Homosexuality

Yes, absolutely. It starts out as undertones, but it gets to the point where Spade actually uses the phrase "your boyfriend" when talking to Gutman about Wilmer.

More info here:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0022111/board/nest/91938834?d=92575930#925 75930

You can catch Santa Claus,
You just can't hold him very long...

This film was made before the Production Code. They got away with many things that a few years later they could not get away with. At the beginning when Sam was saying goosbye to a girl and he went back in his office and picked up a sofa pillow. I wonder what they were doing on his office. A few years later these scenes would not have been allowed

Yep they be Gays

"It's not about Money

It's about sending a message

Everything Burns"

As mentioned, this film was pre-Code and it's surprising at times how much they got away with before the crackdown. You've got Ruth sleeping over at Spade's, and then Iva (a day or two after her husband & coincidentally Spade's business partner ends up dead) shows up all bent out of shape that some other "dame" is wearing her kimona, kept at Spade's...why? Because it's a way of saying they're sleeping together without saying so, but in the later version, due to the Code, they couldn't be so blatant.

In the later version, there are hints at Cairo being gay and/or possibly involved with Gutman. Loads of things have been written about the suggestive way Cairo handles his cane handle in Spade's office. Lots of speculation, too, on the relationship with Gutman and Wilmer.

The one that's always surprised me is Big Sleep - A.J. Geiger's been killed, and Carol Lundgren (a guy) is taking pot-shots at people he thinks did it, and Marlowe comes right out and says "So & so didn't kill your queen" when he catches up with him. That quote seemed pretty surprising to me being in a movie in 1946 and making it past the censors and the Code office.

In this version, I gather that's what we're supposed to conclude, though it isn't at all easy to see based on Wilmer's reactions to anything Gutman does or says. I personally did completely accept that Gutman considers him "like a son" - though the later reference by Spade to "your boyfriend," and Gutman emoting that he really does love Wilmer (to which I believe he then again says "like a son"), left me accepting that probably we are supposed to conclude that there is "something more" there. If so, it would seem that Wilmer is strictly in the gay relationship to be "kept," and not because he has any degree of romantic interest in Gutman. At least, that's the impression I got from watching how emotionless (and perhaps even disgusted) Wilmer seems whenever Gutman comes near him.

Check out http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/gunsel

The word "gunsel" appears both in the Hammett novel and in the 1941 film. I don't recall it's used in the 1931 version. As the Wiktionary entry indicates, the original meanings of the word, relating to homosexuality, apparently made it into the novel and 1941 film because the powers that be thought "gunsel" referred to a gun-toting hoodlum. Apparently Wilmer was both.

In my opinion, this version had much stronger heterosexual implications for Spade. A woman straightening her clothes as she leaves his office, girl in a bathtub, strip search, etc... But I think the homosexual implications for the baddies was, believe it or not, much more downplayed in the pre-code version. In the 1941 version they pretty much do everything but kiss to let you know the sexual proclivities of the gang. But in this version, there really wasn't much. For example, Cairo is referred to as "gorgeous" in this one and Spade has a surprised look on his face when he sees it's a man. As opposed to saying he smells like gardenias, Spade appears disgusted to hear of this, and Cairo practically fellates the knob of his cane moments later. In 1931, they usually outright said things, but they don't really come right out and say much. In 1941, you couldn't actually say things, but the filmmakers were crafty by then and found a multitude of ways to let you know what's going on.