THE MALTESE FALCON
US, 1941, 101 minutes, Black and white.
Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, Gladys George, Peter Lorre, Barton Mac Lane, Lee Patrick, Sydney Greenstreet, Ward Bond, Jerome Cowan, Elisha Cook Jr.
Directed by John Huston.
The Maltese Falcon is an American classic. It was entered on the National Registry in 1989. It was nominated for Oscars for writing, Sydney Greenstreet’s performance, best picture.
The film is based on the novel by Dashiell Hammett and features his private eye, Sam Spade. There had been a version of The Maltese Falcon in 1931, directed by Roy Del Ruth, starring Ricardo Cortez. However, Humphrey Bogart made Sam Spade his own.
The plot is particularly complicated – and, in the final five minutes, Sam Spade makes an attempt to put forth all the aspects of the plot, all framed in conditions and what if …? It requires attentive listening, indicative perhaps of the capacities for 1940s audiences to listen to dialogue.
Mary Astor is the femme fatale – and won an Oscar in this year for her performance in The Great Lie. The usual suspects are there, especially Peter Lorre, Sydney Greenstreet, Elisha Cook Jr – with the ambiguous relationship of Elisha Cook Jr to Greenstreet and the evocative sexual undertones and symbols.
The film set something of a tone for the film noir of the 1940s.
This was the first film directed by John Huston. He had been screenwriting in Hollywood since the 1930s. However, this was the beginning of a forty-five year career as a director. He made quite a number of classics: Key Largo, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (where he directed his father Walter Huston to an Oscar), The Red Badge of Courage, The African Queen, The Misfits. He also directed his daughter, Anjelica Huston, to an Oscar in Prizzi’s Honour. His last film was a version of James Joyce’s The Dead in 1987.
1. Why is this considered a classic thriller? What are its most important features? Its entertaining features?
2. What conventions off the private-eye thriller does it use best? How well? Why?
3. What insight into the style of the forties films does this film give? Into the style of the thirties as regards America detection, tough style etc.? What convention is there in the private eye and his detection, the tough American hero, the Humphrey Bogart style etc., the swift and smart dialogue and wisecracking, the shoot outs and the assertion of force?
4. How typical a Humphrey Bogart role is this? What kind of character does he endow Sam Spade with? What values does Sam Spade stand for? investigation, his attitude toward his partner and investigating his death, his attitude toward women, Effie? Miss Shaughnessy, Iva Archer? attitudes towards right and wrong? Towards the police? His belief in himself and his abilities? His attitudes his fellow men?
5. Comment on Mary Astor's portrayal of the villainess. In the forties style? her English mannerisms concealing her cunning evil? Her use of love and her manipulating people? A calculated innocence as the American villainess? How impressive was this portrayal and the insight into wickedness?
6. The portrait gallery of villains in this film: Goodman as played by Sidney Greenstreet, suave style of the fat man, his snobbery, his ambitions for wealth, hie efficiency and inefficiency, his cruelty and callous disregard of Wilmer, his ironic and British comments etc.?
7. Cairo as portrayed by Peter Lorre, small and suave, insinuating, slimy, evil and cruel?
8. Wilmer and the young punk, inarticulate and brutal, sacrificed by the others? Critics have seen this rogue's gallery as effective cinema. Do you agree?
9. How do the police compare in portrayal with the villains? Do they have the similar character drives? The function of the police in the film? The director's attitude towards the police?
10. How interesting is the crime and its details? Difficult to follow? The implications of the robbery, attitudes towards life and death, greed and using of others?
11. How strong is the film in its portraying of the interaction of its characters? Their basic humanity and inhumanity? Insight into personalities? American society and presuppositions and styles?
12. What would have been the major interest of the film in the forties? What is its major interest now?
