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The Maltese Falcon

Actor(s): Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, Peter Lorre, Sydney Greenstreet, Ward Bond
Director(s): John Huston
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Details

MPAA Rating: NR
Content Advisory: Mild Violence
Movie Release: 1941
DVD Release: 02/15/2000
Format: DVD - Black and White - Closed Captioned
Edition: Dual Layered
Audio Tracks: English, French
Subtitles: English, French
SwapaDVD Credits: 1
Number of Discs: 1
Run Time: 1 hrs 40 mins
Studio: Warner Home Video
Members Wishing: 11
Genres: Mystery, Detective Film, Film Noir
See Also: The Maltese Falcon, Disc One

Synopsis

After two previous film versions of Dashiell Hammett's detective classic -The Maltese Falcon, Warner Bros. finally got it right in 1941--or, rather, John Huston, a long-established screenwriter making his directorial debut, got it right, simply by adhering as closely as possible to the original. Taking over from a recalcitrant George Raft, Humphrey Bogart achieved true stardom as Sam Spade, a hard-boiled San Francisco private eye who can be as unscrupulous as the next guy but also adheres to his own personal code of honor. Into the offices of the Spade & Archer detective agency sweeps a Miss Wonderly (Mary Astor), who offers a large retainer to Sam and his partner Miles Archer (Jerome Cowan) if they'll protect her from someone named Floyd Thursby. The detectives believe neither Miss Wonderly nor her story, but they believe her money. Since Archer saw her first, he takes the case -- and later that evening he is shot to death, as is the mysterious Thursby. Miss Wonderly's real name turns out to be Brigid O'Shaughnessey, and, as the story continues, Sam is also introduced to the effeminate Joel Cairo (Peter Lorre) and the fat, erudite Kasper Gutman (Sydney Greenstreet, in his film debut). It turns out that Brigid, Cairo and Gutman are all international scoundrels, all involved in the search for a foot-high, jewel-encrusted statuette in the shape of a falcon. Though both Cairo and Gutman offer Spade small fortunes to find the "black bird," they are obviously willing to commit mayhem and murder towards that goal: Gutman, for example, drugs Spade and allows his "gunsel" Wilmer (Elisha Cook Jr.) to kick and beat the unconscious detective. This classic film noir detective yarn gets better with each viewing, which is more than can be said for the first two Maltese Falcons and the ill-advised 1975 "sequel" The Black Bird. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Cast

Humphrey Bogart - Sam Spade
Mary Astor - Brigid O'Shaughnessy
Peter Lorre - Joel Cairo
Sydney Greenstreet - Kasper Gutman the Fat Man
Ward Bond - Detective Tom Polhaus
Barton MacLane - Detective Lt. Dundy
Gladys George - Iva Archer

Awards

1941	Best Screenplay (nominee)	Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Scie	John Huston
1941	Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion Pic (nominee)	Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Scie	Sydney Greenstreet
1941	Best Acting (winner)	National Board of Review	Mary Astor
1941	Best Acting (winner)	National Board of Review	Humphrey Bogart

Editorial Review

John Huston's The Maltese Falcon appeared at least twice on laserdisc, neither time in truly suitable editions, in terms of the way the movie was mastered or the way it was treated. The DVD goes a considerable way toward making up for the earlier shabby treatment of the movie, though it also shows signs of being a bit of a slapdash effort. The movie looks very good, and the sound is improved, but not without some lingering problems to go with its clarity. As with many other DVDs, there's also a considerable volume range between the male and female voices, which means that Mary Astor's dialogue is either a little too low to hear easily in every scene or everyone else's dialogue (and much of all the sound) is too loud. The real value of the DVD lies in its supplements. Offered in a trailer that's easy to navigate, they include the trailer to the 1941 movie, featuring Sydney Greenstreet beckoning the audience and introducing the tale of the Maltese Falcon (the montage that follows is a bit of a cheat, containing a couple of shots that aren't in the movie). The producers could have included one or both of the prior versions of the Dashiell Hammett story from Warner Bros., shot by Roy Del Ruth in 1931 and William Dieterle in 1936, but instead they've only given viewers the trailer to the second of the earlier versions, the wretched Satan Met a Lady, starring Bette Davis in what is usually thought of as her worst performance, in her worst movie. The bulk of the supplement is made up of a 45-minute documentary, "Becoming Attractions: The Trailers of Humphrey Bogart," that traces Bogart's image and its transformation over a period of 14 years, beginning with The Petrified Forest (in which Bogart gets less than half the screen time of either Bette Davis or Leslie Howard, through the B-movie horror title The Return of Dr. X, when he finally emerges at the center of the film promotions, to High Sierra and onward through The Maltese Falcon, All Through the Night (the funniest of these trailers, and one where Bogart steps out of character), and Across the Pacific. Because Bogart's sex appeal was in doubt, the trailer for Casablanca dwells on all aspects of the movie's plot, rather than simply on the romance between his character and Ingrid Bergman's. After Casablanca, Warner Bros. recognized that they could promote Bogart in almost any manner they wanted and it would work -- his presence and the memory of Casablanca is what sold Passage to Marseilles. The documentary ends with the trailers for Dark Passage and The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, two of Bogart's most unusual portrayals, which are given suitably offbeat treatment in their coming attractions. The other featured supplement item, a frame-by-frame video essay "A History of the Mystery," is a superficial look at the genre in popular culture; it skips a lot of territory and also manages to credit Elliot Gould as the star of the remake of The Big Sleep (he was in The Long Goodbye). It's not terribly ambitious or overly informative, and can be dispensed with. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide