The Maltese Falcon and How To Win a Fistfight

When I’m reading The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett, I don’t picture Humphrey Bogart. I have a mental picture of my own 1930s gumshoe who fits for most noir mysteries, whether they’re written by Dashiell Hammett or Raymond Chandler.

I don’t ‘get’ Humphrey Bogart’s appeal, but I wasn’t alive when his movies came out. All I know is that my mom (and a bunch of other women of the time period) liked him. My mom (and a bunch of other women in the time period) also liked Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra too. I guess my mom liked drunk guys. It makes sense; she married a… aw, never mind.

This famous scene from The Maltese Falcon has always bugged me (but not because Humphrey Bogart is in it).

I’ve never tried to fight when I’ve had a cigarette in my mouth.  Getting into a fight while I was smoking a cigarette seemed like a waste of a good cigarette.  

Keep in mind, I’ve lost every fistfight I’ve ever been in.  Looking back, maybe I should have tried tried fighting with a cigarette in my mouth.

Or maybe I should have been like Sam Spade (Humphrey Bogart) in this scene and have only fought guys much smaller than me.  

I also have never tried disarming somebody while keeping the cigarette in my mouth.  My philosophy has always been to draw my gun before the other guy.  When you lose a few fistfights, you realize that pulling a gun first can keep you out of a fistfight.  Yeah, you might have to shoot the other guy, but the other guy is usually a trouble maker, and the world is better off with one fewer troublemaker stirring things up.

The book version of this scene in the novel The Maltese Falcon makes a little more sense; there’s no mention of a dangling cigarette. Sam Spade waits until after he punches out the guy to light a cigarette.

Hollywood. Pffft

I’m too old to get into fistfights, but I’m still capable of delivering a good sucker punch if I need to. And nothing is better after a satisfactory sucker punch than a freshly lit cigarette.