This is an old one, but the Maltese Falcon is a nearly perfect movie, but it is absolutely ruined by Mary Astor as the femme fatale.

She’s supposed to be this stunningly beautiful woman, Spade’s Secretary warns him to brace himself before she comes in because “she’s a looker.” Then she enters, and she’s just sort of normal. Then his partner comes in and completely loses his shit over how gorgeous she is, and I’m sitting there thinking “Her? What’s the big deal?”

Throughout the entire film, she’s portrayed as this conniving woman whom Bogey can’t resist, but I just didn’t see any chemistry at all.

I told my son, who is an extremely knowledgeable cinephile, and he told me that’s a thing. Filmies have noticed how absolutely wrong she was for that part. She was a fine actress, but that role called for a completely different kind of actress. It was probably a studio thing, insisting that she get the part, since she was between pictures, and they wanted something high profile to boost her career, and a Bogey mystery would be perfect. Unfortunately, she was terrible in that role.

Who should replace her? Pretty much anyone else at the time, maybe Barbara Stanwyck.