Rent The Maltese Falcon (1941)

Classic Thriller. - The Maltese Falcon review by Steve

One of the great Hollywood films. Credit is due to Dashiell Hammett's wonderful novel, faithfully adapted by debut director John Huston. The story and dialogue is all Hammett. He was a former Pinkerton Agent who knew what he was writing about. In Sam Spade, he gave us cinema's first authentic PI. And a breakthrough role for Humphrey Bogart.

The plot is actually quite theatrical, with the elaborate McGuffin of the Knight Templars' falcon, and the band of colourful crooks in pursuit. That the three male conspirers are obviously gay, is a remarkable detail, given the censorship of the period. It's a caper film, but with the darker shading of the emerging film noir style.

The stars are phenomenal, especially Bogart as the fast talking, morally ambiguous antihero. Mary Astor as the deliciously duplicitous femme fatale, is a noir legend. Elisha Cook and Peter Lorre are adorable as the gaudy henchmen. But trumped by Sidney Greenstreet as their huge, loquacious, dangerous boss.

It's an exciting thriller, with its cast of totally untrustworthy criminals, and a hero you are never sure of. The photography is artistic. The script is full of memorable, quotable dialogue, particularly in the long, thrilling final scene. This was a huge leap forward for the Hollywood crime film, and it seems to keep getting better.

THE Classic Detective Thriller - The Maltese Falcon review by GI

Classical Hollywood at its finest and the quintessential Chandleresque detective story although the original book is by Dashiell Hammett. Director John Huston's first effort from his own screenplay and although intended for George Raft the film sets the movie persona of Humphrey Bogart. He's the dry, cynical and very craggy Sam Spade who along with his partner Miles Archer (Jerome Cowan) is hired by a beautiful woman (Mary Astor) to find her younger sister and get her away from a man called Thursby. When Miles and Thursby are both murdered Sam sets out to find out what's going on especially as he's become a suspect of the police for the murders. A conspiracy soon emerges involving the woman, a dandy named Cairo (Peter Lorre) and a sinister businessman (Sydney Greenstreet) over a valuable statuette called The Maltese Falcon. It's a sheer delight of a story, full of twists and turns and the events, for the most part, are controlled by Spade who always seems to know or suspect what is going on. Bogart plays him as a very dark, almost malevolent character and certainly one who will sacrifice anyone for the end result. It's definitely one of his finest roles. The camerawork and narrative plotting are all typical examples of classical Hollywood filmmaking but with extra panache and whilst the script has the characters overexplain things which occasionally jars the flow of the film by todays standards this is still a private eye film masterpiece.

Comforting and nostalgic entertainment - The Maltese Falcon review by RJ

I find it difficult to adopt much of a critical/intellectual approach to films like this. I've never quite got my head around viewing directors like John Huston as 'auteurs', at least not in the way that I understand, for example, Kubrick, Lynch, Weerasethakul, Chaplin, Tarkovsky etc etc to be auteurs. My tendency is to view directors like Huston, Hawks and so on as being efficient, reliable and skilful directors who knew how to tell stories in an entertaining way. This tendency is, I am sure, a reflection of my ignorance and no doubt does these directors a huge disservice.

All of which is just a roundabout way of getting to my point, which is that I do not come to films like The Maltese Falcon with the same kind of critical approach that I do for many of the other films that I watch. I view them as pure entertainment, and on this level The Maltese Falcon delivers the goods. It's an involving story about the various shady characters trying to lay their hands on the titular Falcon (a classic MacGuffin), a statuette believed to be hundreds of years old and worth millions of dollars. Humphrey Bogart plays Sam Spade, the private detective who gets caught up in the middle of it all. It's the kind of tough, cynical, wisecracking performance so well associated with Bogart. Add in the brilliant Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre and Elisha Cook Jr and it all adds up to a highly entertaining couple of hours - what more could you ask for?