Because I’m planning a trip back to the City by the Bay next month, I’m deep into a San Francisco movie binge. Nothing is off the table, from JLo rom-coms (The Wedding Planner) to Clint Eastwood’s Dirty Harry (a movie I shockingly LOVED). However, there’s one classic film that absolutely can’t be skipped, even if I might have wanted to: The Maltese Falcon (Disc/Download).
It’s not that I don’t appreciate aspects of this noir. Humphrey Bogart is fantastic as private investigator Sam Spade, in a truly genre-defining performance. The cinematography is stunning, with its chiaroscuro lighting and murky dark alleys. Where I get lost is in the script. Maybe I need to read Dashiell Hammett’s original novel, or maybe I just need to watch this in a theatrical setting with absolutely no distractions. But at a certain point, roughly twenty minutes in, my mind starts to wander, and then boom!
I’m lost.
All it takes is a couple of missed lines for me to wonder who’s double crossing whom, who has the precious falcon statue, what happened to the missing sister, and why the jolly actor from Christmas in Connecticut (Sydney Greenstreet) has two equally offensive character names: Gutman and “Fat Man”. Maybe it makes more sense with a drink? Let’s test the theory.
I thought this film would be a great match for the bottle of Bogart’s gin I picked up last summer, but there’s an unfortunate lack of onscreen martinis. However, there is a scene involving a freighter ship called La Paloma, so I’m going to take that cocktail direction and run with it. Research tells me Sam Spade drank copious amounts of Bacardi rum in Hammett’s novel, so I’m swapping out the traditional tequila base for rum. And since La Paloma goes up in flames, we should probably make that rum extra spicy. While watching The Maltese Falcon, I recommend drinking this Firebird cocktail.
Firebird
2 oz jalapeño-infused rhum agricole (chop a few rings of jalapeño pepper, and soak overnight in the liquor. After infused, remove the solids)
1/2 oz lime juice
3 oz Fever Tree grapefruit soda
Lime wheel and jalapeño ring (garnish)
Fill a tumbler with ice and set aside. Combine infused rhum agricole with lime juice in a shaker with fresh ice. Shake to chill, then strain into prepared glass. Top with grapefruit soda, stir gently, then garnish with a lime wheel and jalapeño ring.
The San Francisco setting goes quite nicely with a film noir aesthetic, so much so that the city becomes like another character. It is as steady and calm as Bogey staring down the barrel of a gun, and you know no matter what happens with the dame or the bird statue, the fog will still roll across the Golden Gate bridge, just as Sam Spade will live to sigh and shake his head once more. Cheers!
Cinema Sips 