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EspañolTHE MALTESE FALCON (1941 FILM)
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'''The Maltese Falcon''' is a 1941 Warner Brothers film
written and directed by John Huston, based on the novel of the same name by Dashiell Hammett, and starring Humphrey Bogart as private investigator Sam Spade, Mary Astor as his ''femme fatale'' client, Sydney Greenstreet in his film debut, and Peter Lorre. The film was Huston's directorial debut and was nominated for three Academy Awards.
The story concerns the entanglement of a San Francisco private investigator with three greedy, unscrupulous and murderous adventurers who compete with each other to obtain a fabulous jewel-encrusted statuette of a falcon worth millions.
''The Maltese Falcon'' has been named as one of the greatest films of all time by Roger Ebert.Ebert, Roger "The Maltese Falcon (1941)." ''rogerebert.com''. 13 May 2001. 24 February 2007. and ''Entertainment Weekly'',Entertainment Weekly. The 100 Greatest Movies of All Time. New York: Entertainment Weekly Books, 1999. and was cited by ''Panorama du Film Noir Américain'', the French book that coined the term ''film noir'', as the first film of that genre.Sklar, Robert. ''Film: An International History of the Medium''. [London]: Thames and Hudson, [c. 1990].
The film premiered on October 3, 1941 in New York City and in 1989 was selected for inclusion in the Library of Congress' National Film Registry.
The antihero protagonist of Dashiell Hammett's ''The Maltese Falcon'', private investigator Sam Spade, is based on the author's experiences as a private detective for the Pinkerton Detective Agency in San Francisco. Hammett not only invested Spade with characteristics drawn from his own personality but also gave him his own first name, Samuel, which Hammett had discarded when he launched his career as a writer.
Hammett also drew upon his years as a detective in creating many of the other characters for ''The Maltese Falcon'', which from elements of two of his stories published in ''Black Mask'' magazine in 1925, “The Whosis Kid,” and “The Gutting of Couffignal.” Introduction to ''The Maltese Falcon'' (1934 edition) Dashiell Hammett The novel itself was serialized in five parts in ''Black Mask'' in 1930 before being published in book form that same year by Alfred A. Knopf.
The 1941 film is the third film version of the novel. The first, released in 1931, starred Ricardo Cortez as Sam Spade, while the second, called ''Satan Met a Lady'', was a loose adaptation that turned the story into a light comedy, with the characters renamed. It was released in 1936 and starred a young Bette Davis, only five years into her long film career, and Warren William.
Warner Brothers was prevented by the Hays Office censors from re-releasing the 1931 version due to its "lewd" content, which is probably what caused them to go into production in 1941 with a new, cleaned-up version. (It was not until after 1966 that unedited copies of the 1931 film could legally be shown in the U.S.) Ironically, the 1941 film still managed to sneak some homosexual innuendo past the censors.
In San Francisco in 1941, private investigators Sam Spade (Humphrey Bogart) and Miles Archer (Jerome Cowan) meet a beautiful new client - Miss Ruth Wonderly (Mary Astor) - who asks them to locate her missing sister, who is there with a man named Floyd Thursby. Wonderly has arranged to meet Thursby that night and is hoping her sister will be with him. After they receive a substantial retainer from the woman, Archer volunteers to follow her that night and help free her sister from Thursby.
When Archer shows up that night, he is shot and killed. A call informs Spade of his partner’s death, but before he goes to the murder scene he tells his secretary Effie Perrine (Lee Patrick) to break the news to Archer's wife, Iva (Gladys George), and warns her to keep Iva away from him. At the scene, police detective Tom Polhaus (Ward Bond) shows Spade the murder weapon, a rare English handgun. Spade tells Polhaus that Archer was tailing Thursby, but refuses to give him any more information. Spade then calls Miss Wonderly’s hotel but finds that she has checked out with no forwarding address.
Returning to his small apartment, Spade is soon visited by Polhaus and his superior, Lt Dundy (Barton MacLane), a tough and uncompromising cop. They grill Spade about the case he and Archer were working on but he refuses to name his client. They tell him that Thursby has been shot dead and suggest that Spade had time to do it.
The next morning Spade is visited by Iva who embraces him passionately, and asks if he killed Archer so that the two of them can be together — but Effie suggests to Spade the possibility that Iva herself might be the killer. Spade meets with Wonderly - now calling herself Brigid O’Shaughnessy - and assures her that he's kept her identity secret from the police, but lets her know that he is aware she invented the story about her sister. She explains that Thursby was her companion, carried a gun and probably killed Archer, but claims to have no idea who killed Thursby. Spade agrees to find out who’s behind the killings, but he makes her pay him most of the money she has on hand.
At his office, Spade meets Joel Cairo (Peter Lorre), who offers him a $5,000 fee to find a “black figure of a bird”. When Spade is momentarily distracted, Cairo pulls a gun on him to search the office, but Spade knocks the gun away and punches Cairo unconscious. Spade goes through Cairo's possessions, inspecting his money and his three passports from different countries. When Cairo revives, he asks if Spade has the bird he's looking for, but Spade doesn't, so Cairo hires him to find it. They discuss terms until Cairo politely asks for his weapon back. He promptly turns it on Spade again to search the office, much to Spade's amusement.
Later that evening, Spade realizes that he is being followed and loses the man, then visits Brigid, telling her about his meeting with Cairo. They fence verbally, and Spade kisses her, but demands she tell him what's going on. They go to Spade’s apartment so that Brigid can meet with Cairo. When Cairo shows up, they grill each other about the black bird’s whereabouts, and Cairo becomes worried when Brigid mentions that “the Fat Man” is in San Francisco. When Brigid insults Cairo, he tries to pull a gun on her, but Spade slaps him down.
They are interrupted by the two police detectives at the door wanting to talk to Spade, who won't let them in. When they hear Cairo cry for help, the cops go in anyway and are told various conflicting stories about what happened. Dundy wants to bring them all in, but Spade tells the cops they were being ribbed and Brigid and Cairo back him up, leaving the police again at sea. Cairo leaves, followed by the police, and Spade gets Brigid to tell him more about the black bird and herself, most of it apparently fabricated.
In the morning, Spade goes to Cairo's hotel, where he spots the man who's been following him, sitting in the lobby. He speaks to him to send a message to the "Fat Man", but Wilmer (Elisha Cook, Jr.) feigns ignorance and tells him to “shove off”, so Spade gets the house detective to throw Wilmer out. Cairo arrives, saying that he's been grilled by the police all night, but has stuck to Spade's "goofy" cover story.
When Spade returns to his office, he learns that Kasper Gutman (Sydney Greenstreet), the "Fat Man", has gotten his message and wants to talk to him. After sending Brigid off with Effie for safekeeping, and cold-shouldering Iva, Spade goes to Gutman's hotel suite. Gutman greets Spade warmly, gives him a drink and begins to talk about the Falcon, but then becomes deliberately evasive, causing Spade to put on an act of becoming violently angry. He smashes his glass and storms out, giving Gutman a deadline of 5:30 that evening to cooperate with him. As he goes into the elevator, we see Joel Cairo coming out of another one, on his way to Gutman's suite.
After being questioned by the District Attorney, and telling him off, Spade is accosted by Wilmer to take him to Gutman at gunpoint. Before they get to the hotel suite, Spade overpowers him, taking his weapons, and then humiliates him by handing the weapons over to Gutman. Gutman and Spade sit down to more drinks, while Gutman elaborately relates the checkered history of the Maltese Falcon.
Gutman explains that pirates stole the jewel-encrusted, priceless Falcon when it was sent to King Charles in the 1500s and that, centuries later, it turned up in Paris, where it was painted over with black enamel to hide its value. Much later, in the 20th century, a Greek antique dealer found the Falcon, but the dealer was murdered and the Falcon stolen once again. Gutman traced the Falcon to the home of a Russian general in Istanbul, and tried to buy it, but when the general refused to sell, Gutman sent in some "agents" to steal it. "Well, sir," Gutman says, "they got it, but I haven't got it."
Gutman offers Spade $25,000 for the bird, and one-fourth of the proceeds from its sale. When Spade tries to continue the conversation, his vision blurs and he passes out: his drink has been spiked. After Wilmer kicks Spade in the face in revenge for embarrassing him, Gutman and Cairo (who has been in the other room) depart, leaving Spade alone on the floor, unconscious.
When Spade revives, he immediately calls his secretary to talk to Brigid, and learns that she is not with her. He searches Gutman's apartment and finds a newspaper with the arrival time of the freighter ''La Paloma'' from Hong Kong circled. He goes to the dock but finds that the ship is on fire. A dock officer informs him that the crew and passengers all got off safely, and he returns to his office.
Suddenly a man (Walter Huston) bursts into the office, staggers toward Spade clutching a bundle wrapped in newspaper, and drops it, muttering “You know ... Falcon”. He collapses on the couch, dead. Spade inspects the dead man’s wallet and tells Effie that the man, who has been shot, is Captain Jacobi of the ''La Paloma''. Looking inside the bundle, Spade grabs Effie hard by the wrist and says "We’ve got it, angel. We’ve got it."
The phone rings, and the secretary hears Brigid give an address and then scream before the line goes dead. Spade directs her to call the police after he’s gone and tell them how the captain died but not to mention the package, which he takes to a bus terminal baggage room and checks, mailing the claim check to himself at a postal box.
After the address Brigid gave turns out to be an empty lot, Spade returns homes and finds her hiding in a doorway near his apartment. He takes her inside, where he 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 a fall guy he can turn over to the police for the murders of Archer, Thursby and Captain Jacobi, getting himself off the hook. Spade suggests that Wilmer is the best choice, since he certainly killed Thursby and Jacobi at least. After some intense negotiation, Gutman and Cairo agree to sacrifice Wilmer, who is knocked out in a scuffle. Spade gets the details of what happened and who killed whom, so that he can present a convincing package to the police along with Wilmer.
Just after dawn, Spade calls Effie and instructs her to bring him the bundle, which she duly does. In a frenzy, Gutman, Cairo and Brigid unwrap it, revealing a black statuette: the Maltese Falcon. Gutman inspects the bird, and to make sure it's the real thing, he begins to scrape away the enamel coating with a penknife. Growing increasing agitated, he cuts fasters and faster, and finally cries out that it's a fake.
Brigid adamantly insists that the bird is the same statuette she got from the Russian general, and Cairo explodes that it was Gutman's crude attempt to buy the bird that tipped off the general to its great value — he must have had a duplicate made for them to steal. "No wonder we had such an easy time stealing it!"
Cairo breaks down and weeps while Gutman regains control of himself, suggesting that he and Cairo go to Istanbul to continue their quest. He demands at gunpoint that Spade return the money he's been paid, but allows him to keep $1,000 for his "time and expenses". Gutman invites Spade to join them, saying "You're a man of nice judgment and many resources", but Spade declines.
Gutman and Cairo leave, and Spade calls the police and tells them where to pick up them up. Spade angrily confronts the frightened Brigid, telling her he knows she killed Archer to implicate her unwanted lover and accomplice, Thursby. "Well," he adds, "if you get a good break, you’ll be out in 20 years and you can come back to me then. I hope they don’t hang you, precious, by that sweet neck."
Brigid can’t believe that Spade will turn her over to the police. "You killed Miles" he says, "and you're going over for it." She appeals to him and his love for her. Spade doesn’t argue. He sits down glumly, staring downward, saying: "When a man’s partner’s killed he’s supposed to do something about it. It doesn’t make any difference what you thought of him. He was your partner and you’re supposed to do something about it."
Spade lets in the police and turns over the Falcon, the money Gutman gave him, which he says was a a bribe for his silence, the guns he's collected from Wilmer, Gutman and Cairo, and the devastated Brigid, explaining that she killed his partner. Brigid is taken away by the Lieutenant, and Polhaus picks up the statuette and asks what it is. Taking the Falcon, Spade replies, “The stuff that dreams are made of”. Spade has time to step out into the hallway and see the Brigid staring vacantly through the bars of the elevator window as she departs in on her way to jail as the film ends.
First-time director John Huston was very careful when casting ''The Maltese Falcon'', but Humphrey Bogart was not the first choice to play Sam Spade. Producer Hal Wallis initially offered the role to George Raft, who rejected it because he did not want to work with an inexperienced director. (Raft would go on turning down roles that Bogart would play and make famous, including the cynical hero of ''Casablanca''.) The 42-year-old Bogart was delighted, however, 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 such films as ''The Treasure of the Sierra Madre'' (1948); ''Key Largo'' (1948); and ''The African Queen'' (1951). 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 to interact and act with Bogart.
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.
The character of the sinister "Fat Man" Kasper Gutman was based on real-life villain, 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 jewelled Falcon. However, the character was not easily cast, and it took some time before producer Hal Wallis solved the problem by suggesting that Huston give a screen test to Sydney Greenstreet, a veteran stage character actor who had never appeared on film. 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. Greenstreet went on to be typecast in later films of the 1940s such as ''The Mask of Dimitrios'' (1944), ''The Verdict'' (1946) and ''Three Strangers'' (1946).
Greenstreet's characterization had such a strong cultural impact that the "Fat Man" atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki during World War II was named after him.[1] (The appellation "Fat Man" for Gutman was created for the film - in the novel, although he is a fat man, he's referred to as "G.")
The character of Joel Cairo was based on a criminal Hammett captured for robbing Pinkerton’s in 1920 in Washington D.C. In Hammett's novel, the character is blatantly 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 hysterical 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".
Elisha Cook Jr., a well-known character actor was cast by Huston as the henchman Wilmer. According to Huston, Cook “lived alone up in the High Sierra, tied flies and caught golden trout between films. When he was wanted in Hollywood, they sent word up to his mountain cabin by courier. He would come down, do a picture, and then withdraw again to his retreat.” Like Cairo (and even Gutman) the character of Wilmer has also been seen by many commentators as homosexual, primarily because of the use of "gunsel", meaning a young homosexual in a relationship with an older man, to describe him.[2] gunsel Michael Quinion [3]
Gladys George had made her mark on Broadway with her starring role in Lawrence Riley's ''Personal Appearance'' (1934) (adapted for the screen in 1936 as Go West, Young Man): this comedy's huge success had been credited in great part to her comic performance. Her role as Archer's wife thus displays her versatility.
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. Like other directors, such as Alfred Hitchcock, Huston was adamant that the film keep to schedule, and that everything was 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 not a line of dialog was eliminated in the final edit of the film. Except for some exterior night shots, Huston shot the entire film in sequence, which greatly helped his actors create their characters. The shooting went so smoothly that there was actually extra time for the cast to enjoy themselves, and 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", which Spade tells to Brigid while waiting in his apartment for Cairo to show up. removing all references to sex which the Hays Office had deemed to be unacceptable. The many “by gads” Greenstreet utters in the movie were inserted by the censors to replace “by God”. Huston was also warned not to show excessive drinking. The director fought this, 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.
★ 'Associate Producer' - Henry Blanke
★ 'Director of Photography' - Arthur Edeson
★ 'Dialogue director' - Robert Foulk
★ 'Film Editor' - Thomas Richards
★ 'Art Director' - Robert M. Haas
★ 'Sound' - Oliver S. Garretson
★ 'Gowns' - Orry-Kelly
★ 'Makeup Artist' - Perc Westmore (credited) and Frank McCoy (uncredited)
★ 'Music' - Adolph Deutsch
★ 'Musical Director' - Leo F. Forbstein
★ 'Production Management' - Al Alleborn (uncredited)
★ 'Assistant Director' - Claude Archer (uncredited)
★ 'Script supervisor' - Meta Carpenter (uncredited)
★ 'Orchestrator' - Arthur Lange (uncredited)
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. Huston and Edeson used ceilings to create images of confinement, and the sets, except for the hotel and the dock scene, are almost claustrophobic, suggesting that Spade’s investigation is extremely limited, that he has just so much space in which to search for the black bird.
Unusual camera angles are cleverly utilized to emphasize the nature of the characters. 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. As the seated Gutman spins the tale of the bird, the camera shoots up at him from the floor almost vertically, emphasising his considerable girth as he fills the entire screen. His domination of the scene in this way illustrates his overwhelming greed, and the expanse of his belly, crossed by a gold watch chain, reinforces the historical scope of the dark tale of conspiracy which surrounds the Falcon.
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 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.
The "Maltese Falcon" itself is reportedly based on the "Kniphausen Hawk," 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 Duke of Devonshire and is an integral piece of the Chatsworth collection.
There were several 11-1/2 inch tall Falcon props made for use in the film due to the fact that Humphrey Bogart dropped the original during shooting. The original Falcon is on display to this day in Warner Brothers' movie museum, and its tail feathers are visibly dented from Bogart's accident. Some of the copies of the Falcon were cast of plastic resin, and some of lead. Only two 45 lb. lead Falcons and two 5 lb., 5.4 oz resin Falcons are verified to be in existence today. One lead Falcon has been displayed for years at various venues. The second, which was marred at the end of the movie by Sydney Greenstreet, was a gift to William Conrad from studio chief Jack L. Warner. It was auctioned off in December 1994, nine months after Conrad's death, for $398,500 to Ronald Winston of Harry Winston, Inc. At that time, it was the highest price at which a movie prop had ever been sold. It was used to model a 10 lb. gold replica displayed at the 69th Academy Awards. The replica has Burmese ruby eyes, interchangeable claws (one set of gold, one set of coral) and has a platinum chain in its beak with a 42.98 flawless diamond at the end. Its value is estimated at well over $8 million. The lead and resin Falcons are valued in excess of $2 million.
Main articles: The Maltese Falcon Soundtrack
The music for ''The Maltese Falcon'' was written by Adolph Deutsch, who later went on to win an Academy Award for his incidental music for ''Oklahoma!'' in 1955.
The recording was re-released in 2002 with the soundtracks to other film works of Deutsch, including ''George Washington Slept Here'', ''The Mask of Dimitrios'', ''High Sierra'', and ''Northern Pursuit''.
★ 'United States:' October 3 1941 (New York City premiere)
★ 'United States:' October 18 1941 (general release)
★ 'Argentina:' December 17 1941
★ 'Austria:' December 22 1945
★ 'Sweden:' February 15 1943
★ 'Portugal:' August 8 1945
★ 'Germany:' May 3 1946
★ 'France:' July 31 1946
★ 'Finland:' September 20 1946
★ 'Greece:' September 21 1946
★ 'Denmark:' October 28 1946
★ 'Italy:' April 5 1947
★ 'Hong Kong:' August 13 1950
★ 'Japan:' January 26 1951
The DVD was released on June 1 2006 with a new Dolby Digital mono soundtrack. It includes the original theatrical trailer, as well as a trailer for the earlier 1936 film adaptation of the novel, ''Satan Met a Lady'', and trailers of other Humphrey Bogart films such as ''The Petrified Forest'', ''High Sierra'', ''Casablanca'', ''To Have and Have Not'', and ''The Treasure of the Sierra Madre''. The DVD also includes an essay, ''A History of the Mystery'', examining the mystery and film noir genres through the decades.
Another notable special feature is a Turner Classic Movie 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 '40s, and his return to playing bad men late in that decade.
On its release, ''The Maltese Falcon'' received significant acclaim from both critics and the public, and its reputation has been growing ever since. In 1942, it was nominated for three Academy Awards: the film was nominated for Best Picture, Sydney Greenstreet for Best Supporting Actor, and John Huston for Best Adapted Screenplay.
As a result of the film's success, Warner Brothers 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 the fact that Huston was now in high demand and the major cast members were unavailable, the sequel was never made.
The film has been named as one of the greatest films of all time by Roger Ebert and ''Entertainment Weekly'', and the American Film Institute ranked it #23 in their list of the best 100 movies in American cinema as well as #26 in their list of the top 100 thrilling movies in American cinema.
The quote that Bogart ends the film with, "The stuff that dreams are made of" (a misquotation from ''The Tempest''''Shakespeare, William The Tempest'', Act IV, Sc 1, line 155), was chosen as #14 on the AFI's list of top movie quotes in cinematic history.AFI's 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes
''The Maltese Falcon'' (1941) has been deemed "culturally significant" by the Library of Congress and in 1989 was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry.
The CBS radio network created a 30-minute adaptation of ''The Maltese Falcon'' on ''The Screen Guild Theater'' with actors 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.[4] 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.
In 1975, Columbia released a spoof of ''The Maltese Falcon'' called ''The Black Bird'', starring George Segal as Sam Spade, Jr., with Patrick and Cook reprising their roles as Effie and Wilmer from the 1941 version. In 1974, during production for this film, one of the seven plaster figurines of the original 1941 Falcon on display at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art was stolen, and it was alleged that the “disappearance” of the figurine was staged as a publicity stunt for the Segal film. If it was, it backfired, since news accounts of the missing Falcon exceeded those of the Segal film.[5]
In 1988, the film was parodied in "The Big Goodbye," a first-season episode of ''. Captain Jean-Luc Picard, played by Patrick Stewart, is a fan of detective stories of the early 20th Century, including the fictional Dixon Hill, a stand-in for Sam Spade. In a holodeck simulation, Picard-as-Hill is opposed by Cyrus Redblock, whose name is a play on "Sydney Greenstreet." Redblock is looking for "the item," which is never identified, but is meant to stand in for the Falcon.
There is a homage to the film in ''Overdrawn at the Memory Bank'', a made-for-TV movie that gained some notoriety by being mocked on ''Mystery Science Theatre 3000''. Famed Marvel Comics supervillain the ''Kingpin'' is also supposedly based on Sydney Greenstreet's character of Kasper Gutman.
In an episode of Get Smart that parodies the film, Maxwell Smart travels to Mexico on a case to find the Tequila Mockingbird, a parody of the title To Kill a Mockingbird.
The plot was parodied in Issue 3 of the Simpsons Comics.
The opening crawl begins: "In 1539, the Knight Templars [sic] of Malta, paid tribute to Charles V of Spain, by sending him a Golden Falcon..." This confuses two different religious orders of knights, both founded in Jerusalem.
The Knights Hospitallers of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, known as the Order of St. John, have existed since 1048; they were in fact based in Malta from 1530 to 1798 and hence were also called the Knights of Malta. On the other hand, the Knights of the Temple of Solomon, also called the Knights Templar or just Templars, were founded in 1119 and became the sworn enemies of the first order. The Templars were actually disbanded by 1312, after King Philip IV of France had declared them heretics so that he could confiscate their wealth.
★ When Spade's secretary Effie is on the phone with Iva, we hear her say, "No, not yet," but her mouth isn't moving at the time.
★ When Spade and Wilmer are walking down the hall toward Gutman's apartment, the shadow of the microphone boom passes across Wilmer's coat.
★ Spade doesn't wear rings or a watch throughout the movie except for one scene. At one point he walks into his office wearing a wedding band on his left hand, another large ring on his right hand and an expensive-looking wristwatch. He sits down to have a quick chat with his secretary where the rings and watch are in plain view. He then walks through a doorway into his inner office and the rings and watch are gone.
★ When Gutman is slicing away energetically at the Falcon, a quick cutaway shot shows him standing still with his arms not moving (it's clearly been inserted from elsewhere). At the same time, the voice that says "It's a fake, a phony, it's lead" is clearly not Gutman's, nor anyone else's in the room at the time. It's obviously been dubbed by another actor.
★ Towards the end, after Brigid tells Sam she can't look at him, she covers her face with her hands. In the next shot, from another angle, her hands aren't there.
★ At the very end, as O'Shaughnessy and Dundy are leaving in the elevator, the visual effect of the elevator going down is accomplished by lowering a dark screen in front of the backlit actors. However, you can clearly see that both silhouetted actors remain standing motionless at floor level as the screen drops.
★ The unbilled appearance of the great character actor Walter Huston, in a small cameo role as the freighter captain who delivers the Falcon to Spade’s office, was done as a good luck gesture for his son, John Huston, on his directorial debut. The elder Huston had to promise Jack Warner that he would not demand a dime for his little role before he was allowed to stagger into Spade’s office.
★ The revolver used to shoot Miles is correctly identified by Spade as a Webley-Fosbery. The Webley was an experiment to get a handgun to automatically reload and cock itself between shots. Unlike a typical semi-automatic pistol with a moving slide, this was a revolver that used its backward momentum to cock the hammer and rotate the cylinder, readying it for the next pull of the trigger. Webleys are considered very valuable and rare and are sought after by collectors. There was an eight shot .38 calibre version (unusual in itself as most revolvers carry six, or occasionally five, rounds), and a six-shot .455 calibre version. In the film, the .455 version was incorrectly described as the eight shot weapon and the name mispronounced as "Foresby".
★ Ronson touch tip lighters were used throughout the film. These lighters, popular in the 1930s and early 1940s, came in a variety of configurations.
1. Peace & War: Reminiscences of a Life on the Frontiers of Science, Serber, Robert and Crease, Robert, , , Columbia University Press, 1998,
2. gunsel
3. Spotlight on. ..Eros
4. Radio Programs, 1924-1984:A Catalog of Over 1800 Shows, Terrace, Vincent, , , McFarland, 1999,
5. Kahn, Michael. "Maltese Falcon stolen from San Francisco restaurant." ''washingtonpost.com''. 13 February 2007. 25 February 2007.
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★ Palace Classic Films' ''Maltese Falcon'' Commentary
★ The Daily Script: The Maltese Falcon
'''The Maltese Falcon''' is a 1941 Warner Brothers film
written and directed by John Huston, based on the novel of the same name by Dashiell Hammett, and starring Humphrey Bogart as private investigator Sam Spade, Mary Astor as his ''femme fatale'' client, Sydney Greenstreet in his film debut, and Peter Lorre. The film was Huston's directorial debut and was nominated for three Academy Awards.
The story concerns the entanglement of a San Francisco private investigator with three greedy, unscrupulous and murderous adventurers who compete with each other to obtain a fabulous jewel-encrusted statuette of a falcon worth millions.
''The Maltese Falcon'' has been named as one of the greatest films of all time by Roger Ebert.Ebert, Roger "The Maltese Falcon (1941)." ''rogerebert.com''. 13 May 2001. 24 February 2007. and ''Entertainment Weekly'',Entertainment Weekly. The 100 Greatest Movies of All Time. New York: Entertainment Weekly Books, 1999. and was cited by ''Panorama du Film Noir Américain'', the French book that coined the term ''film noir'', as the first film of that genre.Sklar, Robert. ''Film: An International History of the Medium''. [London]: Thames and Hudson, [c. 1990].
The film premiered on October 3, 1941 in New York City and in 1989 was selected for inclusion in the Library of Congress' National Film Registry.
Background
The antihero protagonist of Dashiell Hammett's ''The Maltese Falcon'', private investigator Sam Spade, is based on the author's experiences as a private detective for the Pinkerton Detective Agency in San Francisco. Hammett not only invested Spade with characteristics drawn from his own personality but also gave him his own first name, Samuel, which Hammett had discarded when he launched his career as a writer.
Hammett also drew upon his years as a detective in creating many of the other characters for ''The Maltese Falcon'', which from elements of two of his stories published in ''Black Mask'' magazine in 1925, “The Whosis Kid,” and “The Gutting of Couffignal.” Introduction to ''The Maltese Falcon'' (1934 edition) Dashiell Hammett The novel itself was serialized in five parts in ''Black Mask'' in 1930 before being published in book form that same year by Alfred A. Knopf.
The 1941 film is the third film version of the novel. The first, released in 1931, starred Ricardo Cortez as Sam Spade, while the second, called ''Satan Met a Lady'', was a loose adaptation that turned the story into a light comedy, with the characters renamed. It was released in 1936 and starred a young Bette Davis, only five years into her long film career, and Warren William.
Warner Brothers was prevented by the Hays Office censors from re-releasing the 1931 version due to its "lewd" content, which is probably what caused them to go into production in 1941 with a new, cleaned-up version. (It was not until after 1966 that unedited copies of the 1931 film could legally be shown in the U.S.) Ironically, the 1941 film still managed to sneak some homosexual innuendo past the censors.
Plot
'''"In 1539, the Knights Templar of Malta paid tribute to Charles V of Spain by sending him a Golden Falcon encrusted from beak to claw with rarest jewels -- but pirates seized the galley carrying this priceless token and the fate of the Maltese Falcon remains a mystery to this day."'''
Sam Spade (Humphrey Bogart with Brigid O'Shaughnessy (Mary Astor)
In San Francisco in 1941, private investigators Sam Spade (Humphrey Bogart) and Miles Archer (Jerome Cowan) meet a beautiful new client - Miss Ruth Wonderly (Mary Astor) - who asks them to locate her missing sister, who is there with a man named Floyd Thursby. Wonderly has arranged to meet Thursby that night and is hoping her sister will be with him. After they receive a substantial retainer from the woman, Archer volunteers to follow her that night and help free her sister from Thursby.
When Archer shows up that night, he is shot and killed. A call informs Spade of his partner’s death, but before he goes to the murder scene he tells his secretary Effie Perrine (Lee Patrick) to break the news to Archer's wife, Iva (Gladys George), and warns her to keep Iva away from him. At the scene, police detective Tom Polhaus (Ward Bond) shows Spade the murder weapon, a rare English handgun. Spade tells Polhaus that Archer was tailing Thursby, but refuses to give him any more information. Spade then calls Miss Wonderly’s hotel but finds that she has checked out with no forwarding address.
Returning to his small apartment, Spade is soon visited by Polhaus and his superior, Lt Dundy (Barton MacLane), a tough and uncompromising cop. They grill Spade about the case he and Archer were working on but he refuses to name his client. They tell him that Thursby has been shot dead and suggest that Spade had time to do it.
The next morning Spade is visited by Iva who embraces him passionately, and asks if he killed Archer so that the two of them can be together — but Effie suggests to Spade the possibility that Iva herself might be the killer. Spade meets with Wonderly - now calling herself Brigid O’Shaughnessy - and assures her that he's kept her identity secret from the police, but lets her know that he is aware she invented the story about her sister. She explains that Thursby was her companion, carried a gun and probably killed Archer, but claims to have no idea who killed Thursby. Spade agrees to find out who’s behind the killings, but he makes her pay him most of the money she has on hand.
Peter Lorre as Joel Cairo
At his office, Spade meets Joel Cairo (Peter Lorre), who offers him a $5,000 fee to find a “black figure of a bird”. When Spade is momentarily distracted, Cairo pulls a gun on him to search the office, but Spade knocks the gun away and punches Cairo unconscious. Spade goes through Cairo's possessions, inspecting his money and his three passports from different countries. When Cairo revives, he asks if Spade has the bird he's looking for, but Spade doesn't, so Cairo hires him to find it. They discuss terms until Cairo politely asks for his weapon back. He promptly turns it on Spade again to search the office, much to Spade's amusement.
Later that evening, Spade realizes that he is being followed and loses the man, then visits Brigid, telling her about his meeting with Cairo. They fence verbally, and Spade kisses her, but demands she tell him what's going on. They go to Spade’s apartment so that Brigid can meet with Cairo. When Cairo shows up, they grill each other about the black bird’s whereabouts, and Cairo becomes worried when Brigid mentions that “the Fat Man” is in San Francisco. When Brigid insults Cairo, he tries to pull a gun on her, but Spade slaps him down.
They are interrupted by the two police detectives at the door wanting to talk to Spade, who won't let them in. When they hear Cairo cry for help, the cops go in anyway and are told various conflicting stories about what happened. Dundy wants to bring them all in, but Spade tells the cops they were being ribbed and Brigid and Cairo back him up, leaving the police again at sea. Cairo leaves, followed by the police, and Spade gets Brigid to tell him more about the black bird and herself, most of it apparently fabricated.
In the morning, Spade goes to Cairo's hotel, where he spots the man who's been following him, sitting in the lobby. He speaks to him to send a message to the "Fat Man", but Wilmer (Elisha Cook, Jr.) feigns ignorance and tells him to “shove off”, so Spade gets the house detective to throw Wilmer out. Cairo arrives, saying that he's been grilled by the police all night, but has stuck to Spade's "goofy" cover story.
When Spade returns to his office, he learns that Kasper Gutman (Sydney Greenstreet), the "Fat Man", has gotten his message and wants to talk to him. After sending Brigid off with Effie for safekeeping, and cold-shouldering Iva, Spade goes to Gutman's hotel suite. Gutman greets Spade warmly, gives him a drink and begins to talk about the Falcon, but then becomes deliberately evasive, causing Spade to put on an act of becoming violently angry. He smashes his glass and storms out, giving Gutman a deadline of 5:30 that evening to cooperate with him. As he goes into the elevator, we see Joel Cairo coming out of another one, on his way to Gutman's suite.
After being questioned by the District Attorney, and telling him off, Spade is accosted by Wilmer to take him to Gutman at gunpoint. Before they get to the hotel suite, Spade overpowers him, taking his weapons, and then humiliates him by handing the weapons over to Gutman. Gutman and Spade sit down to more drinks, while Gutman elaborately relates the checkered history of the Maltese Falcon.
Gutman explains that pirates stole the jewel-encrusted, priceless Falcon when it was sent to King Charles in the 1500s and that, centuries later, it turned up in Paris, where it was painted over with black enamel to hide its value. Much later, in the 20th century, a Greek antique dealer found the Falcon, but the dealer was murdered and the Falcon stolen once again. Gutman traced the Falcon to the home of a Russian general in Istanbul, and tried to buy it, but when the general refused to sell, Gutman sent in some "agents" to steal it. "Well, sir," Gutman says, "they got it, but I haven't got it."
Gutman offers Spade $25,000 for the bird, and one-fourth of the proceeds from its sale. When Spade tries to continue the conversation, his vision blurs and he passes out: his drink has been spiked. After Wilmer kicks Spade in the face in revenge for embarrassing him, Gutman and Cairo (who has been in the other room) depart, leaving Spade alone on the floor, unconscious.
When Spade revives, he immediately calls his secretary to talk to Brigid, and learns that she is not with her. He searches Gutman's apartment and finds a newspaper with the arrival time of the freighter ''La Paloma'' from Hong Kong circled. He goes to the dock but finds that the ship is on fire. A dock officer informs him that the crew and passengers all got off safely, and he returns to his office.
Sam Spade with the Maltese Falcon
Suddenly a man (Walter Huston) bursts into the office, staggers toward Spade clutching a bundle wrapped in newspaper, and drops it, muttering “You know ... Falcon”. He collapses on the couch, dead. Spade inspects the dead man’s wallet and tells Effie that the man, who has been shot, is Captain Jacobi of the ''La Paloma''. Looking inside the bundle, Spade grabs Effie hard by the wrist and says "We’ve got it, angel. We’ve got it."
The phone rings, and the secretary hears Brigid give an address and then scream before the line goes dead. Spade directs her to call the police after he’s gone and tell them how the captain died but not to mention the package, which he takes to a bus terminal baggage room and checks, mailing the claim check to himself at a postal box.
After the address Brigid gave turns out to be an empty lot, Spade returns homes and finds her hiding in a doorway near his apartment. He takes her inside, where he 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 a fall guy he can turn over to the police for the murders of Archer, Thursby and Captain Jacobi, getting himself off the hook. Spade suggests that Wilmer is the best choice, since he certainly killed Thursby and Jacobi at least. After some intense negotiation, Gutman and Cairo agree to sacrifice Wilmer, who is knocked out in a scuffle. Spade gets the details of what happened and who killed whom, so that he can present a convincing package to the police along with Wilmer.
Just after dawn, Spade calls Effie and instructs her to bring him the bundle, which she duly does. In a frenzy, Gutman, Cairo and Brigid unwrap it, revealing a black statuette: the Maltese Falcon. Gutman inspects the bird, and to make sure it's the real thing, he begins to scrape away the enamel coating with a penknife. Growing increasing agitated, he cuts fasters and faster, and finally cries out that it's a fake.
Brigid adamantly insists that the bird is the same statuette she got from the Russian general, and Cairo explodes that it was Gutman's crude attempt to buy the bird that tipped off the general to its great value — he must have had a duplicate made for them to steal. "No wonder we had such an easy time stealing it!"
Cairo breaks down and weeps while Gutman regains control of himself, suggesting that he and Cairo go to Istanbul to continue their quest. He demands at gunpoint that Spade return the money he's been paid, but allows him to keep $1,000 for his "time and expenses". Gutman invites Spade to join them, saying "You're a man of nice judgment and many resources", but Spade declines.
Gutman and Cairo leave, and Spade calls the police and tells them where to pick up them up. Spade angrily confronts the frightened Brigid, telling her he knows she killed Archer to implicate her unwanted lover and accomplice, Thursby. "Well," he adds, "if you get a good break, you’ll be out in 20 years and you can come back to me then. I hope they don’t hang you, precious, by that sweet neck."
Brigid O'Shaugnessy (Mary Astor) as she is taken away to be arrested.
Brigid can’t believe that Spade will turn her over to the police. "You killed Miles" he says, "and you're going over for it." She appeals to him and his love for her. Spade doesn’t argue. He sits down glumly, staring downward, saying: "When a man’s partner’s killed he’s supposed to do something about it. It doesn’t make any difference what you thought of him. He was your partner and you’re supposed to do something about it."
Spade lets in the police and turns over the Falcon, the money Gutman gave him, which he says was a a bribe for his silence, the guns he's collected from Wilmer, Gutman and Cairo, and the devastated Brigid, explaining that she killed his partner. Brigid is taken away by the Lieutenant, and Polhaus picks up the statuette and asks what it is. Taking the Falcon, Spade replies, “The stuff that dreams are made of”. Spade has time to step out into the hallway and see the Brigid staring vacantly through the bars of the elevator window as she departs in on her way to jail as the film ends.
Cast
| 'Actor' | 'Role' | 'Other notes' |
| Humphrey Bogart | Sam Spade | private investigator |
| Mary Astor | Brigid O'Shaughnessy | the client |
| Sydney Greenstreet | Kasper Gutman | the "Fat Man" |
| Peter Lorre | Joel Cairo | adventurer |
| Barton MacLane | Lieutenant Dundy | homicide detective |
| Ward Bond | Detective Tom Polhaus | homicide detective |
| Lee Patrick | Effie Perrine | Spade's secretary |
| Jerome Cowan | Miles Archer | Spade's partner |
| Gladys George | Iva Archer | Archer's wife |
| Elisha Cook Jr. | Wilmer Cook | Gutman's henchman |
| Walter Huston | Captain Jacobi | a freighter captain |
Production
Casting
Producer Hal B. Wallis
First-time director John Huston was very careful when casting ''The Maltese Falcon'', but Humphrey Bogart was not the first choice to play Sam Spade. Producer Hal Wallis initially offered the role to George Raft, who rejected it because he did not want to work with an inexperienced director. (Raft would go on turning down roles that Bogart would play and make famous, including the cynical hero of ''Casablanca''.) The 42-year-old Bogart was delighted, however, 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 such films as ''The Treasure of the Sierra Madre'' (1948); ''Key Largo'' (1948); and ''The African Queen'' (1951). 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 to interact and act with Bogart.
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.
The character of the sinister "Fat Man" Kasper Gutman was based on real-life villain, 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 jewelled Falcon. However, the character was not easily cast, and it took some time before producer Hal Wallis solved the problem by suggesting that Huston give a screen test to Sydney Greenstreet, a veteran stage character actor who had never appeared on film. 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. Greenstreet went on to be typecast in later films of the 1940s such as ''The Mask of Dimitrios'' (1944), ''The Verdict'' (1946) and ''Three Strangers'' (1946).
Greenstreet's characterization had such a strong cultural impact that the "Fat Man" atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki during World War II was named after him.[1] (The appellation "Fat Man" for Gutman was created for the film - in the novel, although he is a fat man, he's referred to as "G.")
The character of Joel Cairo was based on a criminal Hammett captured for robbing Pinkerton’s in 1920 in Washington D.C. In Hammett's novel, the character is blatantly 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 hysterical 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".
Elisha Cook Jr., a well-known character actor was cast by Huston as the henchman Wilmer. According to Huston, Cook “lived alone up in the High Sierra, tied flies and caught golden trout between films. When he was wanted in Hollywood, they sent word up to his mountain cabin by courier. He would come down, do a picture, and then withdraw again to his retreat.” Like Cairo (and even Gutman) the character of Wilmer has also been seen by many commentators as homosexual, primarily because of the use of "gunsel", meaning a young homosexual in a relationship with an older man, to describe him.[2] gunsel Michael Quinion [3]
Gladys George had made her mark on Broadway with her starring role in Lawrence Riley's ''Personal Appearance'' (1934) (adapted for the screen in 1936 as Go West, Young Man): this comedy's huge success had been credited in great part to her comic performance. Her role as Archer's wife thus displays her versatility.
Preparation
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. Like other directors, such as Alfred Hitchcock, Huston was adamant that the film keep to schedule, and that everything was 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 not a line of dialog was eliminated in the final edit of the film. Except for some exterior night shots, Huston shot the entire film in sequence, which greatly helped his actors create their characters. The shooting went so smoothly that there was actually extra time for the cast to enjoy themselves, and 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", which Spade tells to Brigid while waiting in his apartment for Cairo to show up. removing all references to sex which the Hays Office had deemed to be unacceptable. The many “by gads” Greenstreet utters in the movie were inserted by the censors to replace “by God”. Huston was also warned not to show excessive drinking. The director fought this, 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.
Production Credits
Another theatrical poster representation of the Maltese Falcon, one of many released
★ 'Associate Producer' - Henry Blanke
★ 'Director of Photography' - Arthur Edeson
★ 'Dialogue director' - Robert Foulk
★ 'Film Editor' - Thomas Richards
★ 'Art Director' - Robert M. Haas
★ 'Sound' - Oliver S. Garretson
★ 'Gowns' - Orry-Kelly
★ 'Makeup Artist' - Perc Westmore (credited) and Frank McCoy (uncredited)
★ 'Music' - Adolph Deutsch
★ 'Musical Director' - Leo F. Forbstein
★ 'Production Management' - Al Alleborn (uncredited)
★ 'Assistant Director' - Claude Archer (uncredited)
★ 'Script supervisor' - Meta Carpenter (uncredited)
★ 'Orchestrator' - Arthur Lange (uncredited)
Cinematography
Director of Photography Arthur Edeson
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. Huston and Edeson used ceilings to create images of confinement, and the sets, except for the hotel and the dock scene, are almost claustrophobic, suggesting that Spade’s investigation is extremely limited, that he has just so much space in which to search for the black bird.
Unusual camera angles are cleverly utilized to emphasize the nature of the characters. 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. As the seated Gutman spins the tale of the bird, the camera shoots up at him from the floor almost vertically, emphasising his considerable girth as he fills the entire screen. His domination of the scene in this way illustrates his overwhelming greed, and the expanse of his belly, crossed by a gold watch chain, reinforces the historical scope of the dark tale of conspiracy which surrounds the Falcon.
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 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.
Falcon props
Analysis of the Maltese Falcon dimensions
The "Maltese Falcon" itself is reportedly based on the "Kniphausen Hawk," 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 Duke of Devonshire and is an integral piece of the Chatsworth collection.
There were several 11-1/2 inch tall Falcon props made for use in the film due to the fact that Humphrey Bogart dropped the original during shooting. The original Falcon is on display to this day in Warner Brothers' movie museum, and its tail feathers are visibly dented from Bogart's accident. Some of the copies of the Falcon were cast of plastic resin, and some of lead. Only two 45 lb. lead Falcons and two 5 lb., 5.4 oz resin Falcons are verified to be in existence today. One lead Falcon has been displayed for years at various venues. The second, which was marred at the end of the movie by Sydney Greenstreet, was a gift to William Conrad from studio chief Jack L. Warner. It was auctioned off in December 1994, nine months after Conrad's death, for $398,500 to Ronald Winston of Harry Winston, Inc. At that time, it was the highest price at which a movie prop had ever been sold. It was used to model a 10 lb. gold replica displayed at the 69th Academy Awards. The replica has Burmese ruby eyes, interchangeable claws (one set of gold, one set of coral) and has a platinum chain in its beak with a 42.98 flawless diamond at the end. Its value is estimated at well over $8 million. The lead and resin Falcons are valued in excess of $2 million.
Soundtrack
Main articles: The Maltese Falcon Soundtrack
The music for ''The Maltese Falcon'' was written by Adolph Deutsch, who later went on to win an Academy Award for his incidental music for ''Oklahoma!'' in 1955.
The recording was re-released in 2002 with the soundtracks to other film works of Deutsch, including ''George Washington Slept Here'', ''The Mask of Dimitrios'', ''High Sierra'', and ''Northern Pursuit''.
Release
Soundtrack cover
★ 'United States:' October 3 1941 (New York City premiere)
★ 'United States:' October 18 1941 (general release)
★ 'Argentina:' December 17 1941
★ 'Austria:' December 22 1945
★ 'Sweden:' February 15 1943
★ 'Portugal:' August 8 1945
★ 'Germany:' May 3 1946
★ 'France:' July 31 1946
★ 'Finland:' September 20 1946
★ 'Greece:' September 21 1946
★ 'Denmark:' October 28 1946
★ 'Italy:' April 5 1947
★ 'Hong Kong:' August 13 1950
★ 'Japan:' January 26 1951
DVD release
The DVD was released on June 1 2006 with a new Dolby Digital mono soundtrack. It includes the original theatrical trailer, as well as a trailer for the earlier 1936 film adaptation of the novel, ''Satan Met a Lady'', and trailers of other Humphrey Bogart films such as ''The Petrified Forest'', ''High Sierra'', ''Casablanca'', ''To Have and Have Not'', and ''The Treasure of the Sierra Madre''. The DVD also includes an essay, ''A History of the Mystery'', examining the mystery and film noir genres through the decades.
Another notable special feature is a Turner Classic Movie 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 '40s, and his return to playing bad men late in that decade.
Reception
On its release, ''The Maltese Falcon'' received significant acclaim from both critics and the public, and its reputation has been growing ever since. In 1942, it was nominated for three Academy Awards: the film was nominated for Best Picture, Sydney Greenstreet for Best Supporting Actor, and John Huston for Best Adapted Screenplay.
As a result of the film's success, Warner Brothers 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 the fact that Huston was now in high demand and the major cast members were unavailable, the sequel was never made.
The film has been named as one of the greatest films of all time by Roger Ebert and ''Entertainment Weekly'', and the American Film Institute ranked it #23 in their list of the best 100 movies in American cinema as well as #26 in their list of the top 100 thrilling movies in American cinema.
The quote that Bogart ends the film with, "The stuff that dreams are made of" (a misquotation from ''The Tempest''''Shakespeare, William The Tempest'', Act IV, Sc 1, line 155), was chosen as #14 on the AFI's list of top movie quotes in cinematic history.AFI's 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes
''The Maltese Falcon'' (1941) has been deemed "culturally significant" by the Library of Congress and in 1989 was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry.
Cultural impact
The CBS radio network created a 30-minute adaptation of ''The Maltese Falcon'' on ''The Screen Guild Theater'' with actors 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.[4] 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.
In 1975, Columbia released a spoof of ''The Maltese Falcon'' called ''The Black Bird'', starring George Segal as Sam Spade, Jr., with Patrick and Cook reprising their roles as Effie and Wilmer from the 1941 version. In 1974, during production for this film, one of the seven plaster figurines of the original 1941 Falcon on display at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art was stolen, and it was alleged that the “disappearance” of the figurine was staged as a publicity stunt for the Segal film. If it was, it backfired, since news accounts of the missing Falcon exceeded those of the Segal film.[5]
In 1988, the film was parodied in "The Big Goodbye," a first-season episode of ''. Captain Jean-Luc Picard, played by Patrick Stewart, is a fan of detective stories of the early 20th Century, including the fictional Dixon Hill, a stand-in for Sam Spade. In a holodeck simulation, Picard-as-Hill is opposed by Cyrus Redblock, whose name is a play on "Sydney Greenstreet." Redblock is looking for "the item," which is never identified, but is meant to stand in for the Falcon.
There is a homage to the film in ''Overdrawn at the Memory Bank'', a made-for-TV movie that gained some notoriety by being mocked on ''Mystery Science Theatre 3000''. Famed Marvel Comics supervillain the ''Kingpin'' is also supposedly based on Sydney Greenstreet's character of Kasper Gutman.
In an episode of Get Smart that parodies the film, Maxwell Smart travels to Mexico on a case to find the Tequila Mockingbird, a parody of the title To Kill a Mockingbird.
The plot was parodied in Issue 3 of the Simpsons Comics.
Minor errors and flaws
Historical error
The opening crawl begins: "In 1539, the Knight Templars [sic] of Malta, paid tribute to Charles V of Spain, by sending him a Golden Falcon..." This confuses two different religious orders of knights, both founded in Jerusalem.
The Knights Hospitallers of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, known as the Order of St. John, have existed since 1048; they were in fact based in Malta from 1530 to 1798 and hence were also called the Knights of Malta. On the other hand, the Knights of the Temple of Solomon, also called the Knights Templar or just Templars, were founded in 1119 and became the sworn enemies of the first order. The Templars were actually disbanded by 1312, after King Philip IV of France had declared them heretics so that he could confiscate their wealth.
Continuity and visual flaws
Jerome Cowan as Miles Archer
★ When Spade's secretary Effie is on the phone with Iva, we hear her say, "No, not yet," but her mouth isn't moving at the time.
★ When Spade and Wilmer are walking down the hall toward Gutman's apartment, the shadow of the microphone boom passes across Wilmer's coat.
★ Spade doesn't wear rings or a watch throughout the movie except for one scene. At one point he walks into his office wearing a wedding band on his left hand, another large ring on his right hand and an expensive-looking wristwatch. He sits down to have a quick chat with his secretary where the rings and watch are in plain view. He then walks through a doorway into his inner office and the rings and watch are gone.
★ When Gutman is slicing away energetically at the Falcon, a quick cutaway shot shows him standing still with his arms not moving (it's clearly been inserted from elsewhere). At the same time, the voice that says "It's a fake, a phony, it's lead" is clearly not Gutman's, nor anyone else's in the room at the time. It's obviously been dubbed by another actor.
★ Towards the end, after Brigid tells Sam she can't look at him, she covers her face with her hands. In the next shot, from another angle, her hands aren't there.
★ At the very end, as O'Shaughnessy and Dundy are leaving in the elevator, the visual effect of the elevator going down is accomplished by lowering a dark screen in front of the backlit actors. However, you can clearly see that both silhouetted actors remain standing motionless at floor level as the screen drops.
Miscellaneous facts
★ The unbilled appearance of the great character actor Walter Huston, in a small cameo role as the freighter captain who delivers the Falcon to Spade’s office, was done as a good luck gesture for his son, John Huston, on his directorial debut. The elder Huston had to promise Jack Warner that he would not demand a dime for his little role before he was allowed to stagger into Spade’s office.
A standard Webley-Fosbery
★ The revolver used to shoot Miles is correctly identified by Spade as a Webley-Fosbery. The Webley was an experiment to get a handgun to automatically reload and cock itself between shots. Unlike a typical semi-automatic pistol with a moving slide, this was a revolver that used its backward momentum to cock the hammer and rotate the cylinder, readying it for the next pull of the trigger. Webleys are considered very valuable and rare and are sought after by collectors. There was an eight shot .38 calibre version (unusual in itself as most revolvers carry six, or occasionally five, rounds), and a six-shot .455 calibre version. In the film, the .455 version was incorrectly described as the eight shot weapon and the name mispronounced as "Foresby".
★ Ronson touch tip lighters were used throughout the film. These lighters, popular in the 1930s and early 1940s, came in a variety of configurations.
Notes
1. Peace & War: Reminiscences of a Life on the Frontiers of Science, Serber, Robert and Crease, Robert, , , Columbia University Press, 1998,
2. gunsel
3. Spotlight on. ..Eros
4. Radio Programs, 1924-1984:A Catalog of Over 1800 Shows, Terrace, Vincent, , , McFarland, 1999,
5. Kahn, Michael. "Maltese Falcon stolen from San Francisco restaurant." ''washingtonpost.com''. 13 February 2007. 25 February 2007.
External links
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★ Palace Classic Films' ''Maltese Falcon'' Commentary
★ The Daily Script: The Maltese Falcon
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