Walter Long | Through the Shattered Lens

When his innocent son, Ted (David Sharpe), is accused of committing a murder, Lex Crane (Walter Long) turns him over to Texas Ranger Jack Haile (Jack Randall) because he knows that Jack will make sure that Ted gets a fair trial. Lex says that he and his men are accused of every crime that happens in the area, even though they’re always innocent. Jack understand and respects Lex as a man and a father. But when someone shoots and kills Ted, Lex and his men set out for revenge. The twist? Lex has a twin brother named Buck (also played by Walter Long) and the two brothers hate each other.

Most poverty row westerns blend into each other but Man’s Country stands out as an intelligent and well-acted western. Even though the twin twist is undoubtedly an overdone one, Man’s Country does a good job with it and Walter Long gives such a good performance that both Lex and Buck emerge as individual, identifiable characters. Jack Randall may not have been the greatest of the old western actors but he’s believable as the tough but fair Texas Ranger. There’s enough western action for fans of the genre but, for once, the plot is interesting enough that it might hold the attention of other watchers as well.

Of course, this is a Poverty Row western so Charles King does appear as one of the bad guys. He gets into a fist fight, like he almost always did. I wonder how many onscreen punches Charles King actually threw over the course of his career in the westerns. It had to have been a lot.

Detective Sam Spade (Ricardo Cortez) may be an immoral lech but when his partner, Miles Archer, is murdered, Sam sets out to not only figure out who did it but to also eliminate himself as a suspect. Sam was having an affair with Miles’s wife, Ivy (Thelma Todd). Sam’s investigation leads to him falling for the mysterious Miss Wonderly (Bebe Daniels) and getting involved with a trio of flamboyant criminals who are searching for a famous relic, the Maltese Falcon. Dudley Digges plays Casper Gutman. Otto Matieson plays Dr. Joel Cairo. Dwight Frye plays the gunsel, Wilmer, who Gutman says he “loves … like a son.”

The first film adaptation of Dashiell Hammett’s classic detective novel is overshadowed by the version that John Huston would direct ten years later. That’s not surprising. There’s a lot of good things about the first version but it’s never as lively than John Huston’s version and neither Dudley Digges nor Otto Matieson can compare to Sydney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre. Of the supporting cast, Dwight Frye makes the best impression as the twitchy Wilmer and Bebe Daniels and Thelma Todd are both sexy as the story’s femme fatales. That doesn’t mean that they’re better than their counterparts in John Huston’s film. It just means they all bring a different energy to their roles and it’s interesting to see how the same story can be changed by just taking a slightly different approach. Elisha Cook, Jr. was perfect for Huston’s version of the story. Dwight Frye is similarly perfect for Roy Del Ruth’s version.

Needless to say, Ricardo Cortez can’t really compare to Humphrey Bogart. But, if you can somehow block the memory of Bogart in the role from your mind, Cortez actually does give a good performance as Spade. Because this was a pre-code film, Cortez can lean more into Spade’s sleaziness than Bogart could. Also, because this was a pre-code film, the first Maltese Falcon doesn’t have to be as circumspect about the story’s subtext. Spade obviously tries to sleep with every woman he meets and is first seen letting a woman out of his office. (The woman stops to straighten her stockings.) Gutman and Cairo’s relationship with Wilmer becomes much more obvious as well. What’s strange is that, even though this Maltese Falcon is pre-code, it still ends with the type of ending that you would expect the production code to force onto a film like this.

If you’re going to watch The Maltese Falcon, the Huston version is the one to go with. But the first version isn’t bad and it’s worth watching for comparison.