Count Petofi and the Maltese Falcon

[Gothick]

Hi Gang,

According to the internet, it was on this date in 1941 that the film The Maltese Falcon had its premiere. I just watched a clip from this film of a dramatic confrontation scene featuring arch and enigmatic villain Kasper Gutman (played by the immortal Sidney Greenstreet) and his accomplice, the rather fey but lethal Joel Cairo (Peter Lorre). And I realized that somewhere in the back of my mind, I've been aware for years that the original characterizations of Count Petofi and his fey but lethal accomplice Aristede must have been inspired by these two. Particularly the Petofi characterization--in an interview, DS writer Violet Welles, who invented the character of the Count, mentioned that she'd thrown in a reference to him in an early 1897 script, and the character sort of grew and grew until he more or less demanded to be brought onstage.

Needless to say, the casting of Thayer David as the Count was a must--and resulted in some of the most brilliant and eccentric scenes of DS.

Count Petofi,wherever you are, I salute you! Remembering your words: "I know but one god... and his name is Petofi!"

G.

[MagnusTrask]

Surrogate Sidney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre pairings were all over TV in the 60s!  Even I Dream of Jeannie and the Avengers had them!  The worldly, well read, international criminal who philosophizes before shooting you in the back!  Most are tacky Maltese Falcon parodies, so I need to put that out of my mind when watching Petofi.  They made him a real 3D character, not just a movie reference.
------
Out of all the Sidney Greenstreets, I rank Petofi at #1, and Sidney Greenstreet at #2!

[Mysterious Benefactor]

I remember Sam Hall saying that Petofi's obsession with Lord Kitchener came from Hall's own obsession with Kitchener...

[Gothick]

That's interesting about Sam Hall's obsession with Lord Kitchener, MB. I'd never heard of that.

G.

[Philippe Cordier]

I'll try to catch "The Maltese Falcon" again next time it airs on TCM. I've only seen it once and I confess that Petofi - Aristede didn't come to mind, but I'll watch closely in the future! But now that you mention Sidney Greenstreet, he's another actor (the only one who comes to mind) who I could also see portraying Count Petofi.

Gothick, I may have mentioned to you several years ago that I had "discovered" the origin of DS's Count Petofi, but I don't think I've told anyone who that might have been. I've been waiting for the right timing when I could write something about this. Well, it has been years now and maybe others have come across the same information in the intervening years. I don't have time to write more right now, but the following link will make the matter self-explanatory, I think. In my opinion, the name and inspiration for creating the character of Count Petofi on DS was a real-life Polish count named Potocki. 

https://www.tor.com/2009/03/10/jan-potocki-and-the-manuscript-found-in-saragossa/

[Gothick]

Interesting article, Philippe! It's sometimes amazing to me what the DS writers knew about.

I wonder if Violet Welles, who wrote a lot of the Count Petofi scripts, was a fan of the Christopher Isherwood novel Mr. Norris Changes Trains. There are some scenes where Petofi speaks of his love of Mozart, and at least one where he's listening to an early gramophone recording of Mozart's music. Love of Mozart was also a trait of Isherwood's "Mr. Norris" character who was based on a real life individual, Gerald Hamilton. It's too long ago for me to recall but I think Hamilton had serious delusions of grandeur and was also described as wearing an ill-fitting wig... he's portrayed in a good film version starring Matt Smith as Isherwood.

Best, Gothick

[Philippe Cordier]

I see from a Google search that the movie you're referring to is Christopher and His Kind, and from the Wikipedia summary that it presents the events and characters that later became "Cabaret" (I don't think the article mentions this, though). Isherwood was a good writer though I confess to only owning a paperback copy of his telescript for the TV movie "Frankenstein: The True Story" from the 1970s. A fantastic movie and cast even if it's not remotely the "true story" of the original Shelley novel. Speaking of which, I only discovered by accident a couple of weeks ago on amazon that Leslie S. Klinger, who produced the great "Annotated Dracula" a few years back had followed that up a couple of years ago with "The New Annotated Frankenstein," with equally terrific running commentary tending to the erudite, and which also includes an afterward by a former professor of mine in California ... but I digress.

Regarding the real life Count Potocki, I came across him after finding no leads on an actual name "Petofi." The fact that the count was a Gothic novelist (I've purchased "The Sargossa Manuscript", I think it's an Oxford classics or Penguin, but have never read) and associated with werewolves and silver bullets ... well, I think Violet Welles or some DS writer (maybe Joe Caldwell?) must have been familiar with "The Sargossa Manuscript" or come across it in a bookstore, and brought up the name when they were coming up with the character of Petofi.

I wonder if the Jason McGuire - Willie Loomis relationship in the early days of DS also owed something to the relationship you describe from "The Maltese Falcon."