spoil the movie in any way. The joy of the movie is the dialog, the action, the motion, the character interaction. The plot is pretty much irrelevant.
Besides, there are actually several “twists” in the ending, so I’m not sure which one was spoiled. “Exercise in futility” suggests that the “spoiler” has to do with the falcon, in which case, that’s only a minor catch, and there are other twists as well. Just because the title is THE MALTESE FALCON doesn’t mean that the falcon is the principle character or plot.
Does it spoil RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK to learn that the ark turns out to be a death-ray?
Johnny L.A. wrote:
You might be suprised how much slang thrown around in the 1930’s was Yiddish in origin. The term Cannon, meaning pickpocket, was a play on gun, which came from the Yiddish gonif.
Have. Would have.
In the novel, the character of Joel Cairo is definitely gay. But where do you get Gutman and Wilbur? Either could be, but I recall nothing in the film to indicate that either of those two were.
On the first point – it was not a double entendre. The word “gunsel” – meaning a young homosexual, usually the partner of an older male – was first cited in the OED in 1914. Dashiell Hammett used it in his novel in 1929.
The use of “gunsel” to mean a gunman has a first cite in 1950.
When “The Maltese Falcon” was made into a movie, the only meaning for the word was “homosexual.” But the slang was still obscure enough to get by the Hayes Office and onto the screen.
On the second point – Guttman was interested in Wilbur, not Cairo. Spade refers to Wilbur as “your gunsel” when talking to Guttman; tellingly, Guttman doesn’t argue the point. And pay attention to how Guttman says “Wilbur was like a son to me.”
Also, the way Guttman takes Spade’s arm when they first meet is clearly designed to signal something. Some have even argued that Spade was gay himself.
To answer this directly: calling Wilbur a gunsel is a clear sign that Spade thought he was gay. Calling him Guttman’s gunsel – which Spade does directly to Guttman – is calling them a gay couple. Guttman does not dispute this, and some of Greenstreet’s line readings clearly indicate that his calling Wilbur “almost a son,” means something much different.
SPOILERS
RealityChuck
I didn’t know that meaning of gunsel and it does throw light on Guttman’s relation to Wilbur. Still Spade had no reason to beat Cairo up as he did after smelling his card. I always saw it as Spade provoking Cairo so he had an excuse to beat him.
Also “gunsel” doesn’t seem to be a nice term to call a person.