S.F. Grill sends private eye to find prized replica of class movie icon

A San Francisco private eye is hot on the case of a missing Maltese Falcon — and he’s keen to get answers.

OK, so the private eye isn’t Sam Spade. And it’s not the real Maltese Falcon, the statue made famous as the signature prop in the 1941 movie starring Humphrey Bogart. But the mystery is almost as intriguing.

The private eye is investigator Jack Immendorf, 58. And the missing Maltese Falcon is a lightweight replica stolen this weekend from a glass display case at John’s Grill on Ellis Street in San Francisco — a three-story restaurant filled with memorabilia from “The Maltese Falcon” author and San Francisco legend Dashiell Hammett, who frequented the place.

Apart from leaving a sorry legacy of conflict, ridicule, scorn, lust and misery, Anna Nicole Smith leaves to posterity one other thing: a Byzantine set of legal conflicts that will probably take years to untangle. In fact, if judges and lawyers ever get together to write a book about how not to handle probate, estate and child custody issues, they will probably use the Anna Nicole Smith story as the backbone for the story.

There are so many unresolved legal issues it is hard to know where to begin, or to end, and besides, by the time you read this some of those issues already may be resolved. So instead of focusing upon the things that Smith and Company did wrong, or upon the hundred or so possible scenarios that could play out over the next few years, I thought I would humbly offer a few suggestions on what other families, other couples, can try to do right when it comes to maneuvering through the shoals of family law.

Clive Owen is set to play fabled private eye Philip Marlowe in several feature films based on Raymond Chandler’s mystery series. The star will also serve as executive producer on the movies, which could include movie adaptations of “The Big Sleep” and “Farewell My Lovely.”

The project is currently in the beginning stages, with producers courting writers and film-makers and deciding which title to adapt. Owen will narrate the dramas, much like he did in the film Sin City.

The films are expected to maintain the dark spirit of the Chandler books and will still be set in 1940s Los Angeles, with Marlowe continuing to be a hard-drinking, wise-cracking investigator.

20th Century Fox served YouTube with a subpoena Wednesday

20th Century Fox served YouTube with a subpoena Wednesday demanding the Google-owned viral video site disclose the identity of a user who uploaded copies of entire recent episodes of primetime series “24″ and “The Simpsons.”

The subpoena, which first came to light on the blog Google Watch was granted by a judge in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California after being filed by the News Corp.-owned studio on Jan. 18. It is not yet known whether YouTube has complied with the request.

In addition, a second, lesser-known video site, LiveDigital, was also served with a similar subpoena.

A Fox spokesman confirmed the subpoena was filed to both YouTube and LiveDigital and served but declined further comment. A spokesman for YouTube declined comment.

The “24″ episodes in question actually appeared on YouTube prior to their primetime Jan. 14 premiere on the Fox broadcast network, which spread four hourlong episodes of the hit drama over two consecutive nights. Fox became aware the episodes were on YouTube on Jan. 8, according to the subpoena.

The Staff at PInow.com, a worldwide directory of investigators, compiled a top 10 list of the most interesting, sexy, and cool fictional detectives and PIs of all time.

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