Trivia Question: In “The Maltese Falcon,” How Much Money Does Sam Spade Actually Make?
Liz and I watched The Maltese Falcon earlier this morning… and within the first twenty minutes, I got this idea for a pretty good trivia question regarding the movie.
So here goes: In The Maltese Falcon, how much money does Sam Spade actually make?
I did a few quick searches, but didn’t find this particular question anywhere. I’ve got the answer, but I’ll hold off posting it for a little while. Feel free to leave your guesses in the comments, below.
// Pssst! The answer is over here.
Spade gets $100 from Brigid when she’s posing as Miss Wonderly (Miles Archer getting the other $100). He gets $200 from Joel Cairo. He gets $500 from Brigid in her apartment, but gives some back to her. He gets $1000 from Gutman, but doesn’t keep it, giving it to the police as evidence of bribery. So…I’d say $700-$800, depending on how much he gave Brigid “to live on.” Depending on his expenses and his lawyer’s bill and the bribe he gave to the coroner’s jury, I’d say he didn’t do much better than break even.
David Gustafson (November 27, 2011 at 9:24 am)The only money he actually makes is the money they took to start the case the first day that she walked into the office with the made up story about looking for her sister
threetimer (November 27, 2011 at 9:42 am)The 1931 original with Ricardo Cortez as Sam Spade is closer to the feel of the novel. Cortez is better than Bogey. I prefer Bogie as Philip Marlowe.
Jon C. Hopwood (November 27, 2011 at 10:38 am)Money can buy the stuff that dreams are made of?
François (December 9, 2011 at 1:04 pm)