Making of The Maltese Falcon essays

Making of The Maltese Falcon essays The Maltese Falcon, a novel, was conceived and written by Dashiell Hammett. John Huston adhered closely to the original work when he wrote the screenplay for the film. He stayed true to its structure, chronology of events, characters, dialogue, and settings. On May 22, 1941, Hal B. Wallis, an executive producer at Warner Bros., sent the chief casting executive a memo. The memo pretty much instructed him to send Hustons screenplay to actor George Raft as soon as it was completed. Raft read the screenplay two days after Huston finished it. Raft disliked it and rejected it. He told Jack L. Warner that The Maltese Falcon was not an important picture and that he would not perform in anything but important pictures (Richardson 37). This statement wasnt completely unwarranted. Huston was an untested director and two other film versions of The Maltese Falcon had already bombed twice at the box office. Raft also had a bad experience when he played a part in The Glass Key, which was another film based on a novel by Hammett. Incidentally, there is a funny story about how Warner Bros. obtained the rights for The Maltese Falcon from the thirty-six-year-old Dashiell Hammett. Jacob Wilks son, ten-year-old Max Wilk, liked to read Black Mask magazine (free magazines were sent to the Wilk home in the hope that Jacob would find something he wanted to turn into a movie). One afternoon in 1929, Max Wilk sat down to read THE MALTESE FALCON, Chapter 1. Max was hooked and sped through the story until he was stopped cold by reading To be continued in our next issue (Sperber and Lax 149). Max told his father about the story and that he needed to know what happened. The next evening, Jacob Wilk, a Warner Bros. executive, told his son that hed called the Black Mask editor and asked for the rest of the story. But The Maltese Falcon almost did not fall into the hands of Warner Bros. Paramount briefl...

Cynognathus Facts and Figures

Cynognathus Facts and Figures Name: Cynognathus (Greek for dog jaw); pronounced sigh-NOG-nah-thus Habitat: Woodlands of South America, South Africa, and Antarctica Historical Period : Middle Triassic (245-230 million years ago) Size and Weight: About three feet long and 10-15 pounds Diet: Meat Distinguishing Characteristics: Dog-like appearance; possible hair and warm-blooded metabolism About Cynognathus One of the most fascinating of all prehistoric creatures, Cynognathus may have been the most mammalian of all the so-called mammal-like reptiles (technically known as therapsids) of the middle  Triassic period. Technically classified as a cynodont, or dog-toothed, therapsid, Cynognathus was a fast, fierce predator, much like a smaller, sleeker version of a modern wolf. Clearly it thrived in its evolutionary niche, since its remains have been discovered on no less than three continents, Africa, South America and Antarctica (which were all part of the giant landmass Pangea during the early Mesozoic Era). Given its wide distribution, you may be surprised to learn that the genus Cynognathus includes only one valid species, C. crateronotus, named by the English paleontologist Harry Seeley in 1895. However, in the century since its discovery, this therapsid has been known by no less than eight different genus names: besides Cynognathus, paleontologists have also referred to Cistecynodon, Cynidiognathus, Cynogomphius, Lycaenognathus, Lycochampsa, Nythosaurus and Karoomys! Further complicating matters (or simplifying them, depending on your perspective), Cynognathus is the only identified member of its taxonomic family, the cynognathidae. The most interesting thing about Cynognathus is that it possessed many features normally associated with the first prehistoric mammals (which evolved from therapsids tens of millions of years later, during the late Triassic period). Paleontologists believe Cynognathus sported a thick coat of hair and may have given birth to live young (rather than laying eggs, like most reptiles); we know for a fact that it possessed a very mammal-like diaphragm, which enabled it to breathe more efficiently. Most startlingly, evidence points to Cynognathus having a warm-blooded, mammalian metabolism, quite unlike most of the cold-blooded reptiles of its day.