This is truly one of my favorite films. The Maltese Falcon is the film that launched the genre of Film Noir and in many ways it has never been equalled.

I first saw the film in my Introduction to Cinematography class back in my old college days. That was a grand course. Every Tuesday and Thursday we’d sit though about 25 minuets of lecture, then watch a film. (Films started on Tuesday and we completed them on the Thursday session.) It was done chronologically, starting with silent films and working our ways through the decades of film production. (Mostly we saw American films, but there were a few foreign movies.) Many movies I would have never sought out I watched there and I truly learned to love all sorts of film.

The Maltese Falcon is movie that made Bogart as start, it launched the directing career of John  Houston, and it forever stamped on our collective psyche what a hard-boiled detective is like.

Curiously this is the third adaptation of the novel into film. The first was made ten years earlier and did modest box office, the second was made in 1936 and strangely titled, “Satan Met a Lady.” It starred Betty Davis in the femme Fatale roole, but the film was played more for laughs than serious crime fiction and it failed with audiences and critics alike.

The Maltese Falcon is the story of Sam Spade, private detective along with his Partner Miles Archer. Together they cobble a living out of the routine work of cheating husbands and unfaithful wives. the agency is turned upside down when a Ms. Wonderly comes in seeking assistance in finding a wayward sister who has run off with a thug of a man, Thursby.  The pair take the case and before long it’s murder, and lies, and Sam finding he has enemies on both sides of the law.

There is no aspect of this movie that does not work. The script is sharp, pointed, and true as hell to the source material. (It helps that the novel is short and written in an object third person style.) The photography is dark, moody, and capture the world of danger and unknowns that is Sam’s life. Of course the film just soars in it’s casting.

Bogart is remembered as the tough guy detective because of this role. He is tough in this role, but Bogart always a top0-flight actor brings much more to Sam Spade than just a sneer and physical combat ability. Sam has a heart and when others — but the audience is – he wears it on his sleeve. (After a shouting confrontation where Space was acting tough to play a part, Bogart gives us a very subtle performance with one of Sam’s hands shaking. Sam is tough, but very human.)

Mary Astor as Ms. Wonderly AKA Ms Blanc AKA Ms O’Shaughnessy delivers a memorable performance of a woman no one can trust, but who is able to win trust over and over. She is an actress playing a talent actress and letting the audience see the layer performance — truly a skilled artist. (Bogart & Astor were both in The Caine Mutiny an earlier Sunday Night Movie, though they had no scenes together in that movie.)

Sidney Greenstreet made his film debut with The Maltese Falcon. He was born to play the part of Casper Gutman.  A lesser actor in this role could have irrevocably damaged the movie. If you do not believe Gutman’s character nothing in the movie would be acceptable. With Greenstreet not only do we accept and believe in Gutman, he’s a rouge we like and remember.He is the cinematic wellspring from where we get characters like Winston Wolfe in Pulp Fiction.

Peter Lorrie made plenty of low budget films later in his career, but he too was an exceptionally talented actor. His turn as a child murders in Fritz Lang’s M made him an international star and it one of the best film performance in my opinion. It is a movie that I do not, yet, have in my collection. Lorrie’s portrayal of Joel Cairo, the sly, dangerous and homosexual thief is at turns comic and subtle. (The homosexuality of the character is suggested, given the time of production. After the horrid Hayes code had been imposed by the Studios.)

I have had the good fortune of watching this projected from a new 35 mm print in a theater. I love revivals and I wish my local art house did more of them, but I understand the economics at work there.

If you have not seen The Maltese Falcon, see it. On DVD if you must, but the blu-ray is simply stunning.