Maurice Chevalier under contract with Paramount, his name was so recognized that his passport was featured in the Marx Brothers film "Monkey Business" (1931). In this sequence, each brother uses Chevalier's passport, and tries to sneak off the ocean liner where they were stowaways by claiming to be the singer—with unique renditions of "You Brought a New Kind of Love to Me" with its line "If the nightingales could sing like you". In 1931, Chevalier starred in a musical called "The Smiling Lieutenant" with Claudette Colbert and Miriam Hopkins. Despite the disdain audiences held for musicals in 1931, it proved a successful
The Maltese Falcon (1931 film) In the opening scene, an unidentified woman is shown straightening her stockings as she leaves Spade's office. Miss Wonderly (Bebe Daniels) is shown bathing, and later in the film is strip-searched by Spade over missing money. The 1931 film does not shy away from homosexual themes: Wilmer is called Gutman's "boyfriend". The homosexual subtext regarding Gutman, Cairo and Wilmer is abundant in Hammett's original story. Effie facetiously describes Cairo to Spade as "gorgeous". Spade taunts Dundy by constantly referring to him as "sweetheart", "darling", and "precious". All of this is absent from the better-known 1941 version. In 1936, Warner Brothers