Although he left the Sam Spade apartment in 891 Post Street a couple of years ago — after a long and distinguished tenure — Bill Arney returned earlier this year for a guest-starring role, letting a tour group in to inspect the spiffed-up joint. Unlike Bill in the day, the current tenant doesn’t need to live in the rooms where Hammett wrote The Maltese Falcon, where he pictures Spade living in his most famous novel. The place is like a museum now, you seldom see a light burning in those corner windows in the noir night.
The shot the other day shows Bill holding down his favorite lecture spot, standing with his back against the folded-up Murphy bed, with the desk described in the novel in the corner.
Glance above for a shot of the Sam Spade bathtub in the postage-stamp bathroom — where the infamous strip search scene occurs in the book. Spade sits on the edge of the tub, puts the guns he’s taken away from the lollipops on the toilet seat, keeps the door open so no one can get past him in the hall, has Brigid do her dance in the tiny area bottom right frame.
