The Maltese Falcon (1941): A Review (Review #2195)

THE MALTESE FALCON (1941)

This review is part of the Summer Under the Stars series. Today's star is Humphrey Bogart.

There have been, technically, three adaptations of Dashiell Hammet's The Maltese Falcon. There is a 1931 adaptation. There is Satan Met a Lady, which I can describe as a very loose adaptation. Then there is the 1941 version. This is seen as the definitive version. It is seen as one of the greatest films ever made. It is a film that should be seen. The Maltese Falcon is a brilliant film noir, full of clever quips, cleverer dames and an outstanding debut for one of the great filmmakers.

Sam Spade (Humphrey Bogart) is a San Francisco private eye. A beautiful woman, Ruth Wonderly, comes to Spade and his partner, Miles Archer (Jerome Cowan) to follow a man named Thursby. Wonderly claims that this Thursby is essentially holding her sister prisoner. Archer, despite being married, takes a shine to this broad. Archer ends up dead.

The police think that Sam Spade may have plugged his partner. Archer's wife, Iva (Gladys George) and Spade appear to have some kind of understanding. Spade may not be the straightest arrow, but he did not bump Miles off. Did he, however, bump off Thursby, who is also conveniently dead? Whodunit? 

The trail of death leads Spade back to "Ruth Wonderly". She is really Brigid O'Shaughnessy (Mary Astor). She seems forever forlorn, forever alluring, and forever devious. Spade sees through her innocent, deer-in-the-headlights act. He, however, is still wildly drawn to our fatal beauty. What does she truly know about Thursby and Miles? She is connected to a rogues' gallery of shady characters. 

There's the curiously perfumed Joel Cairo (Peter Lorre). He offers Spade $5,000 to help him locate a statue of a black bird. There's the upstart hood-in-training Wilmer Cook (Elisha Cook, Jr.), who trails Spade but isn't good at it. Finally, we see "the fat man". This is Kasper Gutman (Sydney Greenstreet). Gutman, an urbane man, relates to Spade the story of the Maltese Falcon. It is a great treasure made from various jewels. After a decades-plus search, this formerly lost treasure is within reach. That is, if Spade plays dice and Brigit plays nice.

More turns come when a ship captain stumbles into Spade's office. He's been shot. He also has the falcon. Now all our shady figures reunite, the fate of the Maltese Falcon in their hands. Is it the real Maltese Falcon? Who killed Thursby and Miles? Will everyone get away with it? Which way will Sam Spade go?

The Maltese Falcon was the first film directed by John Huston. He had been a screenwriter for several years, but now Huston was going to direct as well as write. This was an audacious debut. Huston shows himself a master in terms of visuals. Of particular note is when Gutman is relating the Falcon's sordid story. It is a long scene dominated by Sydney Greenstreet in his Oscar-nominated performance. Huston keeps everything pretty still as Gutman matter-of-factly tells of the various crimes committed to obtain this object. As he goes on though, Adolph Deutch's music and Arthur Edeson's camerawork begins making things look more sinister.

The scene culminates with Spade falling, slowly becoming aware that he has been slipped a mickey. There are camera angles and subtle suggestions of how sordid these figures are. Huston's dialogue, for example, has an exchange between Gutman and Cairo that implies the latter screwed a kid in Istanbul when they came close to catching the bird. It goes on to suggest that Cairo could do the same here in San Francisco. With a curious manner and a calling card smelling of gardenias, there is more than a vague suggestion that Joel Cairo is into a certain kind of San Francisco treat.

Earlier, Sam was asked, "How did you and the widow make out?". There is a double entendre there that is barely concealed from both the characters and the audience. 

Huston also does brilliant work with his cast. Humphrey Bogart makes Sam Spade into an honest cynic. He has something about him that is aware of how he's being deceived but goes along with it purely out of his own amusement. As Brigit continues to vacillate between playing innocent and showing more of her cards, Spade pretty much calls her out. He compliments her on how her voice throbs at certain points in her efforts to play the situation sweeter. He is able to tell off Wilmer, whom he has an open contempt for. In the end though, we see Spade's disillusionment, even sadness. He may be in love with Brigit. He won't, however, hang for her. Spade knows that she has used her feminine wiles on others. He, however, won't play the sap for her. Despite that, he still holds out a vague hope that, sleazy as she is, she might return to him.

As he ponders on what the Maltese Falcon is, he remarks that it is "the stuff that dreams are made of". Spade knows that, for him, the Maltese Falcon is that obscure object of desire, a desire that he will not possess. The bird and the broad are forever gone, and he is left to quietly mourn.

Humphrey Bogart works well with the cast. When he and Sydney Greenstreet's Gutman are speaking, you see their styles blend well. Spade, blunt and shrewd, knows that Gutman is almost nobody's fool. Greenstreet looms large in The Maltese Falcon (no pun intended). His Fat Man is almost averse to violence. His dominance comes from his intelligence and manipulation. He is not above resorting to violence or threats. However, Gutman seems almost courtly in his manner. That makes the scene where he, along with everyone else, discovers that they have all been duped all the more effective. As Cairo berates him and starts crying, you see Gutman come close to collapse. Greenstreet suggests that Gutman is inches from a literal stroke. In the end though, one senses that Gutman finds the thrill of the search more interesting than the treasure itself. He is still greedy and corrupt. However, he is also shrewd and amused.

Peter Lorre also does well as the eccentric Joel Cairo. His first scene has him fondling his cane in a very curious manner. As the film goes on, he, like Greenstreet, keeps a mostly calm veneer to mask his own desperation and greed. 

It is surprising that Humphrey Bogart was not nominated for his performance as the ultimately honest gumshoe. The bigger surprise is how Mary Astor was also overlooked for her performance as Brigit O'Shaughnessy. She is a different kind of femme fatale. She is attractive. However, she is not alluring. Astor does not use sex appeal or the promise of physical intimacy to get the men to bend to her will. Instead, she uses an innocent act. Brigit keeps trying to play a damsel in distress, attempting to use that need in men to protect the weaker sex to her advantage. What makes Astor brilliant in the role is that she plays that insincerity. There is a sense of exaggeration to her constant suggestions of being a victim. However, because Astor plays it a bit too forced, the end result is showing a woman who cannot be honest. Her dramatic manner is perfect as this mysterious broad. 

The Maltese Falcon may or may not be the first true film noir. It is, however, a film that blends the various elements of film noir together. This is a shady, dark world, all for a little bird. What dreams may come to whomever possesses The Maltese Falcon. 

DECISION: A+