For those who read the novel but hadn't seen the film - a better Wilmer?

I've caught parts of the 1941 version a few times here and there, but never the whole thing in its entirety, and the only parts I can ever really remember well have been some of Bogart's scenes with Sydney Greenstreet (they simply DO NOT make character actors quite like this anymore, do they!)....so therefore, while reading the novel recently for the first time, I didn't have a very clear picture in my head of any one character except Greenstreet as The Fat Man/Guttman, and of course Bogie as Sam Spade. Peter Lorre is just odd enough to be a decent choice to play Joel Cairo, but even though I like Elisha Cook, Jr.'s work in other films, I feel he wasn't the best choice to portray Wilmer Cook. For one, all of the early references in the book to Wilmer are simply "the youth." He's also called "boy." The fact that he's young yet trying to be an alpha male in a Man's World is an important one in the novel, and a source of much conflict between Spade and Wilmer. He's basically supposed to be around 20 years old, tops. Yet Elisha Cook, Jr. is nearly twice that age, pushing 40 when this film was made....older than even Sam Spade is supposed to be!

Anyway, for whatever reason, the actor I had in my mind while reading the novel was of the actor who played Larry Gordon in another great noir, "The Big Heat" -- Adam Williams:

http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/original/b6sAFCtg38UJ1BiMLDhulJXiF07.jpg

I don't know, he just had that slightly dumb "choir boy gone bad" thing about him but also had the youth...even in his late 20's, as he was in Big Heat, he has that quality about him, unlike Elisha, who to me seemed like a slightly different sort, a man whose best days were behind him and had already begun going to seed. Both of them pale in comparison to Hammett's Uber Alpa Male Sam Spade (as some have pointed out, even Humphrey Bogart isn't completely up to the task of pulling that character off), but it's a shame Williams wasn't working yet when Falcon was made. Anyone else see this? Or see other actors in some of these roles? I wouldn't have minded Robert Mitchum or Dana Andrews circa "Laura" as Spade, either. And don't get me started on Mary Astor -- pretty, ok, but the "knockout" described in the novel? Gimme Veronica Lake or Gene Tierney...