30 Years of Brilliance: 1930-1959
Bogart, Lorre, Astor and Greenstreet
'The Maltese Falcon' is a movie made in 1941, written and directed by John Huston, making his directorial debut, and based on the novel by Dashiell Hammett. The movie is regarded as a classic of the film noir genre and was nominated for three Academy Awards: Best Picture, Sydney Greenstreet for Best Supporting Actor, and John Huston for Best Adapted Screenplay. In 1989, it was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". The movie stars Humphrey Bogart as private investigator Sam Spade, Mary Astor as his beautiful client, Sydney Greenstreet in his film debut, and Peter Lorre.
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By 1941, Hammett's great private eye novel had already been acceptably filmed twice, under its own title in 1931 with Ricardo Cortez as Sam Spade and as 'Satan Met a Lady' in 1935 with Warren William as the Spade character and a young Bette Davis.
Whereas other great Hollywood directors pursue their own visions, Huston was at his best when making faithful adaptations of minor classic novels. Having served an apprenticeship as a writer, Huston selected the book from Warner Brothers' catalogue of properies and was so confident in the strength of his material that his script consists essentially of a transcription of Hammett's dialogue although removing any references to sex that the Hays Office had deemed to be unacceptable. He was fortunate enough to have a letter-perfect cast down to the smallest bit parts, and the restraint not to go over the top. This debut feature has little of the razzle-dazzle of the same year's 'Citizen Kane', announcing the arrival not of an enfant terrible but of a consummate professional.
Often considered a cornerstone of film noir, 'The Maltese Falcon' is sparing in its use of symbolic shadows - which are withheld until the elevator door casts jail-bar shapes across the face of the duplicitous heroine at the end - and takes place almost entirely in anonymously tidy hotel rooms and offices worlds away from the seedy glamor of 'The Big Sleep' in 1946 or 'Murder, My Sweet' in 1944.
Hunphrey Bogart, graduating from bad-guy roles to tough romantic heroes, is San Francisco private eye Sam Spade. A sharp-suited businessman who is out to bring in the murderer of his partner and thwart a group of treacherous adventurers who have become so caught up in the search for the fabulous jeweled bird of the title that they make the fatal mistake of assuming everyone is as corrupt and greedy as they are. Mary Astor might at first glance seem a little matronly for a femme fatale, but her strange primness in tight suits and tighter hairstyle is weirdly apt for a woman who always has a backup falsehood in place. Sydney Greenstreet's talkative, obese, self-delighted Kaspar Gutman, Peter Lorre's polite, sad, scented, whiny Joel Cairo are screen immortals, a Bing and Bob or Laurel and Hardy of crime, with perennial loser/fall guy Elisha Cook Jr. as the angry little gunman Wilmer who is doomed always to be on the outside of the deal.
Hammett's reptation rests on his addition of a certain social realism to the American mystery story, with private eyes who are solid professionals rather than supersleuths. He was also addicted to plots as twisted and bizrre as Jacobean drama-'The Maltese Falcon' climaxes not only with the hysterical punchline that the black bird everyone has been scheming and killing to possess is actually a fraud but also the classic moment as the detective admits that he loves the murderess but is still going to let her get hauled off to jail.
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