AMC's MONSIEUR SPADE starring Clive Owen (2024) 0

[Bosco685]

 

[Bosco685]

Quote

All works of IP exploitation are, on some level, legitimized fanfiction. Once divorced from the original author, the line that separates a franchise’s sequel, prequel or reboot from the average post on Wattpad is a great deal of money and the blessing of an estate and/or corporation. But even with this baseline, the AMC limited series “Monsieur Spade” is an especially unabashed act of wish fulfillment through and for a beloved protagonist. The namesake of “Monsieur Spade” is none other than Sam Spade (Clive Owen), the private investigator who headlined the Dashiell Hammett novel turned John Huston film noir “The Maltese Falcon,” plus a handful of Hammett short stories published in the 1930s. For their spin on Spade, series creators Tom Fontana (“Oz”) and Scott Frank (“The Queen’s Gambit”) send the sleuth to the south of France, where he spends a few weeks of his not-so-peaceful retirement looking into a massacre at a local convent.

 

Most of “Monsieur Spade” is set in 1963, two years after the death of Spade’s real-life creator. In stepping out of Hammett’s shadow, Fontana, Frank and Owen — also an executive producer — allow themselves to embrace the fantasy of sending an acerbic American to an idyllic vacation spot. (“Monsieur Spade” filmed on location, so the trio were effectively sending themselves, too.) Sure enough, there are ample scenes of Owen luxuriating in a pool or enjoying an omelet al fresco. But while “Monsieur Spade” indulges in escapism, it’s also a compact crime yarn that does right by both its setting and its predecessors.

 

Sometimes, you wish “Monsieur Spade” leaned a little harder into the subversion: as the mystery unfolds, the Arab community of Bozouls starts to play a larger role, but they’re still peripheral to a story that ultimately hinges on France’s ugly, still-unresolved past. But that’s not what the show is here to do. “Monsieur Spade” builds out Bozouls just enough to be as convincing a canvas for Sam’s skill set as a fog-swathed San Francisco. It exists to give Spade his own form of happily-ever-after — to reassure us that, even if Hammett never showed it, one of his leading men lived on, and still does.

 

The first episode of “Monsieur Spade” premieres on AMC, AMC+ and Acorn TV at 9pm on Jan. 14, with subsequent episodes airing weekly on Sundays.

 

[Silver Surfer]

I like all his movies,  great actor.

[Bosco685]

Now watching EP. 2.

[The Black Hand ®]

Like this series and love Clive Owen ever since I saw Children of Men.

[Beige]

Not available in UK or Australia.

 

It's 2024 FFS

[Bosco685]

On 1/25/2024 at 4:28 PM, The Black Hand ® said:

Like this series and love Clive Owen ever since I saw Children of Men.

If someone had said to me years ago Clive Owen as Sam Spade, I would have had a hard time wrapping my head around that.

After seeing two episodes, I have to agree they picked the right actor for this role.