(THEME)
TR: A dark night in a city that knows how to keep its secrets but one man is still trying to find the answers to life's persistent questions....Guy Noir, Private Eye.
GK: It was June and I was in the Brew Ha Ha coffeeshop and the sound of the espresso machine (SFX) sounded like heavy breathing that brought back the memory of a woman I met a few years ago at a health club on a Stairmaster and then I felt a tap on my shoulder and I turned and----
SS: Jeff-----
GK: The name's Guy.
SS: You're Jeff.
GK: I don't think so. Who's Jeff?
SS: I was your girlfriend back when you had a broken leg and you lived in a little apartment and you were spending a lot of time watching a neighbor through your rear window and taking pictures of him and you were pretty sure he had murdered his wife and you made me go over there and gather evidence. Remember that?
GK: If you had been my girlfriend, kiddo, I would remember it, but no, I don't.
TR (JIMMY STEWART): It's me you're looking for, Lisa. How the heck are you?
SS: Jeff!
TR (JIMMY STEWART): And how could you mistake this old duffer for me? This old retired guy-----
SS: I thought he was a private eye, Jeff.
GK: I used to be, Lisa. But he's right. I'm retired now. Just
one more geezer killing time and taking up space.
TR (BOGIE): Guess again, Noir. You're not retired until you deal with me.
GK: Sam Spade--- where'd you come from?
TR (BOGIE): Came from where you were supposed to meet me, Noir, and when you didn't show up, I came here. What's going on? And no stories, okay? I hear enough stories on the radio. (STING)
GK: He leaned toward me, hawk-nosed, gap-toothed, the rumpled double-breasted suit with the bulge on the left side where he kept his roscoe. I could smell the gin on his breath. Evidently it had been a long night.
You heard right, I'm retired, Spade. I got tired of the treachery of the human heart and decided I wanted to spend more time with the crossword puzzle.
TR (BOGIE): After you help me find the bird, you can retire. Where is it?
GK: Why not ask her?
SS: Me????
GK: You, sister. You were down by the waterfront that night, to meet the freighter La Paloma, and then you dropped by Mr. Cairo's hotel.
TR (LORRE): You always have such a smooth explanation, Mr. Noir.
GK: What do you want me to do, learn to stutter?
SS: What bird are we talking about? Fill me in.
TR (BOGIE): You know darn well. The Maltese Falcon. The one Archer was looking for when he took the big sleep. I hope that wasn't your doing and if it was, I hope they don't hang you by that sweet neck, angel, but if they do, I'll always remember you. You're a good man, sister.
SS: I don't know how to take that exactly.
TR (BOGIE): Then take it generally.
FN (BRIT, STAMMERING, SMOKING PIPE): I beg your pardon. Are you by any chance the detective Mr. Guy Noir?
GK: By some chance I am, yes----
FN (BRIT): Dr. John Watson. My colleague, Mr. Holmes. (BRIDGE)
GK: And there he was, in the three-piece tweed suit, the briar pipe, the hat, the hawk nose.
TR (BRIT): A pleasure to make your acquaintance, I'm sure. And may I simply point out the shred of paper tissue on your lapel, sir, that tells me you have spilled coffee on yourself and that you are right-handed and that your mother's name was Agnes and she loved Persian cats and once had one named Snookums who had two white paws and two black.
GK: How could you deduce all that from a shred of paper tissue on my lapel, sir?
TR (BRIT): Elementary. It is my business to know what other people do not know. And when you have eliminated the impossible whatever remains however improbable must be the truth. That is how. And also, the words are written right there in the script.
GK: Ah. I see. Of course.
TR (BRIT): And ---- from the slack expression on your face, the dullness in your eyes, the lack of eagerness, the slovenliness of your dress, I would deduce that you are a retired person.
GK: Very perspicacious, sir.
TR (BRIT): Perhaps that is why you did not notice, on your way in, the footprints on the floor. Footprints. The footprints of a giant hound.
GK: You're right. I didn't notice. And I don't really care. I'm here for a cup of coffee.
TR (FRENCH): I beg your pardon, Monsieur Holmes, but you are wrong about the giant hound. Hello, the name is Poirot. Hercule Poirot.
GK: The detective.
TR (FRENCH): Oui. Certainment.
GK: I thought you were in Istanbul, Monsieur. About to board a train.
TR (FRENCH): Non, non. I am right here, about to order an Orient espresso, but I was on a train and it stopped in North Dakota in the middle of a snowy field and there were no footprints anywhere so we knew the man who stole the bird was still aboard the train and yet it had been taken from a locked compartment.
SS (BACALL): That was not North Dakota, Mr. Poirot. That was the Dakota apartment building at 72nd Street and Central Park West in Manhattan. And the train was the downtown local.
GK: You mean to say that-----
SS (BACALL): Yes---- the bird on the train was a fake.
The real Maltese falcon was----
TR (BOGIE): Don't tell him, sweetheart.
GK: Mr. Spade----
TR (BOGIE): Wrong. This time I'm Philip Marlowe.
FN (BRIT): Extraordinary. Simply extraordinary. The same gentleman except entirely different.
TR (BOGIE): Welcome to America. It's a big country. Everybody can be two persons and some of us are three or more.
SS: And if I'm not mistaken, in the last car on that downtown local there was a tall oddly attractive man in a linen suit with scholarly glasses and poetic hair.
GK: You talking about me?
SS: Anybody else here fit that description?
GK: As I said, I'm retiring.
SS: But what about me? About us?
GK: We'll always have Paris, kid.
TR (BOGIE): Wait a minute. That's my line.
GK: Then say it again, Sam.
TR (BOGIE): I'm not Sam, I'm Rick. This is Rick's Place.
FN (BOY): Now I really am confused. I'm not old enough to remember these movies.
TR (BOGIE): Here's looking at you, kid.
GK: But I'm on the radio.
SS: Will I see you again later?
GK: I never plan that far ahead. (ESPRESSO) She gasped. Either that, or my coffee was ready. Or no---- the Frenchman was pointing up at the sky----(SCREECH OF BIRD, FLAP OF WINGS) ---- it was a Maltese falcon, rising over the buildings, getting smaller and smaller.
TR (BOGIE): Just as we all will eventually, all of us. Even you, Holmes. Poirot. Jeff. I'm no good at being noble, but it doesn't take much to see that the careers of private eyes don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world. Someday you'll understand that.
GK: I don't. I wrote this script and I don't get it at all.
SS: It's just the same old story, a fight for love and glory, a case of bagels and lox
TR (BOGIE): And meet me in St. Louie, Louie, meet me at the Fox. (THEME)
GK: And then the lights came up. The movie was over. The man on the screen was singing.
GK (SINGS):
I'm tall, I'm a guy in an old linen suit
I smell of gin and cigar
A guy who's thoughtful if not astute
That's me.....Guy Noir.
Where's your lost love, I'll find her
And the friends you used to know
And the half-written novel you left on the train
In Paris, so long ago.
You have to be braver as time goes by
And follow your lucky star
And if you need help from an older guy
Call on me.......Guy Noir