The Maltese Falcon's Recent Activity - Spout

Film:The Maltese Falcon

Thu, 27 Aug 2009 03:33:44 GMT

Title: The Maltese Falcon
Year: 1941
Director: John Huston
Plot: 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
Times Tagged: 22
Number of Lists: 66
Number of blog posts: 4
Number of discussion threads: 6
SpoutRating: 4

Spout Post: Re:Which of these from Tim Out's list of 10 greatest directorial debuts of all time is your favorite?

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 01:11:31 GMT

Post By: Dr_Gor
Post To: Movie Polls
Post Date: 9/13/2009 9:11:31 PM
Body: [quote user="Risselada"] Please reference this thread for the rules of this group. Here is the link for the full list of Time Out's 50 greatest directorial debuts of all time Please vote only once in each poll. Movies referenced in this poll:The 400 BlowsL'AtalanteBadlandsBlood SimpleCitizen KaneThe Maltese FalconThe Night of the HunterNight of the Living DeadPerformanceThey Live By Night [/quote] Obviously I could only vote for one movie out of that list... George Romero is a GOD in the directing world and NOTLD is, quite simply, one of the best movies ever made... < GOR >

Spout Post: Which of these from Tim Out's list of 10 greatest directorial debuts of all time is your favorite?

Wed, 09 Sep 2009 22:25:09 GMT

Post By: Risselada
Post To: Movie Polls
Post Date: 9/9/2009 6:25:09 PM
Body: Please reference this thread for the rules of this group. Here is the link for the full list of Time Out's 50 greatest directorial debuts of all time Please vote only once in each poll. Movies referenced in this poll:The 400 BlowsL'AtalanteBadlandsBlood SimpleCitizen KaneThe Maltese FalconThe Night of the HunterNight of the Living DeadPerformanceThey Live By Night

Spout Post: Re:Weekly Theme for May 4: Express Yourself!!

Tue, 05 May 2009 20:33:09 GMT

Post By: mercurial
Post To: Weekly Theme
Post Date: 5/5/2009 4:33:09 PM
Body: M is probably the film that stands out as one of the great Expressionist films made. It's such a creative, thrilling film; something which surprised me when I first saw it years ago as I hadn't seen too many films pre-1950 and those that I had I couldn't really get a feeling for. Some of the noir films that I have loved and which embrace a certain amount of Expressionistic ideas are The Big Sleep, The Maltese Falcon, Gilda and Sunset Boulevard. Hitchcock utilized Expressionist techniques in pretty much all of his films: Psycho and Vertigo being my favorite. Aside from Batman and Batman Returns, which I LOVE, Dark City is another recent film that tried to recapture the overall feeling of an authentic German Expressionist film. Saving the best for last: Nosferatu. I just can't get enough of this movie and it gives me the willies every time I watch it. As I'm sure everyone who watches it describes it, it is hauntingly beautiful. Like M, the filmmaker combined such startling techniques with an interesting story and their power has not diminished in the decades since their initial release.

Spout Post: Re:Need more Noir

Fri, 09 Jan 2009 17:06:52 GMT

Post By: Risselada
Post To: Community Recommendations
Post Date: 1/9/2009 12:06:52 PM
Body: [quote user="leeroy711"] [quote user="Risselada"] I've seen all of these except for Fury, and they are all fantastic!! You MUST see these: Born to Kill Murder, My Sweet Out of the Past And these are also highly recommended and are all listed as film-noir on IMDB (for what it's worth): Sunset Blvd. The Big Sleep White Heat The Night of the Hunter Strangers on a Train The Third Man The Maltese Falcon And if you liked Samuel Fuller's Pickup on South Street you should check out another one of my favorites from him, Shock Corridor. [/quote] Thank you thank you, the only ones of these I've seen were Night of the Hunter, - which had a pretty dark story but I really didn't like that it was all done in a studio. And Third Man was pretty incredible. I haven't seen The Big Sleep, but I have seen The Big Heat (Fritz Lang) which was the one I was actually trying to think of when I mentioned Fury. I think Fury would actually probably be considered pre-noir. I've kinda been on a Sam Fuller kick ever since I watch Shock Corridor earlier this year. I friggin' loved that one. I just got White Dog in the mail the other day but I haven't watched it yet. [/quote] Yeah, if you see any of them, especially one of the first three, I'm excited to hear what you think! Let me know how White Dog goes.

Spout Post: Re:Need more Noir

Fri, 09 Jan 2009 03:47:21 GMT

Post By: leeroy711
Post To: Community Recommendations
Post Date: 1/8/2009 10:47:21 PM
Body: [quote user="Risselada"] I've seen all of these except for Fury, and they are all fantastic!! You MUST see these: Born to Kill Murder, My Sweet Out of the Past And these are also highly recommended and are all listed as film-noir on IMDB (for what it's worth): Sunset Blvd. The Big Sleep White Heat The Night of the Hunter Strangers on a Train The Third Man The Maltese Falcon And if you liked Samuel Fuller's Pickup on South Street you should check out another one of my favorites from him, Shock Corridor. [/quote] Thank you thank you, the only ones of these I've seen were Night of the Hunter, - which had a pretty dark story but I really didn't like that it was all done in a studio. And Third Man was pretty incredible. I haven't seen The Big Sleep, but I have seen The Big Heat (Fritz Lang) which was the one I was actually trying to think of when I mentioned Fury. I think Fury would actually probably be considered pre-noir. I've kinda been on a Sam Fuller kick ever since I watch Shock Corridor earlier this year. I friggin' loved that one. I just got White Dog in the mail the other day but I haven't watched it yet.

Spout Post: Re:Need more Noir

Thu, 08 Jan 2009 23:53:11 GMT

Post By: Risselada
Post To: Community Recommendations
Post Date: 1/8/2009 6:53:11 PM
Body: [quote user="leeroy711"] I feel like I've recently re-discovered the noir genre. I just watched The Killing last night and I loved it. As with Fuller's Pickup on South Street. I had previously been a fan of Fritz Lang's older German movies, but now I've seen Fury and I need to see more of his American stuff. And after watching Touch of Evil, I can't understand why Citizen Kane is known as Orson Welle's best work.. I mean c'mon....!!! Charlton Heston just grows a mustache and presto!!! He's a Mexican. You can't beat that! Anyways what are some of the films I'm missing?? [/quote] I've seen all of these except for Fury, and they are all fantastic!! You MUST see these: Born to Kill Murder, My Sweet Out of the Past And these are also highly recommended and are all listed as film-noir on IMDB (for what it's worth): Sunset Blvd. The Big Sleep White Heat The Night of the Hunter Strangers on a Train The Third Man The Maltese Falcon And if you liked Samuel Fuller's Pickup on South Street you should check out another one of my favorites from him, Shock Corridor.

Spout Post: Revisiting The Maltese Falcon for the AFI Project

Tue, 26 Aug 2008 17:45:15 GMT

Post By: pippin06
Post To: Reel Thoughts
Post Date: 8/26/2008 1:45:15 PM
Body: What's the AFI Project, you ask? For more information, or if you just enjoy my bemused ramblings, read here: http://www.spout.com/blogs/pippin06/archive/2008/3/1/25756.aspx The Maltese Falcon is on the following AFI lists: The Original Top 100 (#23)100 Most Heart-Pounding Movies (#26)100 Movie Quotes (#14 - Sam Spade: "The stuff that dreams are made of.")The Revised Top 100 (#31)10 Top 10's (#6 Mystery) I borrowed The Maltese Falcon again from my parents' ever-burgeoning film collection, which is beginning to rival my own in terms of quantity and eclecticism, though I had seen this film before. Back in my college days, when I tried watching the entire AFI Original list (never made it, obviously), the University of Michigan had several summer movie series that they screened all over campus. One movie series featured some classic and foreign films, including this one. I think I saw it first in the conservatory or some such building on the Diag. Truth be told, I only vaguely remember the experience and remembered The Maltese Falcon even less, so, in many ways, revisiting this movie felt like watching it a first time. I could only remember that Humphrey Bogart was in the film, and there was all this hooey about some bird statuette. Well, this hooey proved to serve up Bogey's star-making role, playing ascerbic private investigator Sam Spade. Spade and his investigating partner are hired by the requisite femme fatale - I say requisite, though, apparently, this is the first film that could ever definitively be called noir, which is interesting and something I did not realize. Miss Wonderly, an alias for Brigid O'Shaughnessey (Mary Astor), tells Spade and Archer that her sister has taken up with a dangerous man and needs to be followed and brought back for her safety. As soon as Archer takes up the case, he meets his maker, and the suspected murderer, an acquaintance of Brigid's, soon follows his fate. Spade, the only known common thread between his partner and the prime suspect in his investigation, becomes the prime suspect in both of their murders. In an effort to keep the heat of the law off his back, he maneuvers amongst the players, Brigid included, and discovers that all of the death and confusion revolves around a legendary golden bird statue in the shape of a falcon, originally from royalty in Malta, and disguised in a crude black enamel. The mystery thickens when Spade realizes that none of the people he encounters, including a man named Joel Cairo (Peter Lorre) and a man named Kasper Gutman (Sydney Greenstreet), are telling the truth about, well, anything. They also are not afraid to use guns when it suits their purpose. Both times I watched this film, I found that I didn't really get too excited by it. It's a great plot, to be sure, and I wish that I had read the book on which it was based before ever viewing the film because I really struggled with some of the character development. Though, there were no issues concerning Sam Spade. His is one of the most engaging and well-rounded characters in film, and, I feel, that's largely why this film hits the AFI's original and revised lists. His motivations, aside from one key plot-related factoid I refuse to spoil, are clear; his dialogue is snappy, witty, and intelligent; and his presence is charismatic because Bogart was an incredible performer and a true film icon. He's hands-down the best part of the whole film. The worst part of the film is Brigid. I don't think it's necessarily Mary Astor's fault, but that's hard to know for sure without reading the original book. In the film, her motivations, other than sheer greed, are never clear because her character is always driven to lie - yet, there's no background information provided as to why it has become so necessary for her to chase after the Falcon and lie so much, except for the danger of the quest itself. The film establishes early on that there are no perfect heroes or villains; everyone is morally ambiguous and self-serving, not the least of which includes Spade. Yet, Brigid's story offers no explanations past a few brief and forgettable comments regarding her exploits in pursuit of the Falcon. Maybe it's the year in which it was made, and the archaic sexism of the day, playing on the notion that she is of the weaker sex, that renders this character to such a diminished role, portraying Brigid to be the biggest sinner of the lot - almost an Eve-type, wanton to temptation. While Cairo's involvement is equally glossed over, he's comparatively minor in the grand scheme of the plot. Still, Brigid never feels like a sympathetic character to me because, the way it was written, she offers no reason why she should be sympathetic, even when she finally decides to offer crumbs of the truth. No technical elements of the film stood out for me. The point-and-shoot direction of John Huston in his directorial debut was fairly straightforward, as were other elements like art direction, costumes, even score. The pace was slow yet even. I think the allure of The Maltese Falcon rests largely on the charisma of Bogey and the allure of the mystery around the titular object - after all, it's the "stuff that dreams are made of." I also think it gets such rankings due to the fact that it was groundbreaking in terms of setting the tempo for those films classified as "film noir" to follow, creating the requisite ingredients by being the first film to employ them. Because of some of the lackluster character development and the relatively slow pace of the film (for the entertainment value), I'm motivated to rate The Maltese Falcon an 8 for being very good/having minor flaws, but it doesn't pass the test for me. Even after a second viewing, I don't find I like the film in any profound way; perhaps, my dreams are made of other stuff.

Spout Post: Re:TOP 5 MOVIES TO TEACH AN ALIEN ABOUT EARTH

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 01:43:00 GMT

Post By: Proteus
Post To: Filmgaming
Post Date: 6/23/2008 9:43:00 PM
Body: Hey, stranger. How's tricks? Here's a brief overview of life on earth, in 5 or so languages: 5. Akira Kurosawa's Dreams: An overview of human foibles and achievements, presented with unflinching sympathy and penetrating understanding. 4. The Maltese Falcon: Honor and integrity and everything (drugs, money, sex, etc.) combatting it in a fast-paced, but tightly focused character study. Has the double virtue of leaving Casablanca to be seen at some other point down the road. 3. Jules & Jim: Love and Romance, and the importance of knowing the difference. How life feels to the young, and how decisions can be made without regard for consequences, based on intuition, principle, and ambiguity. 2. The Tin Drum: The follies of youth in competition with the absurdity of life and the misery of war - a firm lesson on the harsh realities of life, and the redemptive power of imagination and individuality. 1. My Life as a Dog - a second helping of the lessons of The Tin Drum, this masterpiece provides a thorough and detailed example of what is is to grow up human. Bonus pick: Not really a movie, One Giant Leap is a fantastic musical and philosophical experiment - with a wealth of voices talking about big stuff, but almost never preaching or lecturing. Almost all the subjects covered are significant, and the perspective is attractive and unique.

Spout Post: AFI's 10 Top 10: Mystery

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 22:01:33 GMT

Post By: ShaunHuston
Post To: ShaunHuston filmblog
Post Date: 6/19/2008 6:01:33 PM
Body: The mystery list is another one that seems poorly conceived. Unlike animation, “mystery” may be a genre, but the way it is defined and applied in the AFI list leads to a muddled selection of films.The AFI defines mystery as “a genre that revolves around the solution of a crime”. I'm not convinced that that adequately describes the films on the list, or, even if it does, it is absurdly reductive. Most ironically, the definition seems least appropriate when applied to the list's top selection, Vertigo (1958), which does not actually revolve around the solution of a crime at all, but a domestic mystery, and is really about Scottie's (Jimmy Stewart) inner-demons and obsessions in any event. Similar questions can be raised about other movies on this Top 10. For example, the second film on the list, Chinatown (1974), certainly starts with a mysterious murder, but part of the point of the film is that some “crimes” aren't illegal at all, and may even be facilitated by laws. The plot of The Third Man (1949) involves the unveiling of criminal activity, but the central mystery, on more than one level, proves not to be a crime, or at least is vague enough for questions to be raised about whether it is or isn't. And, as was highlighted on the broadcast, Dial M for Murder (1954) is really more about the commission of a crime than its solution. You get the picture: the AFI definition for this genre is fine as far as it goes, but it misses the nuances in most of the films on the list. In fact, it can be argued that most of the films on this Top 10 are typically considered to belong to more refined categories than “mystery”. Chinatown, The Third Man, and The Maltese Falcon (1941) are better thought of as Film Noir, as should North by Northwest (1959), though I recognize that that may be a less typical way of understanding that movie than it is for the others. Another segment of the selections – Vertigo, Rear Window (1954), Dial M for Murder – are more precisely “suspense” movies or “thrillers”, wherein mystery, rather than being the point of the narrative, is merely a device for exploring the human psyche. This leaves three movies as the “true” mysteries on the list. From what I know of Laura (1944), I've not seen it, this seems like a fair enough categorization, and I think that “mystery” is reasonable as a way of thinking about The Usual Suspects (1995). Blue Velvet (1986) I'm tempted to say belongs to the genre of “David Lynch,” but it is also clearly the case that a mystery drives much of the film's action. What's curious about the AFI's choice to use and apply “mystery” to the films that it does is that the alternatives I suggest, “noir”, “suspense”, “thriller”, are also well-used genre categories, and ones that better capture one of my points above: these movies largely use mysteries to explore other themes – power, obsession, fear, evil. There are, however, films where the mystery is the thing. Think The Thin Man series, or the incarnations of Nancy Drew, or adaptations of Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple books. I suppose the orchestrators of these lists may have considered this, and decided that there aren't enough such movies to “honor”, but that's not only narrow-minded, especially in the context of genre entertainment, it also begs the question of why “mystery” and not “noir”, “thriller”, etc. Assessing the individual selections is made complicated by the underlying categorization question. I can see where each of the films on the list can and should be honored on a Top 10 in “x” genre, even if I don't quite see it for this particular accounting. However, Vertigo is, like The Searchers and Shane from the Western list, one of those highly regarded “classics” that I don't quite get. To me it seems dated in its fascination with mid-century popular psychology, and its visualizations of feelings of vertigo don't hold up well at all. That the latter is important to me is probably a function of the former. I vastly prefer Rear Window, and, as to the non-Hitchcock on the list, Chinatown is one of those films I will routinely cite as my absolute favorite when asked. Everything else more or less depends on context and I'm not sure that the AFI has provided the right one here. Link to introduction. Originally posted on:Short-Circuit Signs

Spout Post: The Maltese Falcon (1941)

Fri, 06 Jun 2008 20:48:22 GMT

Post By: JJ79
Post To: JJ79 Blog
Post Date: 6/6/2008 4:48:22 PM
Body: Released: October 18, 1941Director: John Huston*****Perhaps the best known example of the film noir genre, The Maltese Falcon stars Humphrey Bograt as PI Sam Spade, hired by a woman to find her sister and a less-than-scrupulous man to find an object of immense wealth. Of course, they both have their own agendas in coming to San Francisco and to Spade. He can't help but get involved when his partner is murdered, explaining near the end why a man has to see this kind of thing to the end.If there is one thing the film-and perhaps the novel source material-does wrong is confine the main characters to one room for an extended period at the end of the film. Up until that point, Spade, his femme fatale Brigid O'Shaughnessey, the adversary The Fat Man and his cronies are in a kinetic race to find the falcon. This one gets shot, that one spies on the others, dead bodies turn up. To take full advantage of the film medium these people need to do something other than sit around and wait for something to happen.However, Bogie is perhaps the only member of old Hollywood who could have pulled the roll off. Not because he was the only good actor out there, but because he has the requisite tough look to him, as if he has lived on the streets and taken a beating. It's the way he talks and the way he walks which sells him in the role. And, in return, Bogie helps to sell the movie, in particular his interaction with O'Shaughnessey (Mary Astor). Even the slightly hokey premise of a worldwide search for a jewel-encrusted bird ending up in SF is buoyed by their relationship.While the pieces all fit, getting to the end result is a bit tedious due to the staging. The actors are game, especially Peter Lorre as a henchman, who comes quite close to stealing every scene he's in with wide eyes and what looks to be a badly disguised makeup job doubling as an ethnic look. That doesn't matter: when Lorre speaks, you can't help but be mesmerized by the simple way he talks. In the end, this movie is all about talking. A dull ending doesn't dilute what came before for fans of the genre. Everyone else might be a bit bored.

Spout Tag:Classic

Sun, 23 Aug 2009 22:54:36 GMT

Classic
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Spout Tag:death

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 17:27:13 GMT

death
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Spout Tag:mystery

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 18:51:33 GMT

mystery
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Good
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Spout Tag:noir

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noir
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Spout Tag:betrayal

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Spout Tag:based-on-a-book

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 18:52:06 GMT

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Spout Tag:treasure

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Spout Tag:greed

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 17:40:23 GMT

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