Character Analysis
Effie's Trinket
Effie is the one responsible female character in the movie. Brigid is manipulative. Iva Archer is histrionic. But Effie's levelheaded and intelligent. Spade relies on her to roll his cigarettes, tell Iva that her husband is dead, and safeguard both Brigid and the Falcon. She is also queen of keeping it real, telling Spade,
EFFIE: You always think you know what you're doing, but you're too slick for your own good. Someday you're going to find it out.
Of course, Spade, Mr. Masculinity, writes all this off as "woman's intuition" and calls her "an angel. A nice, rattlebrained, little angel," even though she's right all the time.
At the end, Effie isn't much more than a plot device. Spade asks her to bring the Falcon, she delivers the heavy trinket to his door, and we never see her again. We imagine she is probably critical in helping Spade solve future cases, although we doubt he'd ever paint his door SPADE & PERRINE.