The Maltese Falcon [PG]

A woman approaches private detective Samuel Spade with a somewhat suspicious case of a missing sister. When Spade’s partner takes the job of tailing the sister’s ‘beau’, he ends up in a ditch with bullet holes through him. What is worse, the targeted ‘beau’ ends up dead the same night. Sam determines to uncover the link between the two deaths and soon the case opens up into one of corruption and greed, with a number of mysterious parties all after the same thing: an incredibly rare antique statuette, the Maltese Falcon. 

Based on the novel by Dashiell Hammett, The Maltese Falcon stands as a tried and tested classic in noir. The book had been made into a film twice previously, but this debut from John Huston proves to be the most celebrated and renown. With numerous plot twists, masses of character deception and misdirected judgements, and a plot that goes around in circles right up to the closing credits, this movie is fantastic and a true classic in cinematic history. 

A woman approaches private detective Samuel Spade with a somewhat suspicious case of a missing sister. When Spade’s partner takes the job of tailing the sister’s ‘beau’, he ends up in a ditch with bullet holes through him. What is worse, the targeted ‘beau’ ends up dead the same night. Sam determines to uncover the link between the two deaths and soon the case opens up into one of corruption and greed, with a number of mysterious parties all after the same thing: an incredibly rare antique statuette, the Maltese Falcon. 

There is no straight line in this movie, right from the start! The entire thing is a pool of plot twists, misdirection, and just general confusion. It’s wonderful! The fact that there were many different characters all intertwined in the plot and each one of them is a giant question mark about whether or not you can trust them is what kept me really intrigued. Where most detective movies have twists in terms of plot events, in this movie it’s the unpredictability of the characters that establish the mystery and the suspense. Even the protagonist is someone that we don’t really know, even up to the very end! 

Humphrey Bogart as Samuel Spade is wonderful, playing the sweetly sleazy and tough-talking role superbly! Even though he can be a bit of a dick sometimes, there is something remarkably irresistible when he calls his women ‘angel’ or ‘precious’. He could get away with murder in their eyes I’m sure. 

I have to admit that Mary Astor as the token femme fatale was a bit of a wild card, but her prim and emotionally erratic performance really served the character well and made the movie all the more fascinating as we could never really read or guess what was going on inside her head. Great performance. 

Starring Gladys George, Peter Lorre, Barton MacLane, Lee Patrick, Sydney Greenstreet, Ward Bond, Jerome Cowan, Elisha Cook Jr., James Burke, Murray Alper, and John Hamilton, The Maltese Falcon is a classic noir film filled with action, suspense, drama, romance, plot twists, and comedy. I thoroughly enjoyed it and will be adding it to the collection!