Black Bird
         
Director: David Giler
Year: 1975
Rating: 3.0
Is there anything more painful than an unfunny spoof? Spoofs in general are not my thing but one that lays egg after egg for 90-minutes should be before the Hague. It is a bad idea, a poor script and badly executed. I give myself kudos for making it all the way through though admittedly my mind wandered from what do I want for dinner to is the world going to hell. The film was on the periphery of my attention. Kind of a dream walking by. I was so confused but I expect the writer was as well and certainly the main character was - and probably the actor. This is a sequel to The Maltese Falcon though initially the owner of the rights wanted to just make another version of the book. Next, he probably wanted to re-paint the Sistine Chapel. The Maltese Falcon is a near perfect film from a near perfect book. Moving Spade to France for the TV series Monsieur Spade was an interesting idea though not really needed. Though, I am looking forward to next season.

 

But here the premise is that the son of Sam Spade has inherited his detective business and his secretary (played by the same actress as in the 1941 film, Lee Patrick). And he hates being a detective and hates his secretary. Same office but now the neighborhood is black and the running joke is his name. Spade. Get it. Well. you will after about 20 times. When he is in a holding cell in jail the officer comes in and says Spade you can go free, all the blacks stand up ready to leave. Maybe mildly amusing the first time but not for long. The other running joke is his rented car that keeps rolling down a hill after he parks it. Once maybe. That is the size of the humor - like lead balloons dropping on your head. Spade played by George Segal in snappy glib dialogue mode is a two-bit gumshoe who would kill his mother for $25. A client asks him if he has the Maltese Falcon. You know "What dreams are made of". I guess Spade ended up with it when the film finished and everyone went their separate ways and it has been in a cabinet ever since.

 

He wants to sell it for chump change but this client isn't the only one who wants it - so does a mysterious Russian woman (Stéphane Audran) and a midget in a Nazi uniform and his four Hawaiian thugs.  Stéphane Audran was in a number of classic French films and was married to Chabrol at one time - I can't imagine what she was thinking. Also showing up for a few minutes is the wonderful Elisha Cook Jr as his same character in the Bogart version. Surprised they didn't dig up Sydney Greenstreet to play his character Gutman, who dies in the opening minute of this. Lionel Stander has a large role for reasons that elude me. I will watch anything remotely connected to Hammett but this was tough going.