Sam Spade is a fictional character and the
protagonist
A protagonist () is the main character of a story. The protagonist makes key decisions that affect the plot, primarily influencing the story and propelling it forward, and is often the character who faces the most significant obstacles. If a st ...
of
Dashiell Hammett
Samuel Dashiell Hammett (; May 27, 1894 – January 10, 1961) was an American writer of hard-boiled detective novels and short stories. He was also a screenwriter and political activist. Among the enduring characters he created are Sam Spade ('' ...
's 1930 novel ''
The Maltese Falcon''. Spade also appeared in four lesser-known short stories by Hammett.
''The Maltese Falcon'', first published as a serial in the pulp magazine ''
Black Mask'', is the only full-length novel by Hammett in which Spade appears. The character, however, is widely cited as a crystallizing figure in the development of
hard-boiled
Hardboiled (or hard-boiled) fiction is a literary genre that shares some of its characters and settings with crime fiction (especially detective fiction and noir fiction). The genre's typical protagonist is a detective who battles the violence ...
private detective fiction—
Raymond Chandler's
Philip Marlowe
Philip Marlowe () is a fictional character created by Raymond Chandler, who was characteristic of the hardboiled crime fiction genre. The hardboiled crime fiction genre originated in the 1920s, notably in ''Black Mask'' magazine, in which Dashiel ...
, for instance, was strongly influenced by Spade.
Spade was a departure from Hammett's nameless and less-than-glamorous detective,
The Continental Op. Spade combined several features of previous detectives, most notably his detached demeanor, keen eye for detail, and unflinching determination to achieve his own justice.
Portrayals
Spade was a new character created specifically by Hammett for ''The Maltese Falcon''; he had not appeared in any of Hammett's previous stories. Hammett says about him:
Spade has no original. He is a dream man in the sense that he is what most of the private detectives I worked with would like to have been and in their cockier moments thought they approached. For your private detective does not—or did not ten years ago when he was my colleague—want to be an erudite solver of riddles in the Sherlock Holmes manner; he wants to be a hard and shifty fellow, able to take care of himself in any situation, able to get the best of anybody he comes in contact with, whether criminal, innocent by-stander or client.[Introduction to ''The Maltese Falcon'' (1934 edition)](_blank)
/ref>
From the 1940s onward, the character became closely associated with actor
Humphrey Bogart, who played Spade in the
third and best-known film version of ''The Maltese Falcon''. Though Bogart's slight frame, dark features and no-nonsense depiction contrasted with Hammett's vision of Spade (blond, well-built and mischievous), his sardonic portrayal was well-received, and is generally regarded as an influence on both
film noir and the genre's archetypal private detective.
Spade was played by
Ricardo Cortez in the
first film version in 1931. Despite being a critical and commercial success, an attempt to re-release the film in 1936 was denied approval by the
Production Code
The Motion Picture Production Code was a set of industry guidelines for the self-censorship of content that was applied to most motion pictures released by major studios in the United States from 1934 to 1968. It is also popularly known as the ...
Office due to the film's lewd content. Since
Warner Bros. could not re-release the film, a second version was made. For the comedy ''
Satan Met a Lady'' (1936), the central character was renamed Ted Shane and was played by
Warren William. The film was a box-office failure.
On the radio, Spade was played by
Edward G. Robinson
Edward G. Robinson (born Emanuel Goldenberg; December 12, 1893January 26, 1973) was a Romanian-American actor of stage and screen, who was popular during the Hollywood's Golden Age. He appeared in 30 Broadway plays and more than 100 films duri ...
in a 1943 ''
Lux Radio Theatre'' production, and by Bogart in both a 1943 ''
Screen Guild Theater'' production and a 1946 ''
Academy Award Theater
''Academy Award'' (also listed as ''Academy Award Theater)''Terrace, Vincent. (1999). ''Radio Programs, 1924–1984: A Catalog of More Than 1800 Shows''. McFarland & Company, Inc. . p. 8. is a CBS radio anthology series, which presented 30-minut ...
'' production. A 1946-1951 radio show called ''
The Adventures of Sam Spade'' (on ABC, CBS, and NBC) starred
Howard Duff (and later
Steve Dunne) as Sam Spade and
Lurene Tuttle as Spade's devoted secretary Effie Perrine, and took a considerably more tongue-in-cheek approach to the character.
George Segal played Sam Spade, Jr., son of the original, in the film spoof, ''
The Black Bird'' (1975). ''The Black Bird'' was panned by critics.
Peter Falk delivered a more successful spoof the following year as Sam Diamond in
Neil Simon's ''
Murder by Death''. This was preceded by the spoof character Sam Diamond in ''
The Addams Family'' episode "
Thing Is Missing" (1965) portrayed by Tommy Farrell.
In 2009, with the approval of the estate of Dashiell Hammett, the veteran detective-story writer
Joe Gores published ''Spade & Archer: The Prequel to Dashiell Hammett's THE MALTESE FALCON'' with
Alfred A. Knopf
Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. () is an American publishing house that was founded by Alfred A. Knopf Sr. and Blanche Knopf in 1915. Blanche and Alfred traveled abroad regularly and were known for publishing European, Asian, and Latin American writers i ...
, the original publisher of Hammett's ''The Maltese Falcon''.
Books
* ''The Maltese Falcon'' (1930)
** Serialized in five parts, in the September 1929 to January 1930 issues of ''Black Mask''
* ''Spade and Archer'' by
Joe Gores (2009)
* ''The Radio Adventures of Sam Spade'' (2007) by
Martin Grams
Martin Grams Jr. (born April 19, 1977) is an American popular culture historian who wrote and co-wrote over thirty books about network broadcasting and motion-pictures. Born in Baltimore, Maryland, Grams is the son of a magician, Martin Grams Sr. ...
, Jr., OTR Publishing, Churchville,
Maryland
Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean t ...
.
Short stories
* "A Man Called Spade" (July 1932, ''
The American Magazine''; also collected in ''A Man Called Spade and Other Stories'')
* "Too Many Have Lived" (October 1932, ''The American Magazine''; also collected in ''A Man Called Spade and Other Stories'')
* "They Can Only Hang You Once" (November 19, 1932, ''Colliers''; also in ''A Man Called Spade and Other Stories'')
* "A Knife Will Cut for Anybody" (Unpublished in Hammett's lifetime—published in 2013)
Collections
''A Man Called Spade and Other Stories''(1944) (contains three Sam Spade stories from ''The American Magazine'' and ''Colliers''—listed above)
* ''Nightmare Town'' (1999) (contains three Sam Spade stories from ''The American Magazine'' and ''Colliers''—listed above)
Films
* ''
The Maltese Falcon'' (1931,
Warner Bros.) (also known as ''Dangerous Female''), starring
Ricardo Cortez as Sam Spade
* ''
Satan Met a Lady'' (1936, Warner Bros.) (based on ''The Maltese Falcon'', with the character names and the object of their search changed), starring
Warren William in the lead role
* ''
The Maltese Falcon'' (1941, Warner Bros.), starring
Humphrey Bogart as Sam Spade
* ''
The Black Bird'' (1975, Columbia), a comedy
sequel to the 1941 film, starring
George Segal as "Sammy" Spade, Jr.
* ''
The Strange Case of the End of Civilization as We Know It'' (1977), played by Mike O'Malley; a
Sherlock Holmes
Sherlock Holmes () is a fictional detective created by British author Arthur Conan Doyle. Referring to himself as a " consulting detective" in the stories, Holmes is known for his proficiency with observation, deduction, forensic science and ...
spoof in which Spade is killed by the granddaughter of
Professor Moriarty
Professor James Moriarty is a fictional character and criminal mastermind created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to be a formidable enemy for the author's fictional detective Sherlock Holmes. He was created primarily as a device by which Doyle coul ...
Radio
* ''Screen Guild Theater'': "The Maltese Falcon" (1943,
CBS: 30-minute version of the story, starring
Humphrey Bogart as Spade,
Mary Astor as Brigid O'Shaughnessy,
Sydney Greenstreet as Casper Gutman, and
Peter Lorre as Joel Cairo.)
* ''Lux Radio Theatre'': "The Maltese Falcon" (1943,
CBS): a 60-minute version of the novel, starring
Edward G. Robinson
Edward G. Robinson (born Emanuel Goldenberg; December 12, 1893January 26, 1973) was a Romanian-American actor of stage and screen, who was popular during the Hollywood's Golden Age. He appeared in 30 Broadway plays and more than 100 films duri ...
as Spade and
Laird Cregar
Samuel Laird Cregar (July 28, 1913December 9, 1944) was an American stage and film actor. Cregar was best known for his villainous performances in films such as ''I Wake Up Screaming'' (1941) and '' The Lodger'' (1944).
Cregar's screen career ...
as Gutman
* ''Academy Award Theatre'': "The Maltese Falcon" (1946, CBS): 30-minute version of the story, starring
Humphrey Bogart,
Mary Astor, and
Sydney Greenstreet
* ''
The Adventures of Sam Spade'' (1946, ABC): 13 30-minute episodes, starring
Howard Duff
* ''The Adventures of Sam Spade'' (1946–1949, CBS): 157 30-minute episodes, starring
Howard Duff
* ''The Adventures of Sam Spade'' (1949–1950, NBC): 51 30-minute episodes, starring
Howard Duff
* ''The Adventures of Sam Spade'' (1950–1951, NBC): 24 30-minute episodes, starring
Steve Dunne
* ''Suspense'': "The House in Cypress Canyon" (December 5, 1946, CBS): 30 minutes, featuring
Howard Duff
* ''Suspense'': "The Kandy Tooth Caper" (January 10, 1948, CBS): 60 minutes, starring
Howard Duff
* ''Maxwell House Coffee Time'' (aka The Burns And Allen Show): "Gracie Sends Sam Spade to Jail" (February 10, 1949
NBC) a 30-minute episode starring
Howard Duff—both as himself and as Sam Spade.
[http://radiogoldindex.com/cgi-local/p2.cgi?ProgramName=Maxwell+House+Coffee+Time]
* ''The Adventures of Babe Lincoln'' (circa 1950, CBS): unaired, starring
Howard Duff
* ''
Charlie Wild, Private Detective
''Charlie Wild, Private Detective'' is an American detective series that aired on three of the four major American television networks of the 1950s.
Origin
The program was the televised version of a radio program with the same title. At least som ...
'' (September 24, 1950, NBC): premiere broadcast only, guest appearance
Howard Duff
* BBC Radio 4: "The Maltese Falcon" (1984): starring
Tom Wilkinson,
Jane Lapotaire
Jane Elizabeth Marie Lapotaire (née Burgess; 26 December 1944) is an English actress.
Biography
Lapotaire was born in Ipswich, Suffolk, the daughter of Louise Elise (Burgess). Her stepfather, Yves Lapotaire, worked in the oil industry and wa ...
, and
Nickolas Grace
* ''The Maltese Falcon'' (2009):
Grammy-nominated audio play, starring
Michael Madsen as Spade,
Sandra Oh as Brigid and
Edward Herrmann as Gutman, produced by The
Hollywood Theater of the Ear
Hollywood usually refers to:
* Hollywood, Los Angeles, a neighborhood in California
* Hollywood, a metonym for the cinema of the United States
Hollywood may also refer to:
Places United States
* Hollywood District (disambiguation)
* Hollywood ...
and published by
Blackstone Audio.
Comics
* ''The Maltese Falcon'' (1946, Feature Books #48, David McKay Publications) Artist:
Rodlow Willard
* Sam Spade
Wildroot Hair Tonic Ads (1950s)
** Single-page comic strips, appeared in newspapers, magazines, comic books. Tie-in with radio show ''
The Adventures of Sam Spade'', which Wildroot also sponsored. Artist:
Lou Fine.
* Spade was highlighted in volume 21 of the ''
Detective Conan'' manga's edition of "
Gosho Aoyama's Mystery Library", in the section (usually the last page) where the author introduces a different detective (or occasionally, a villain) from mystery literature, television, or other media.
Notes
External links
Thrilling Detective WebsiteDashiell Hammett Tour of Sam Spade's San Francisco
{{DEFAULTSORT:Spade, Sam
Fictional private investigators
Characters in American novels of the 20th century
Literary characters introduced in 1930
Characters in pulp fiction
Fictional characters from San Francisco
Thriller film characters
Dashiell Hammett characters
Male characters in literature
Male characters in film