07 Nov NOIRVEMBER: The Maltese Falcon

THE MALTESE FALCON

dir. John Huston, starring Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, Peter Lorre, and Sydney Greenstreet

The Maltese Falcon, an adaptation of the classic Dashiell Hammett crime novel, stars Humphrey Bogart as private detective Sam Spade, Hammett’s greatest creation. Spade is met by damsel Ruth Wonderly with the charge of helping her find her missing sister. What follows is a heaping of bodies, lies, and Spade caught at the center. With each passing minute, new information is unveiled until the truth is revealed: a gang of eccentric criminals are on the hunt for cinema’s greatest McGuffin ever.

There’s a reason The Maltese Falcon sits at number 31 on the American Film Institute’s Top 100 Movies list. The chemistry between Bogart, Lorre, and Greenstreet, which would be repeated again in yet another classic staple of cinema, Casablanca, was born here Maltese Falcon; each actor playing off the other in spectacular fashion. Lorre’s usual quiet, smooth as silk voice mixed with Bogart’s brash, nasally pitch, only to be outdone by Greenstreet’s jovial wink-and-smile delivery makes for a trio of conspirators that makes the story move at lightning speed. The film didn’t invent the hard-boiled detective, but thanks to Bogart and John Huston’s direction, the search for the Maltese falcon laid the blueprint as to how it should be done.

Starring Humphrey Bogart as the slick talking know-it-all detective Sam Spade, The Maltese Falcon doesn’t work without him. While others have fulfilled the role in various mediums, it’s Bogart’s depiction that set the standard not only for the character, but for the noir genre in general. Bogart’s mile a minute delivery, mixed with wry humor, witty sarcasms, and genre-defining detective lingo of the 1940s all combine to serve as the archetype. Other than playing Casablanca’s Rick Blaine, Bogart was never finer on screen.

The fact that Mary Astor isn’t often mentioned amongst the classic femme fatales of noir is criminal. Appearing as one thing and revealed to be something else entirely, Astor’s ability to put up a false front as a helpless, vulnerable woman scared for her sister’s life is uncanny. Even as the calculating nature of Bridgid O’Shaughnessy is revealed late in the film, Astor continues to morph the character, giving both audiences and Spade the idea that we can never fully trust her, no matter how many layers of the character are peeled away. Even though she’s in and out of the movie as the plot progresses, Astor plays O’Shaughnessy in such a way that she’s never far from the forefront of the viewer’s mind. Every great noir has someone, usually a woman, as its inciting incident to kick the detective into gear, and The Maltese Falcon is no exception. Mary Astor proves to be one of the best inciting incidents the genre ever saw.

Peter Lorre and Sydney Greenstreet both enter the movie in its second act, with Lorre’s Joel Cairo attempting to get the drop on Spade while looking for the titular falcon. One of the greatest character actors to date, Lorre’s ability to always hover at the fringes of a scene while Bogart and Greenstreet took up space makes the shifty Cairo an unforgettable sidekick to Greenstreet’s Gutman. For his party, Greenstreet is unforgettable as Kasper Gutman, the man who for finding the falcon has become a lifetime obsession. Perennially in good spirits despite the situation, Greenstreet oozes charm and affability, belying a sly cunning and ruthlessness that propels his obsession.

Directed by legendary screenwriter and director John Huston, The Maltese Falcon stands amongst his greatest works (which also include The Treasure of the Sierra Madre and The African Queen, also starring Humphrey Bogart). The key to Huston’s success on this film lies in his simplicity: Huston’s preference to set the camera and let it shoot while the talent in front of the lens works their magic is the mark of a man who knows how to get out of his own way. This includes a spectacular seven minute long one take during the second act as Gutman stretches out his story to Spade in order for the drugs to take effect. For The Maltese Falcon to be Huston’s first film he ever directed, it has all the hallmarks of a veteran, proving what a lasting power the Hollywood icon would become.

Overall, I consider The Maltese Falcon to be the finest example of the noir genre. A story with multiple twists, Humphrey Bogart spitting out classic rapid-fire dialogue, Mary Astor embodying the persona of the femme fatale, and impeccable direction from John Huston makes this the best film of 1941 (sorry, Citizen Kane). A genuinely gripping plot that doesn’t coddle to the audience, the film forces viewers to pay attention and keep up with each new bit of development, inviting them to process it as Sam Spade does. It’s this immersion that director John Huston masters, and a key reason as to why the movie works as well as it does. At exactly 100 minutes, you’ll be hard pressed to find a movie with this amount of noir vibe, classic wordplay, and double crosses.

Review by Darryl Mansel