The Maltese Falcon (1941) – Classic Noir

Genre: Noir/ Private Detective Thriller

Platform: Amazon Rent/ You Tube rent

Time : 1 hour 40 minutes

Director: John Huston

Cast:   Humphrey Bogart (Sam Spade). Mary Astor (Ruth Wonderly/ Brigid O’Shaugnessy). Sidney Greenstreet (Kasper Gutman / The Fat Man). Peter Lorre (Joel Cairo).

Plot:   Ruth Wonderly walks into Sam Spade’s office seeking help to trace her wayward sister. Spade’s partner , Miles Archer, offers to assist her. That night Archer is shot dead by an unknown person. Spade is called in to identify and check out the crime scene. Next day Joel Cairo visits Spade’s office and threatens him with a gun . An amused Spade first hits him and then lets him carry out a search. Soon Ruth tells her real purpose – she is Brigid O’Shaugnessy  awaiting a mysterious package , which both Cairo and another person known as The Fat Man, also wants. Spade is followed by a street thug Wilmer (Elisha Cook.Jr). Spade knows no one is telling him the truth…

As always happens with Classic films, there has to be an alignment of stars for it to happen . The Maltese Falcon, Dashiel Hammett’s  novel was first filmed in 1931, immediately after sound had become a “normal” thing in cinema. While successful it didn’t exactly make any waves , nor was it classified as a cult. It was just one among the hundreds of new “sound” movies , that were being churned out in the immediate aftermath of the transition from silent films to sound films.

John Huston’s first film as a director meant that no one was willing to give such a ‘rookie’ their valuable time . Humphrey Bogart had been around for a long time and mostly as villain, some side roles and some second lead roles . So it was but natural that he gravitated towards this role and made it his own. With BRILLIANT all round results. It can be said that the film made Bogart’s reputation forever and like many classics, it is impossible to visualize any other actor playing the role.

There is a section where he confronts the Police who are harassing him and speaks at a breakneck speed about the chain of evidence and suddenly pauses to the male receptionist with “you got that all or am I going too fast for you?” The receptionist nods sagely and Bogart continues at machine gun speed to outline his findings so far.

The object of desire, The Falcon, serves as a symbol for that is human. Greed. Lust. Power. Enough of the three to kill others and grab it for oneself . The gold covered statue become a symbol for human misery through the ages and adding more deaths to its tally once it enters San Francisco, killing the very man (John Huston’s father Walter Huston in a non speaking ‘dead’ cameo) who finally hands it over to Spade.

This is one of those films that has to be seen and cannot be described. Bogart’s laconic Spade. Astor’s clearly treacherous Brigid. The greedy criminals Gutman and Cairo. The policemen who are groping in the dark and obstructing Spade. And forever in the background, the Maltese falcon , which will cause more deaths as the story progresses.

We can only summarize with that tired old cliché ‘they don’t make them like that any more’.

Script – 5 out of 5

Story – 5 out of 5

Direction – 5 out of 5

Photography – 5 out of 5

Performance – 5 out of 5

Total – 5 out of 5