Taking on a role previously played by a cinematic icon is always a dubious task, but when the character is as legendary as the actor, then it reaches a whole new level.Clive Owenshould know exactly how it feels as the premiere of his new AMC limited seriesMonsieur Spadearrives, in which he takes on the role of detective Sam Spade, previously made famous byHumphrey Bogart.
The character created by Dashiell Hammett was most famously portrayed by Bogart inThe Maltese Falconback in 1941, and is considered one of the greatest characters in the film noir genre. While the Bogart film remains the character’s most famous case,Monsieur Spadeputs the detective in 1960s France, and as a huge fan of Bogart, Owen has been delighted to be adding Sam Spade to his extensive resume of roles.Speaking to MovieWeb, Owen explained how his personal love of the film noir icon impacted working on the show. He said:
“It was a bit of a gift for me because I’m a huge Bogart fan. I’ma huge noir fan. And I’m a huge fan of Scott [Franks] and Tom [Fontana]’s, so I was thrilled when they called me up and asked me to do this. I know, from previous experience. I was once attached, and I had the rights to play [Raymond]Chandler’s [Philip] Marlowe. It’s very hard to reinvent noir and to freshen it up, because we kind of feel like we’ve seen it.”
Related:Exclusive: Clive Owen Mesmerizes as Monsieur Spade
Clive Owen Returned to Classic 1940s Movies to Prepare to Play Sam Spade
Monsieur Spadefeatures a relatively modern update on Sam Spade, taking the detective into 1963 and relocating him to France in his retirement. Despite this change of era and location, Owen still returned to Bogart’sThe Maltese Falconand other ‘40sdetective moviesin order to get into the character of Spade. He explained toCBR:
I loved going back and checking out The Maltese Falcon and all those ’40s private detective movies; I just love that genre. I think it’s the one thing that’s hard about doing a project like this is we feel like we know noir, and the minute you start to try and do noir, people think “I’ve seen this before; I get what this is.” And so I thought it was a very smart idea by Scott and Tom to take him out of his environment and put him years down the line [in] this beautiful French village. We have this clash of ’40s private detective in beautiful ’60s French countryside. We’re sort of reinventing it, because he’s in a totally different environment, but still being faithful to the original source material.
The 6-part series has already gained positive reviews from critics, landing an 80% score from its relatively small number of reviews – only three have noted a “rotten” review.Monsieur Spadepremieres January 14 on AMC, AMC+ and Acorn TV.
Monsieur Spade
