Monsieur Spade

 We were not aware of this series until a couple of days before its premiere.  Decided to watch after the first couple of episodes had been broadcast and have now viewed 4 of the six in the series.  It's very good - not Breaking Bad/Justified top notch, but very good, even though I had my doubts at the start.

The Maltese Falcon, which introduced Sam Spade to movie audiences, takes place in 1941 and it ends with Spade (Humphrey Bogart) turning the duplicitous and lovely Brigid O'Shaughnessey (Mary Astor) with whom he'd had a dalliance, over to the San Francisco police.

It's now 1955 and we find ourselves in rural France, where Spade has come to deliver O'Shaughnessey's daughter to the family of her father.  Flash ahead to 1963, and we find Spade has remained in France and is now caught in a web of death and intrigue stretching back to World War Two and the recently ended Algerian War.

The series is slow-burning with a complex plot.  There are several very appealing aspects.

Clive Owen as Sam Spade.  He's the right age and physically right for the role, bringing a sense of Bogart's cynicism tinged with flickers of romanticism and a sense of honor.  Though he does not sound like Bogart, the cadence of his speech is identical and you can imagine Bogie speaking the dialogue.

The supporting cast is excellent.  From Chiara Mastroianni (daugher of Marcelo M and Catherine Deneueve) as Spade's now deceased wife, Cara Bossom as the now 15-year old daughter of O'Shaughnessey who reveals character traits much like her mother, to Denis Menochet as the local police chief.

The setting.  Most summaries of the series mention it is set in the South of France, so I assumed it meant the overused Provence.  But it is not.  The town of Bozouls is in the southern part of the Auvergne, a very rural and isolated (particularly in the time setting of Spade) rural area of small towns and farms in a rugged landscape.  Ms THC and I drove very close to Bozouls in 2015 while going from Millau to Dordogne.  Lovely country, but definitely nothing like Provence.

The Frenchness.  The people are not warm and cuddly.  They are very, very French and a very real portrayal of French attitudes and behaviors decades ago.  In that regard, Spade's housekeeper, whose name I cannot find, is perfect.