Maltese Falcon Spade and Archer Office (cg)

[joberg]

You're right; I thought that the radio was on another piece of furniture and not so close to his desk

 

[Lightning]

You're right; I thought that the radio was on another piece of furniture and not so close to his desk

It moves during the course of the movie, he reorganizes the office after Archer's death.

 

[SteveStarkiller]

well, he doesn't reorganize, Effie does. Which is actually kind of impressive. In the time it takes Spade to go to Wonderly/O'Shaughnessy's apartment, chew her out, and return to the office; Effie has had the movers take out Archer's desk and chair, swapped the floor safe and the filing cabinet, got the windows cleaned and repainted, inside and out, swaped a few lamps out, and moved around some of the electronic equipment. Not bad for a days work, sister.

heh, no trouble Joberg, I was honestly hoping there was something I missed. I'm pretty much down to the last few items to model.

 

[VonMagnum]

OMG! That is AWESOME! I'm so imagining a Sam Spade video game now....

Now I have the sudden urge to look for more Maltese Falcon props (god knows where I'd put them at this point in the home theater room).

 

[VonMagnum]

I found a lovely police band model that otherwise (than going to 170MHz instead of 160MHz) looks identical on the outside and unlike the 15x one I did find (with a chunk missing, cut cord and probably not working internals even with a new cord), it actually still works and for only $30 more than the guy is asking for the 15x. You'd think a detective would have the police band model (Bogie specifically asked for police band model in the movie Dead Reckoning).

So, I can either pretend it's close enough or buy the crappier non-working actual model or just keep looking. I have nowhere good to display it anyway, but this thread got me excited about Maltese Falcon props again. I kept thinking about having a gold jeweled bird made too (wasn't going to be cheap), but then it wasn't shown in the movie, just described somewhat so.... Ugh. Decisions.

Edit: A "restored" 15X model on PinInterest shows 170 Police Band as does a Retro Farm Radio site of one sold restored and the both say 15X on them. Were there two variations of the 15X model? Was it shown clearly enough in the movie or outside photos to be sure?

Edit 2: I just scanned the entire movie. You can't tell the 160/170 on the dial (too blurry) at any point, but I don't know if some production photos might show whether it's the police band model or not.

 

[SteveStarkiller]

if I ever find the time, my plan is to turn this model into a game in the Unreal Engine, and the object would be simply to turn the place upside down looking for the bird. Pull the drawers out, scatter the papers, knock things over- just for fun. There would be an opening line of dialogue "go ahead, haha, I won't stop ya"

 

[SteveStarkiller]

No real update but I think I confirmed that the “telex” intercom we can’t identify definitely does have an earpiece on the side. It was hard to tell at first.

At the roughly 24-minute mark, just before Peter Lorre pulls a gun on Spade, he gets a buzz and Effie asks if she can go home. I just noticed on a rewatch that the phone in front of him is hung up and in the reverse shot he’s definitely holding a single earpiece to listen to her before he hangs up when Cairo tells him to clasp his hands at the back of his neck.

The hunt continues.

 

[martinmillan99]

Here's a new one I've been messing around with, a set from one my favorites.

I started with a few stills of the set and photomatched them in sketchup. You can see how I blocked out all the objects in these preliminary matches.

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a lot of blood sweat and tears later, here's a quick render of where I've got to.

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and here's a rough overhead layout

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I've discovered a lot of interesting things along the way.

For instance I can say for certain that Spade's office is located on Market Street between the Call Building Tower (now demolished) visible behind Archer in the opening scenes:

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and on the other side the Humboldt Bank Building, visible behind Mrs Archer later on.

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which puts it somewhere in this photo from 1930
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of course it must be said, if you're familiar with San Francisco geography, that if it was really between those buildings the windows would face west, putting the bridge behind the office-- not visible as shown prominently in the movie. It seems a little artistic license was taken, but I always love that kind of thing.

more in the coming weeks!

Hi! My name is Martin, I'm an indie filmmaker from Madrid, Spain. I love your work. Is there anyway I can get in touch with you?