The Maltese Falcon

1941 - Dir: John Huston - 1 hours 36 minutes

Shown at The FeckenOdeon on 27th October, 2012

The great American film critic Roger Ebert (of the Chicago Sun-Times) sums this film up:

"Among the movies we not only love but treasure, The Maltese Falcon stands as a great divide. Of course film noir was waiting to be born. It was already there in the novels of Dashiell Hammett, who wrote The Maltese Falcon, and the work of Raymond Chandler. ''Down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean,'' wrote Chandler, and that was true of his hero Philip Marlowe (another Bogart character). But it wasn't true of Hammett's Sam Spade, who was mean, and who set the stage for a decade in which unsentimental heroes talked tough and cracked wise."

 

• This was the first film directed by John Huston who continued to make daring and stylish films for the next 40 years including "The African Queen", "The Misfits" and finally, before his death in 1987, "The Dead" - which featured his daughter Angelica.
• This is Humphrey Bogart’s defining movie - up to this point he’d survived on a diet of B picture gangster roles but this gave him the opportunity to create his signature character. Bogart was one of Hollywood’s finest craftsmen and starred in 73 films over 29 years.
• This film contains the first screen appearance of Sydney Greenstreet, a distinguished actor, who had worked in the London and New York theatre since 1902. Throughout his stage career, his parts ranged from musical comedy to Shakespeare, and years of such versatile acting on two continents led to many offers to appear in films. He refused until he was offered this part at the age of 62. His movie career lasted just 8 years but in that short time he starred in 23 films. He died in 1954. He was a large man and it is said that Jabba the Hutt in Star Wars was based on him.
• A second Maltese Falcon had to be made after Bogart dropped the original during the first few days of filming.