IMDb RATING
6.8/10
3.4K
YOUR RATING
A lovely dame with dangerous lies employs the services of a private detective, who is quickly caught up in the mystery and intrigue of a statuette known as the Maltese Falcon.A lovely dame with dangerous lies employs the services of a private detective, who is quickly caught up in the mystery and intrigue of a statuette known as the Maltese Falcon.A lovely dame with dangerous lies employs the services of a private detective, who is quickly caught up in the mystery and intrigue of a statuette known as the Maltese Falcon.
Agostino Borgato
- Capt. John Jacobi
- (uncredited)
Tiny Jones
- Jailbird Seeking Cigarette
- (uncredited)
Cliff Saum
- Baggage Clerk
- (uncredited)
Morgan Wallace
- District Attorney
- (uncredited)
Lucille Ward
- Sarah - Prison Matron
- (uncredited)
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaArt director Robert M. Haas performed the same function on The Maltese Falcon (1941).
- GoofsThe same prop is used for the suitcase that Spade finds in Miss Wonderly's room and the suitcase which contains the falcon. The travel stickers are identical on each one.
- Quotes
Effie Perrine: Sam, it's a gorgeous new customer.
Sam Spade: Gorgeous?
Effie Perrine: A knockout.
Sam Spade: Send her right in, honey.
Effie Perrine: [to the off-screen customer] Will you step in, please?
[Joel Cairo walks in.]
- ConnectionsFeatured in Great Performances: Bacall on Bogart (1988)
Featured review
Not bad first version (which John Huston must have seen!)
This is a fascinating version of the story definitively filmed ten years later by John Huston, because of the ways in which it comes close to capturing the Hammett novel-- and the ways in which it doesn't. As a pre-Code film it's often more explicit than the Huston version-- especially about the fact that Spade was having an affair with his partner's wife, and about the homosexuality of the male crooks (this movie's Gutman is plainly depicted as a seedy john rather than as the refined aesthete Sydney Greenstreet would play). But hardboiled attitude is what really matters, and Ricardo Cortez (a good early talkie actor who always tried hard) just isn't playing Hammett's hardboiled, unsentimental Spade-- he's playing the more typical suave gentleman detective of the period, like Philo Vance. As a result, it's the love affair with Ms. Wonderly that takes over, and the shocking bite of Hammett's ending is lost. It was capturing the Hammett worldview that was John Huston's great accomplishment, and that made his Falcon so influential over the films noir to follow.
All the same Huston, who was working at Warner Bros. when this was made, must have liked something about this movie-- the scene where Spade first meets Joel Cairo (Otto Mattiesen, doing an excellent Peter Lorre imitation years before the fact) is repeated almost shot for shot and inflection for inflection in the Huston version, the only such case of direct inspiration I spotted here. Mattiesen, a familiar silent era character actor, sadly died not long after the film came out; had he lived he certainly could have had as interesting a talkie career as Lorre eventually did.
All the same Huston, who was working at Warner Bros. when this was made, must have liked something about this movie-- the scene where Spade first meets Joel Cairo (Otto Mattiesen, doing an excellent Peter Lorre imitation years before the fact) is repeated almost shot for shot and inflection for inflection in the Huston version, the only such case of direct inspiration I spotted here. Mattiesen, a familiar silent era character actor, sadly died not long after the film came out; had he lived he certainly could have had as interesting a talkie career as Lorre eventually did.
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- mgmax
- Jan 5, 2000
- How long is The Maltese Falcon?Powered by Alexa
Details
- Runtime1 hour 20 minutes
- Color
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