SybilSez...

Sybil Bruncheon has been performing on stage, radio, TV, film, and in various Vaudeville, burlesque, church basement, county fair, and sideshow....uh..."venues" for most of her 29 years. She is available for bookings for just about anything and can be reached at bruncheon@hotmail.com and on her website sybilbruncheon.com. She is a proud member of the Actors Equity Association and the Screen Actors Guild. Her erdo number is 16.

Directed by first-time film director John Huston, starring Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, Peter Lorre, and, making his film debut, the dazzling Sydney Greenstreet. And in the shadows, there's Ward Bond, Barton MacLane, Elisha Cook Jr., Gladys George, and even Huston's super-star father, Walter, in a walk-on cameo. Every frame, every note of the film score, is brilliant and strangely unsettling... truly a great and possibly the most definitive "film noir".

Even Bogart's Sam Spade is off-kilter, certainly NOT a hero, or even a protagonist. Perhaps it's only Effie Perrine, Spade's secretary, played by the wonderful and truly lovely Lee Patrick (one of Hollywood's most versatile and enduring actresses!) who gives the film its "moral center". She is the least compromised, conflicted, or corrupt character. Effie is loyal to Sam, possibly in love with him (but too honorable to show it), and discerning enough to warn him at the start of the story that his back-alley machinations may eventually turn on him... and they do.

The entire story winds its way through 101 minutes of mystery peppered with rye merriment ending in a rueful surprise about both the statue of the falcon and what all the characters are willing or able to tolerate... and do. And that last line answered by Bogart to Ward Bond’s query about what the falcon is made of... has a line from Shakespeare ever been used with more existential finality... or resigned heartbreak?

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