jewels, covered all over with a coating of black enamel. It's value? Priceless. A thing that people kill for. The stuff that dreams are made of. So says Sam Spade (Humphrey Bogart) at the close of John Huston's The Maltese Falcon. Huston's film was the third screen adaptation of Dashiell Hammett's book. It was first filmed in 1931 with Bebe Daniels and Ricardo Cortez, then again in 1936 with Bette Davis and Warren Williams. But who remembers those films? Huston shot his film almost word for word, scene for scene, from Hammett's novel. It was a smart move. It created a masterpiece. And Humphrey Bogart has become everyone's vision of who Sam Spade is, even though Bogie doesn't look anything like the character described in the book. Who cares? It's Bogart.
One day, Brigid O'Shaughnessy (Mary Astor) shows up at the office of Sam Spade and his partner Miles Archer (Jerome Cowan) with a cock-n-bull story about a missing sister and her evil abductor. She flashes money at them. They take the case. As private detectives, Archer and Spade are mostly honest, mostly ethical, but not afraid to bend a law, or a person, to the breaking point for a hundred bucks. Archer is killed that night. Brigid disappears. Spade finds her, grills her, is unsatisfied with her new story. Then Joel Cairo (Peter Lorre) shows up, wearing a fancy suit and smelling like a rose garden. Wants to know if Sam has the bird. Is willing to pay for it. Next on the scene is Casper Gutman (Sydney Greenstreet) and Wilmer (Elisha Cook, Jr.). They want the bird too. During their first meeting, they ask nicely. During their second meeting, they take their gloves
off. The Falcon is delivered to Sam's office late one night by a dying man. Captain of a tramp freighter. Case of lead poisoning. Now Sam's got a bargaining chip.
Sam calls a meeting at his apartment. All of the interested parties attend. They talk figures. They need a fall guy. Sam says Wilmer is made to order. They agree to stitch him up, much to Wilmer's dismay. Sam sends for the bird. When it arrives, Gutman eagerly unwraps it. His excitement is palpable. He starts to scratch the black enamel off the Falcon, only to discover that the bird underneath is not made of gold but of common lead. But Gutman knows who made the switch, and he and Cairo head off in search of the real Falcon. Wilmer takes it on the lamb. Sam has other plan's for Brigid, and they don't include a honeymoon cottage. After all, Sam may not be entirely honest, or entirely ethical, but he does live by a code of honor. It says when someone kills your partner, they have to pay. Brigid will pay.
The Maltese Falcon is one of those Hollywood films, like Casablanca, that wasn't a big or an
important movie while it was being made. But once it was finished, they knew they had a gem. The movie takes place on a human scale. No grand vistas here. Huston filmed most of the exterior scenes on city streets, at night, with lots of fog and rain. Interior scenes are filmed in cramped apartments, offices, hotel rooms. Lots of shadows. Lots of atmosphere. This is the beginning of film noir. Interestingly, this was also the screen debut of Sydney Greenstreet. He'd been a stage actor for years, when Huston cast him as Casper Gutman, aka the Fat Man. Another bit of trivia - when Sam calls Wilmer a "gunsel," he doesn't mean that Wilmer is a hired gun; he's hinting at Wilmer's sexual orientation. According to the IMDb, "The Yiddish term 'gunsel', literally "little goose", may be a vulgarism for homosexual." Who knew?
The Maltese Falcon is a fun movie that keeps you guessing right up until the end. Who killed Miles? Who killed the captain of the steam ship? Is there really a Maltese Falcon? We aren't given the answers until the concluding scenes. It's a satisfying conclusion too.
The Maltese Falcon is rated G and is filmed in deliciously moody black and white.
*McGuffin was Alfred Hitchcock's term for whatever the object or idea is that spurs the characters to action and moves the plot along.
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