Sam Spade: Is that Russell?
Russell: Yeah, speaking.
Sam Spade: Listen, I know it's raining but I need to see you. I'll be at Prohibition Bar. Meet me at three o'clock.
Russell: Okay, but what's it about?
Sam Spade: I can't tell you now, but Gutman will be there and Cairo. Oh, yeah, Miss O'Shaughnessy will meet us there.
Russell: Okay, three o'clock.
Newcastle's Prohibition Bar opened its doors on Sunday afternoon and who should be there but Sam Spade with a bunch of shady looking characters. Sam's an old hand at this game so there were no worries that he could look after himself.
Cairo didn't impress Sam, even when waving a loaded gun in his direction. As for Gutman's henchman Wilmer, Sam first riled the knucklehead then dealt him a knockout blow. Miss O'Shaughnessy figured she could get round Sam using her feminine charms. Ha! Sam was having none of it! If the 'black bird' was so important to these two-bit losers - killing to get there hands on it - Sam reckoned he could be in for a piece of the action himself. As dime novel private investigators invariably do, Sam Spade emerged unscathed from a rollicking good yarn. It was nice to meet up with you once again, Sam.
Russell
1 comment :
Well done Mitch! It's good to have the tradition of Sunday afternoon films back. I remember, back in the good old Crombie days, Keith would often show a movie if no one turned up for the jam session. The Maltese Falcon may have been one of them - it was his kind of picture.
Love the line by Bogie - "The cheaper the crook, the gaudier the patter." If Hammett hadn't wrote it first then Crombie would have!
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