The Maltese Falcon

After two previous film versions of Dashiell Hammett’s detective classic The Maltese Falcon, Warner Bros. finally got it right in 1941–or, rather, John Huston, a long-established screenwriter making his directorial debut, got it right, simply by adhering as closely as possible to the original. Taking over from a recalcitrant George Raft, Humphrey Bogart achieved true stardom as Sam Spade, a hard-boiled San Francisco private eye who can be as unscrupulous as the next guy but also adheres to his own personal code of honor. This classic film noir detective yarn gets better with each viewing, which is more than can be said for the first two Maltese Falcons and the ill-advised 1975 “sequel” The Black Bird.
 

This film is part of our program Tales From Nightmare Alley.