The Maltese Falcon
Made: 1941
Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, Peter Lorre, Sydney Greenstreet, Lee Patrick, Elisha Cook Jr.
Director: John Huston
Screenwriter: John Huston
Cinematographer: Arthur Edeson
Producer: Henry Blanke
"You are a liar."
"I am. I've always been a liar!"
"Well, don't brag about it."
Film Noir: a dark and moody tale told with a protagonist and other characters that are flawed or dangerous in some way. Many people consider The Maltese Falcon to be the first film noir. The truth to that is that film noir, like any good art form, is hard to pin down to a single thing or movie. So maybe it is safer to say that this movie was the first large scale film noir and the most influential. Film noir is my favorite style of movies, partly because of the mystery and partly because of the complexity of the characters. For example: Sam Spade, played here by Humphrey Bogart, effected the modern image of the hard-boiled detective. His character is good at heart, but he doesn't liked to be joked around or handled if he is not in control of the situation. In The Maltese Falcon, his partner is killed when he is hired for a simple case, and he has to find the killer while trying to also find out why he is killed. Bogart does a lot of acting to be acting in this movie, quickly going from super-charged anger to laughing sympathy. It's a dizzying performance.
His secretary, played by Lee Patrick, knows Sam better than anyone and makes up for his partner being dead. She helps him out in numerous ways throughout the whole film. Spade meets some seedy characters on the way: the woman who hired him Bridget O'Shaunessy (Mary Astor), who he also falls in love with but does not trust, a man named Cairo (Peter Lorre) who has a very sneaky but wistfull way about him, and a big man named Guttman (Sydney Greenstreet) who apparently runs the whole deal. What is the deal? The search for a rare statuette of a Maltese Falcon that has been passed down through the ages and is supposedly worth millions. Spade is one of the most interesting and deep characters ever on screen. The look on his face when his partner dies is one of a man who knows how to take action, but is he really sad about it? Was his partner his friend? (We at least know that Spade was having relations with Archer's wife, and now she wants Sam all to herself.) Later, we see that Sam at least had a great sense of loyalty for his partner, despite all these transgressions. "When a man's partner is killed, he is supposed to do something about it," he says. He is also hard and to the point, like when he tells Astor he didn't ever really fall for her first story she told him. "I believed your $200, not you." It also is implied that he knows she is a constant liar, like the quote up above and when he says, "Don't overdo it baby."
John Huston did wonders for his first film ever to direct. I admit that for a legendary director like he was, there are many of his well known movies I don't care for. The stereotypes of Across the Pacific, the slow-paced Treasure of Sierra Madre, the turgid The African Queen, which are among his most famous movies, all leave me rather cold. Instead I tend to get kicks out of his oddball films, like when he invents genres like "camp movies" in Beat The Devil, "bank heist" movies by Asphalt Jungle, the hardboiled war drama Red Badge of Courage, and lovelorn assassins in Prizzi's Honor. He was a very schizophrenic director is the projects he tackled, to say the least. He is above all a great screenwriter, and The Maltese Falcon was actually the 3rd attempt to make a movie out of Dashiell Hammet's book and Huston proved himself and then some (also Hammet was constantly adapted after the success of this movie). His attention with little details, like the subplot of Archer's wife, makes the movie ever so watchable to this day. Other traits of interest include Peter Lorre's underplayed entrances, the whole private detective working with the police conflict of interest, and of course the mystery of the falcon itself. These three traits became staples of detective movies for 70 years after and counting.
What is the falcon? Is it the falcon they are after or the act of being after something that compels them (and us as humans)? Now the first time I saw this film, I admit I was disappointed at the ending. On multiple viewings, I realized that the real matter at hand was people's greed for money. To get what they want, the crooks in this movie have killed anyone in their way, and all three main thieves are only looking out for themselves. This is what separates Bogart from the criminals. He likes money, but he is not greedy. Spade has morals and is a force for good at heart, despite all else. He even turned in the woman he loved, much like he did in Casablanca a year later. Bogart has always played these tragic men, and he does it so well (better than ANYONE in my opinion), probably because he knows what it is like to be one. The cinematography of Arthur Edson was just as inventive as Huston's precise direction. His "low angle shots" emphasized qualities of Hammet's aptly named characters like "Mrs. Wonderlay" and "Mr Guttman." Add Citizen Kane and Sullivan's Travels to the movies released the same year as this one, and we easily have a zeitgeist motion picture era. 1941 changed the future of movies more than almost any other year.
There is so much about this movie I didn't talk about, but it truly is full of riches. Everyone seems to concentrate on the last couple of minutes of dialouge, and Bogarts speech to Astor, but my favorite things about the movie are not the final minutes. One of them is defiantly Wilbur (Elisha Cook Jr.), the gunman for Guttman, who is very spooky and childish, but hilarious at the same time. Just watching Bogart and Wilbur fight is the funniest thing about the movie. And don't forget the 1940's era melodramtic music swells! Duuuh-DUUUUHHHH!!!!!
The other less addressed point about The Maltese Falcon are the insights pointed out in the conversations between Greenstreet and Bogart. In at least three different conversations between them, deep thoughts about how people act are expressed. "You are a man who likes to talk. Well, I am a man who likes to talk to a man who likes to talk. I don't trust a man who doesn't like to talk. You must practice talking like any good skill." Credos like that makes this movie one of my favorites, because really, is there another movie that is as funny, insightful, mysterious, and quoteable as this one? Once every thirty years maybe, but there will never be another one just like it. Maltese Falcon blends accessibility and metaphysical reality like no other movie before or since. Its dialogue, like most John Huston dialogue, is about philosophical conversations on discussions.