Plot

In San Francisco in 1941, private investigators Sam Spade (Humphrey Bogart) and Miles Archer (Jerome Cowan) meet prospective client Ruth Wonderly (Mary Astor). She claims to be looking for her missing sister, who is involved with a man named Floyd Thursby. Archer agrees to follow her that night and help get her sister back.

Spade is awakened by a phone call early in the morning and the police inform him that Archer has been killed. He meets his friend, Police Detective Tom Polhaus (Ward Bond), at the murder scene and then tries calling his client at her hotel, but she has checked out. Back at his apartment, he is grilled by Polhaus and Lieutenant Dundy (Barton MacLane), who tell him that Thursby was also murdered the same evening. Dundy suggests that Spade had the opportunity and motive to kill Thursby, who likely killed Archer. Archer's widow Iva (Gladys George) later visits him in his office, believing that Spade shot his partner so he could have her.

Later that morning, Spade meets his client, now calling herself Brigid O'Shaughnessy. She explains that Thursby was her partner and probably killed Archer, but claims to have no idea who killed Thursby. Spade distrusts her, but agrees to investigate the murders.

At his office, Spade meets Joel Cairo (Peter Lorre), who first offers him $5,000 to find a "black figure of a bird", then pulls a gun on him in order to search the room for it. Spade knocks Cairo out and goes through his belongings. When Cairo comes round, he hires Spade. Later that evening, Spade tells O'Shaughnessy about Cairo. When Cairo shows up, it becomes clear that Spade's acquaintances know each other. Cairo becomes agitated when O'Shaughnessy reveals that the "Fat Man" is in San Francisco.

In the morning, Spade goes to Cairo's hotel, where he spots Wilmer (Elisha Cook Jr.), a young man who had been following him earlier, and gives Wilmer a message for his boss, Kasper Gutman (Sydney Greenstreet). When Spade goes to meet Gutman, alias the "Fat Man", in his hotel suite, Gutman will only talk about the Black Falcon evasively, so Spade pretends to throw a temper tantrum and storms out. Later, Wilmer takes Spade at gunpoint to see Gutman. Spade overpowers him, but meets Gutman anyway. Gutman relates the history of the Maltese Falcon, then offers Spade $25,000 for the bird and a quarter of the proceeds from its sale. After Spade passes out because his drink is spiked, Wilmer and Cairo come in from another room and leave with Gutman.

On coming round, Spade searches the suite and finds a newspaper with the arrival time of the freighter La Paloma circled. He goes to the dock, only to find the ship on fire. Later, the ship's captain, Jacobi (Walter Huston), shot several times, staggers into Spade's office before dying. The bundle he was clutching contains the Maltese Falcon.

O'Shaughnessy calls the office, gives an address, then screams before the line goes dead. Spade stashes the package at the bus terminal, then goes to the address, which turns out to be an empty lot. Spade returns home and finds O'Shaughnessy hiding in a doorway. He takes her inside and finds Gutman, Cairo, and Wilmer waiting for him, guns drawn. Gutman gives Spade $10,000 for the Falcon, but Spade tells them that part of his price is someone he can turn over to the police for the murders of Thursby and Captain Jacobi, suggesting Wilmer. After some intense negotiation, Gutman and Cairo agree and Wilmer is knocked out and disarmed.

Just after dawn, Spade calls his secretary, Effie Perine (Lee Patrick), to bring him the bundle. However, when Gutman inspects the statuette, he finds it is a fake and Wilmer escapes during the tumult. Recovering his composure, Gutman invites Cairo to return with him to Istanbul to continue their quest. After they leave, Spade calls the police and tells them where to pick up the pair. Spade then angrily confronts O'Shaughnessy, telling her he knows she killed Archer to implicate Thursby, her unwanted accomplice. She confesses, but begs Spade not to turn her over to the police. Despite his feelings for her, Spade gives O'Shaughnessy up.

Cast

Humphrey Bogart as Sam Spade

Mary Astor as Ruth Wonderly/Brigid O'Shaughnessy

Gladys George as Iva Archer

Peter Lorre as Joel Cairo

Barton MacLane as Lieutenant Dundy

Lee Patrick as Effie Perine

Sydney Greenstreet as Kasper Gutman

Ward Bond as Detective Tom Polhaus

Jerome Cowan as Miles Archer

Elisha Cook Jr. as Wilmer Cook

James Burke as Luke, hotel detective

Murray Alper as Frank Richman, taxi driver

John Hamilton as District Attorney Bryan

Walter Huston as Captain Jacoby (uncredited)

Background

Though Hammett had once worked as a private detective for the Pinkerton Detective Agency in San Francisco (and used his birth name "Samuel" for the story's protagonist), he wrote of the book's main character in 1934:

Other characters in The Maltese Falcon, however, were based on people he met or worked with during that time.^[12] The novel itself was serialized in five parts in Black Mask during 1929 and 1930 before being published in book form in 1930 by Alfred A. Knopf. It was first filmed the next year and for a second time as Satan Met a Lady in 1936, but rewritten as a light comedy with many elements of the story changed.^[13]^[14]

Warner Bros. had been prevented by the Hays Office censors from re-releasing the 1931 version due to its "lewd" content. Though largely compliant with the Production Code, Huston's 1941 remake did contain some innuendo: when the police implicate Spade in his partner's murder, Spade asks Detective Polhaus, "What's your boyfriend gettin' at, Tom?"

Production

Reportedly, Humphrey Bogart was not the first choice to play Sam Spade. Producer Hal B. Wallis initially offered the role to George Raft, who rejected it because he did not want to work with an inexperienced director, choosing instead to make Manpower, opposite Edward G. Robinson and Marlene Dietrich, with director Raoul Walsh. The 42-year-old Bogart was delighted to play a highly ambiguous character who is both honorable and greedy. Huston was particularly grateful that Bogart had quickly accepted the role, and the film helped to consolidate their lifelong friendship and set the stage for later collaboration on other films. Bogart's convincing interpretation became the archetype for a private detective in the film noir genre, providing him near-instant acclaim and rounding and solidifying his onscreen persona. It was The Maltese Falcon that Ingrid Bergman watched over and over again while preparing for Casablanca, in order to learn how to interact and act with Bogart.^[15]

The role of the deceitful femme fatale Brigid O'Shaughnessy was originally offered to Geraldine Fitzgerald, but went to Mary Astor when Fitzgerald decided to appear in a stage play. Hammett remembers that the character "had two originals, one an artist, the other a woman who came to Pinkerton's San Francisco office to hire an operative to discharge her housekeeper, but neither of these women was a criminal."^[12]

The character of the sinister "Fat Man" Kasper Gutman was based on A. Maundy Gregory, an overweight British detective-turned-entrepreneur who was involved in many sophisticated endeavors and capers, including a search for a long-lost treasure not unlike the jeweled Falcon.^[15] However, the character was not easily cast, and it took some time before producer Hal Wallis suggested Huston should screen test Sydney Greenstreet, a veteran stage character actor who had never appeared on film before. Greenstreet, who was then 61 years old and weighed between 280 and 350 pounds, impressed Huston with his sheer size, distinctive abrasive laugh, bulbous eyes, and manner of speaking.^[15]

The character of Joel Cairo was based on a criminal that Hammett arrested for forgery in Pasco, Washington, in 1920.^[12] In Hammett's novel, the character is clearly homosexual, but to avoid problems with the censors, this was downplayed considerably, although he is still noticeably effeminate. For instance, Cairo's calling cards and handkerchiefs are scented with gardenias; he fusses about his clothes and becomes upset when blood from a scratch ruins his shirt; and he makes subtle fellating gestures with his cane during his interview with Spade. By contrast, in the novel, Cairo is referred to as "queer" and "the fairy". The film is one of many of the era that, because of the Hays Office, could only hint at homosexuality. It is mentioned by The Celluloid Closet, a documentary about how films dealt with homosexuality.

The same theme occurs in connection with Wilmer, the object of Cairo’s affection, a role for whom Huston selected the character actor Elisha Cook Jr. Wilmer gets upset when Spade refers to him as a "gunsel", which beside its connotation of 'gunman', was also applied at that time to a young homosexual in a relationship with an older man.^[16]^[17]^[18].

During his preparation for The Maltese Falcon, first-time director John Huston planned each second of the film to the very last detail, tailoring the screenplay with instructions to himself for a shot-for-shot setup, with sketches for every scene, so filming could proceed fluently and professionally.^[19] Huston was adamant that the film keep to schedule, and that everything be methodically planned to the fullest to ensure that the film never went over budget. By providing the cast with a highly detailed script, Huston was able to let them rehearse their scenes with very little intervention.

Such was the extent and efficacy of his preparation of the script that almost no line of dialogue was eliminated in the final edit of the film.^[20] Except for some exterior night shots, Huston shot the entire film in sequence,^[21] which greatly helped his actors. The shooting went so smoothly that there was actually extra time for the cast to enjoy themselves; Huston brought Bogart, Astor, Bond, Lorre and others to the Lakeside Golf Club near the Warner lot to relax in the pool, dine, drink and talk until midnight about anything other than the film they were working on.

Huston used much of the dialogue from the original novel. The only major section of the novel which wasn't used at all in the film is the story of a man named "Flitcraft",^[22] which Spade tells to Brigid while waiting in his apartment for Cairo to show up. Huston removed all references to sex that the Hays Office had deemed to be unacceptable. Huston was also warned not to show excessive drinking. The director fought the latter, on the grounds that Spade was a man who put away a half bottle of hard liquor a day and showing him completely abstaining from alcohol would mean seriously falsifying his character.^[15]

With its low-key lighting and inventive and arresting angles, the work of Director of Photography Arthur Edeson is one of the film's great assets. Unusual camera angles—sometimes low to the ground, revealing the ceilings of rooms (a technique also used by Orson Welles and his cinematographer Gregg Toland on Citizen Kane)—are utilized to emphasize the nature of the characters and their actions. Some of the most technically striking scenes involve Gutman, especially the scene where he explains the history of the Falcon to Spade, purposely drawing out his story so that the knockout drops he has slipped into Spade's drink will take effect.^[15] Meta Wilde, Huston's longtime script supervisor, remarked of this scene:

Wilde's account suggests that the entire scene was edited into the finished film as a long take—an idea that has since been corroborated by numerous film historians, including Roger Ebert, who said in his review, "Consider an astonishing unbroken seven-minute take ... Was the shot just a stunt? Not at all; most viewers don't notice it because they're swept along by its flow."^[9]

However, while the scene may have been built around a complicated master shot, in fact no long takes are used in any part of the finished film. Ebert does, however, accurately review Huston's innovative choices during the scene in which Spade is drugged:

Very nearly as visually evocative are the scenes involving Astor, almost all of which suggest prison. In one scene she wears striped pajamas, the furniture in the room is striped, and the slivers of light coming through the Venetian blinds suggest cell bars, as do the bars on the elevator cage at the end of the film when she takes her slow ride downward with the police, apparently on her way to prison and possible execution. Huston and Edeson crafted each scene to make sure the images, action and dialog blended effectively, sometimes shooting closeups of characters with other cast members acting with them off camera.^[15]

Fred Sexton (June 3, 1907 – September 11, 1995) was an American artist and sculptor of the Maltese Falcon statuette prop for the film.^[24] During the 1930s and 1940s, Sexton was championed by Los Angeles Times art critic Arthur Millier, and his work was acquired by Los Angeles-area art collectors including actor Edward G. Robinson and movie director John Huston.^[25]^[26]^[27]^[28]^[29]^[30] Sexton also taught art and headed the Art Students League in Los Angeles^[31] between 1949 and 1953.^[30]

In August 2013, Michele Fortier, the daughter of Fred Sexton, was interviewed on camera by UCLA Professor Vivian Sobchack, Ph.D. Fortier recounted her father’s creation of the Maltese Falcon prop model for the film, as well as visits to the film set where she interacted with actors Humphrey Bogart and Sydney Greenstreet, and director John Huston.^[24]

Fortier recalled that her father made "preliminary sketches" for the Maltese Falcon prop on a "manila envelope", and then sculpted the model for the prop in clay. During visits to the film set, she remembered seeing a prop that was "shiny and black", but "not like patent leather shoes".^[24]

Fortier also identified initials inscribed in the right rear tail feather of a plaster Maltese Falcon prop owned by Hank Risan as her father’s.^[24] Fortier explained that she owns many of her father’s paintings and commented that many of the signatures share the same idiosyncratic characteristics.^[24]

The "Maltese Falcon" itself is said to have been based on the "Kniphausen Hawk",^[32] a ceremonial pouring vessel made in 1697 for George William von Kniphausen, Count of the Holy Roman Empire. It is modeled after a hawk perched on a rock and is encrusted with red garnets, amethysts, emeralds and blue sapphires. The vessel is currently owned by the Cavendish family^[33] and is part of the collection at Chatsworth House.^[32]

Several 11.5-inch (29 cm) tall falcon props were made for the film. A metal falcon was given to William Conrad by studio chief Jack L. Warner and auctioned off in December 1994, nine months after Conrad's death, for $398,500 to Ronald Winston, president and CEO of Harry Winston, Inc.^[34] At the time, it was the highest price paid for a film prop.^[35] The prop was used to model a 10-pound gold replica displayed at the 69th Academy Awards. In early 1996, Ronald Winston announced that he sold the prop to a mystery buyer for an undisclosed offer "I couldn't refuse."^[36] A 45-pound metal prop known to have appeared in the film was sold at auction on November 25, 2013, for over $4 million, including the buyer's fee.^[37]

On September 24, 2010, Guernsey's auctioned a 4 lb, 5.4 oz resin falcon for $305,000 to a group of buyers that included actor Leonardo DiCaprio and billionaire Stewart Rahr, owner of pharmaceutical and generics wholesaler Kinray.^[38] The prop was discovered at a flea market in New Jersey in 1991 by Emmy-winning producer/director Ara Chekmayan.^[39]

Adam Savage, co-host of MythBusters, has gone to great lengths to create an accurate replica.^[40]

The Maltese Falcon is considered a classic example of a MacGuffin, a plot device that motivates the characters of the story, but otherwise has little relevance.^[41]

Reception

Following a September 1941 preview, Variety called it "one of the best examples of actionful and suspenseful melodramatic story telling in cinematic form":

Upon its release, Bosley Crowther described it as "the best mystery thriller of the year", saying "young Mr. Huston gives promise of becoming one of the smartest directors in the field"; according to Crowther, "the trick which Mr. Huston has pulled is a combination of American ruggedness with the suavity of the English crime school—a blend of mind and muscle—plus a slight touch of pathos."^[43] The widely read trade paper The Film Daily agreed with Crowther's assessment of the film and focused special attention as well on Huston's directorial debut. In its 1941 review of the "beautifully made" production, the paper asserts, "John Huston's direction of his own screenplay is as brilliant as any of the jewels which are alleged to encrust the falcon whose possession is the crux of the story".^[44]

As a measure of modern or more current reactions to the film, the review-aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes gives The Maltese Falcon a 100% approval rating by professional critics, based on 53 reviews, and an average "like" score of 91% based on over 57,000 general audience reviews.^[45] The site's consensus states, "Suspenseful, labyrinthine, and brilliantly cast, The Maltese Falcon is one of the most influential noirs -- as well as a showcase for Humphrey Bogart at his finest."^[45]

According to Warner Bros.' records the film earned $967,000 domestically and $805,000 foreign.^[1]

The film received three nominations at the 14th Academy Awards: Best Picture, Sydney Greenstreet for Best Supporting Actor, and John Huston for Best Adapted Screenplay.

As a result of the film's success, Warner Bros. immediately made plans to produce a sequel entitled The Further Adventures of the Maltese Falcon, which Huston was to direct in early 1942. However, due to Huston's high demand as a director and unavailability of the major cast members, the sequel was never made.^[15]

In 1989, The Maltese Falcon was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant", going in the first year of voting.^[8] Roger Ebert added it to his "Great Movies" list.^[9]

American Film Institute recognition

1998 – AFI's 100 Years…100 Movies – No. 23

2001 – AFI's 100 Years…100 Thrills – No. 26

2003 – AFI's 100 Years…100 Heroes and Villains: Kasper Gutman – Nominated Villain Brigid O'Shaughnessy – Nominated Villain

2005 – AFI's 100 Years…100 Movie Quotes: "The stuff that dreams are made of." – No. 14. The expression is based on Act 4 of William Shakespeare’s play The Tempest, wherein Prospero says, "We are such stuff / As dreams are made on". "You're good, you're very good." – Nominated

2007 – AFI's 100 Years…100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition) – No. 31

2008 – AFI's 10 Top 10 – No. 6 Mystery Film

Home media

The DVD was re-released on June 1, 2006, with a new Dolby Digital mono soundtrack. It includes the original theatrical trailer. The DVD also includes an essay, A History of the Mystery, examining the mystery and film noir genres through the decades.

Also included on a second and third disc are two previous film versions of the Hammett novel: The Maltese Falcon (1931) and Satan Met a Lady. In a new documentary, The Maltese Falcon: One Magnificent Bird, a blooper reel, makeup tests and three radio show adaptations—two featuring the film's original stars—are also present.

Another special feature is a Turner Classic Movies documentary, Becoming Attractions: The Trailers of Humphrey Bogart. Hosted by TCM's Robert Osborne, the 45-minute feature traces Bogart's evolution from a heavy in the 1930s to a romantic leading man in the 1940s, and his return to playing bad men late in that decade.

The film was colorized for television by Turner Broadcasting System and released on video by MGM/UA in 1989, but that version is no longer available. CBS/Fox Video released a 101-minute black-and-white version of the film on laserdisc in 1982.

Soundtrack

The music was written by Adolph Deutsch, who later went on to win an Academy Award. The recording was re-released in 2002 along with other film soundtrack works by Deutsch, including George Washington Slept Here, The Mask of Dimitrios, High Sierra and Northern Pursuit.

Adaptations

Perhaps the earliest radio adaptation of The Maltese Falcon was on the Silver Theater broadcast on the CBS radio network on February 1, 1942, with Bogart as star.^[46] Philip Morris Playhouse staged an adaptation August 14, 1942, with Edward Arnold starring.^[47] CBS later created a 30-minute adaptation for The Screen Guild Theater with Bogart, Astor, Greenstreet and Lorre all reprising their roles. This radio segment was originally released on September 20, 1943, and was played again on July 3, 1946.^[48] On May 18, 1950, another adaptation was broadcast on The Screen Guild Theater starring Bogart and his wife Lauren Bacall. In addition, there was an adaptation on Lux Radio Theater on February 8, 1943, starring Edward G. Robinson, Gail Patrick, and Laird Cregar.

See also

Tribute of the Maltese Falcon

List of films with a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, a film review aggregator website

You Might Like