The Maltese Falcon

• Genre : Crime, Film-Noir, Mystery...
  
• Running time : 101 min.
• Director : John Huston
  
• Studio : Warner Bros. Pictures
  
• Writer : Dashiell Hammett
• Screenplay : John Huston
  
• Cast : Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, Gladys George, Peter Lorre, Barton Maclane, Lee Patrick, Sydney Greenstreet..
  

Having been lost and missing for almost five hundreds years since it was grabbed by a bunch of pirates on the high seas The Maltese Falcon, a black coded statue made of solid gold and encrusted with finest of jewels, had finally been tracked down in Hong Kong by the Fat Man. That enormous, in both body and mind, and well read and cultured Kasper Gutman, Sidney Greenstreet. It's there in the British Crown Colony where the Fat Man had a falling out with two of his gang members Brigid O'Shaughnessy, Mary Astor, and her boyfriend Thursby who checked out with the bird to what they thought was the safety of San Francisco.

With The Fat Man and his boys sweet smelling Joel Cairo, Peter Lorre, and Wilmer "Two Gun" Cook, Elisha Cook Jr, bearing down on her and Thursby Brigid desperately go to SF private dick Sam Sapde, Humphrey Bogart, for help. Using the fake name Mrs. Wonderly Brigid claims that she's in the city looking for her kid sister Croinne who's being abused by her, Brigid's partner in crime, associate Thursby.



Spade's partner PI Miles Archer, Jerome Cowan, at first takes the case. Later that evening checking on Thursby in his hotel Archer ends up getting shot and killed by an unknown gunman. It also turns out that Thursby is also murdered leaving Spade in a real tight spot by, besides Brigid, being the only person alive who knows or is about to know about what the connection is between the two murdered men: The Maltese Falcon

Spade is now in trouble with not only the Fat Man Mob but the police who think that he murdered both Archer and Thursby. Spade's secret affair with Archer's wife Iva, Gladys George, didn't help either giving him a motive to murder his partner. The movie then has Spade being confronted by the Fat Man's two buffoonish hit-men Cairo & Cook, the comical C&C boys. Tough guy Spade has no trouble at all making monkeys of them by alway beating the two doofuses to the punch and taking their pieces, guns, away from them without even breaking a sweat.



There's a big break in the case of the missing bird that suddenly comes out to the surface. It's when the captain of the boat La Poloma Capt. Jacobi. John Huston,that brought the Fat Man and his gang to the states from Hong Kong is badly wounded in an assassination attempt after his boat was mysteriously set on fire in San Francisco Harbor. Jacobi escaping with both his life and the black bird makes it to Spades place with it just before he collapses and passes away. Spade putting the bird away with his trusted secretary Effie, Lee Patrick, now has all the marbles that the Fat Man is looking for. He then decides to play hard ball with him knowing full well that he has implicated himself in three murders, his partner Archer Thursby & Capt Jocobi, in doing so.

Big and long winded final at Spades apartment with Sam Spade and the Fat Man and his boys and girl, Brigid, trying to figure just whom to set up as the pasty for the three murderers in The Maltese Falcon affair. It's then decided that the wimpy and tough-talking "Two Gun" Cook is the lucky guy to pin it on. The big surprise comes later when Effie brings the bird back to her boss Sam Spade and the Fat Man as it in fact turns out to be a fake. The big surprise causes Fat Man Gutman to completely loses it, mumbling unintelligently to himself, as he and both Cairo & Cook check out of the apartment empty handed as they plan to check out of the country as well. It seems that the person whom the Fat Man bought the bird from, a former czarist general named Kemidov, tricked him back in Hong Kong by slipping the Fat Man a phony lead, not golden, bird and then taking off with the real one :The Maltese Falcon!



Spade calls the cops who quickly apprehend Fat Man Gutman and his gang. It's then that he confronts Brigid who, unlike the Fat Man and his boys, foolishly stayed behind thus exposing herself as the real mastermind behind this whole squalid affair as well as being the one who blasted away Sapde's partner Archer. Grabbed by the police who raid the apartment a mind-numbed and almost comatose Brigid is lead away to the police station by the officers in the building elevator with Spade instead taking the stairs.

It seems that Sam Spade had very deep guilt feelings about his dead partner Miles Archer and the way he betrayed him by having an affair with his old lady Iva behind his back. Feeling in some way that he's as responsible for Archer's murder as much as Brigid was is what I feel lead to Spade's decision in taking the stairs and not the elevator down to the building lobby together with Brigid and the police. This conscious, or subconscious, decision on Spade's part will very well get him in his guilty mind to the same place, the hot spot where the sun don't shine, that Brigid is ultimately headed for but it, in Sam Spades case, would take just a little bit longer for him to get there.



The Maltese Falcon is a classic example of film noir. Humphrey Bogart plays Sam Spade, a no-nonsense private detective who ends up searching for a mysterious jeweled statuette - The Maltese Falcon. However, he quickly realizes that he is not the only person after the bird. Magnificent characters played by Sydney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre add color to this film noir. There are plenty of witty lines uttered by Bogart, in one of his greatest roles, and this wonderful movie is packed full of suspense and intrigue - it has all the ingredients of a fantastic film noir!

My Rating

The Maltese Falcon : 8.2/10