1941 – Sydney Greenstreet
The Maltese Falcon
Am I being too critical, to judgmental? Here we are with another actor nominated for an Oscar, and once again, I am questioning his nomination. I mean, he was good, but not great, and I want something great. There just wasn’t much to his character. He only showed up about half-way through the film, which doesn’t necessarily mean anything, but his on-screen time to impress me was limited.
He only had two or three facial expressions that he kept recycling. Playing the character of Kasper Gutman, Greenstreet went from serious to mildly amused, to frustrated, and that was about it. He was not given a wide range of emotions to explore, nor were any of his scenes particularly intense. He seemed personable enough for the bad guy, but his men, Joel Cairo and Wilmer Cook were more menacing than him. But maybe that was just how the character was written. Maybe I can’t lay that all on Greenstreet’s shoulders.
Still, he had an affable enough on-screen persona with a personable smile and a disarming attitude. I suppose that made him interesting to watch. But even at the climax of the plot, I think I wanted more from him. He has been pursuing the fabled Maltese Falcon for seventeen years. He finally has the statuette in his hands. But within seconds, he learns that it is a fake. Then, without missing a beat he laughs it off and says that the quest continues. One would think that a man with such an obsession would be more angry at learning that the time and money he spent trying to find the Falcon were all for nothing. But no. He chuckles, shrugs it off, and leaves to return to Constantinople. Written that way? Yes. But I still think I wanted a more powerful reaction than I got.
Two final thoughts about Greenstreet’s performance. First, he wasn’t bad in the roll, but I don’t think the roll was worth the nomination. Second, the original ending of the novel might have enhanced his character. In both the movie and the book, Gutman leaves with Cook and Cairo. That’s the end of it, except to imply that the police are going to arrest the trio. But in the original novel, Cook kills Gutman, presumably because he was willing to make Cook the fall-guy for all the murders, even the ones he didn’t commit. That could have been a cool scene, and at least Greenstreet could have had a cool death scene.