THE MALTESE FALCON

ON FILM  

Most everyone has heard of The Maltese Falcon, starring Humphrey Bogart as detective Sam Spade.  Directed by John Huston, it was released by Warner Brothers in 1941, and went on to be named one of the 100 best American movies of all time by the American Film Institute.

But only the most hardcore film buff would be aware that Warner Brothers had already made two unsuccessful versions of Falcon, both of which are virtually unknown today.

THE MALTESE FALCON (1931)

Originally called The Maltese Falcon, but later renamed Dangerous Female for TV reruns.  Now it’s regained its original title. Ricardo Cortez plays Spade as a leering, smooth-talking ladies' man in. The film follows the novel’s plot fairly closely, but does not use much of Hammett's crisp dialogue.  Some interesting alterations:  Miles Archer had just become aware of Spade's ongoing affair with Mrs. Archer, and would’ve confronted Spade about it, if not for his untimely death.  Spade produces a surprise witness who actually saw "Miss Wonderly" gun down Archer.  And cracking the case results in Spade being hired by the district attorney's office!  For more details, click here.

SATAN MET A LADY (1936)

Intended to be a “madcap romp” (or something), the plot is stripped to bare bones, with all characters reworked and renamed.  Even the falcon itself has transmorphed into a bejeweled horn.  Bette Davis called this film the “biggest dog” of her career.  Still, it’s kind of fun, if you ignore the fact that it’s supposed to be The Maltese Falcon.  For more details, click here.

THE MALTESE FALCON (1941)

Three different posters for John Huston's Falcon.  Note the typical Hollywood hype:  "A story as EXPLOSIVE as his BLAZING automatics!"  "He's a KILLER when he HATES!"  In actual fact, only a single shot is fired on camera, and it wasn't Spade holding the gun.

Seldom has a movie so perfectly captured the feeling of a book.  Brigid O'Shaugnessy, Caspar Gutman and Joel Cairo were so smoothly translated to the screen that some people assumed the book was written after the movie. And even though the novel's Spade was tall, blond and built like a bear, Humphrey Bogart made the role his own.  It's not impossible to read the novel without hearing Bogart's voice... but it's pretty darn hard!  For more details, click here.

“AND THE POINT OF THAT STORY WAS...?”

While the 1941 film follows Hammett’s novel closely, there are some differences.  One is the ending: nowhere in the book does Spade comment that the falcon is “the stuff that dreams are made of.”  Hammett’s ending is more downbeat, showing an emotionally exhausted Spade returning to his familiar office and secretary, to continue the same life he had before he encountered Brigid O’Shaughnessy.  He may have toyed briefly with the idea of running off with Brigid (and a pile of money), but now he is back to reality as he knows it.

Another difference was the omission of the story of "Flitcraft."  In chapter seven of the novel, Spade tells Brigid of a seemingly unrelated case from earler in his career.  Charles Flitcraft, a successful Tacoma business owner and family man, had disappeared, following a near-death experience: a beam falling from a construction site had impacted the sidewalk mere inches from him.  He could easily have been killed, but random chance dealt him nothing more than a scraped cheek.  

Shaken, Flitcraft reexamined his entire way of life, and decided to drop out of sight and roam the world as a free spirit.  This lasted for a few years, but eventually he drifted back to Washington state, not far from Tacoma.  He remarried, started a new business, and apparently never noticed that his “new” life strongly resembled his old one.

Bottom line: Flitcraft couldn’t change who he fundamentally was, any more than Spade could.  However strong his feelings for Brigid, he was first and foremost a detective – and the lovely Miss O’Shaughnessy was about to go down.

THE MALTESE FALCON COMES TO YOUR LIVING ROOM

• Super-8 film with sound
• Record album of dialogue from the soundtrack
• Cartrivision (an obscure early-1970s format that never caught on)

• Laserdisc
• RCA SelectaVision videodisc
• VHS videocassette - two different examples of cover art

• UK videocassette in PAL format
• Video CD
• DVD - two different examples of cover art

11) Korean DVD

• Blu-Ray disc

BOOKS ABOUT THE MALTESE FALCON

• John Huston's The Maltese Falcon, by Richard J. Arnobile, 1974
• The Maltese Falcon, John Huston, Director, edited by William Luhr, 1995
• Monarch Notes: Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon, by Walter James Miller, 1988
• Hollywood Classics: The Maltese Falcon, by Marie Cahill, 1991

• Literary Masterpieces, Volume 3, by Richard Layman, 2000
• Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 280, by Richard Layman, 2003
• Discovering The Maltese Falcon and Sam Spade, by Richard Layman, 2005
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MOVIE SPOOFS

The Maltese Bippy (1969): Except for the title, this film has nothing whatsoever to do with The Maltese Falcon; it's one of those gawd-awful 1960s “comedies” with the required sniggering innuendo.  Rowan & Martin (of TV’s Laugh-In) spend the night in a gothic mansion, where strange (if not particularly funny) things happen.

The Black Bird (1975): In this comedy, George Segal plays Sam Spade Jr, working out of the same office that his legendary father once occupied.  Effie Perine is still the secretary, again played by a now-much-older Lee Patrick.  Elisha Cook Jr, another member of the original cast, is also on hand.

The Cheap Detective (1978): Peter Falk delivers a hilarious Bogie impression, while blending the plots of Falcon, The Big Sleep  and Casablanca. A sequel-of-sorts to 1976’s Murder by Death (where Falk played a similar role), both films were written by Neil Simon.

THE MALTESE FALCON: PART OF THE AMERICAN PSYCHE

• Maltese Falcon cigars
• A pop art print by artist Es Qui (2002)
• A 1984 heavy metal album
• A "Maltese Falcon" Daylily

• A Sam Spade alarm clock, apparently designed by George Jetson
• A Host A Murder-type role-playing game
• A 1994 calendar
• A “Maltese Falcon” athletic shoe

• A 1946 comic book
• An album of the movie's musical score
• Maltese Falcon jewelry
• An advertisement featuring a Bogart look-alike
• The Maltese Falcon (the super-yacht)
• An iPhone skin

• A Maltese Falcon cigarette case
• A Maltese Falcon trading card (1970s)
• A Japanese rock album (1984)
• A Maltese Falcon flask
• Here's an oddball item:  Obviously an American bald eagle, the words "Maltese Falcon" are painted along the bottom.  Even stranger:  it was made in Malta!
• A recording of a 1943 radio production of Falcon, starring... Edward G. Robinson??

SAM SPADE AFTER THE FALCON

Hammett never wrote another Sam Spade novel, although he eventually wrote three lackluster short stories featuring the character (collected in Crime Stories and Other Writings).  A fourth, never-finished Spade story has recently resurfaced.

There was talk of producing a sequel to the 1941 Bogart movie, but nothing ever came of it.

Sam Spade was on network radio between 1946 and 1951.  The Adventures of Sam Spade starred Howard Duff as Spade and Lurene Tuttle as Effie.  Dunn’s version of Spade was more lighthearted than Bogart’s, but still could get tough when the situation called for it. Ironically, Duff found himself the target of the same Red Scare witch hunt as Hammett himself, and was replaced by Steve Dunn during the show’s final season.

AND FINALLY... A BAD PUN