Maltese Falcon stills 1

The Maltese Falcon is an extraordinarily entertaining and well-crafted film. Immensely popular since its release more than half a century ago, it is still frequently shown in revival houses and on television, and is widely available in videotape and laserdisk forrnats. It may, however, be too popular for its own critical good: Scholars have paid little attention to it. [...]

The movie is remarkable not only for its long-term popularity but also for its significance in either inaugurating or changing crucial aspects of film history. These include the careers of individuals like John Huston and Humphrey Bogart; genres like the detective film; styles like film noir; and cultural trends such as redefinitions of American masculinity and femininity, the influence of psychoanalysis on popular culture, and isolationist America's perception of the international scene.

The Maltese Falconappeared in the fall of 1941 with little fanfare and few expectations. A modestly budgeted ($381,000) genre movie that was shot in less than six weeks (from June 9 to July 18, 1941), it had a first-time director and no major stars. The project offered so little promise that, before production began, at least two stars (George Raft and Geraldine Fitzgerald) had turned down the lead roles. It was based upon the popular Dashiell Hammett novel that had already been used as the basis for two films by the same studio (The Maltese Falcon, 1931, also known as Dangerous Female, and Satan Met a Lady, 1936), neither of which had been particularly successful. In fact, most of the reviewers seemed to be aware only of the 1931 film, and many, like Bosley Crowther of the New York Times (October 4, 1941), had not even seen that.

Unexpectedly, the film became a major success. Crowther remarks upon his pleasurable surprise in the first paragraph of his review:

Many critics agreed with Crowther in characterizing the movie as a revelation. Leo Mishkin of the Telegraph(October 4, 1941) compared Huston with Alfred Hitchcock and Orson Welles and closed his review with, ''Suffice it to say that The Maltese Falconis the finest mystery picture to have come this way this year, suffice it to say that John Huston is a man to be reckoned with in naming the great directors of our time, suffice it to say that in the end, you'll have a tough time finding a better movie. What did they say about Kane? It's terrific! So is The Maltese Falcon."

Most of the credit went to the writer/director, John Huston, who, like Orson Welles that same year, emerged as a major talent with his first film. The praise came not only from critics in major cities upon the movie's initial release but also in December of 1941 when the film opened in a second tier of cities, like Baltimore and Dallas. The positive reception continued internationally, most notably when the film first appeared in Paris in the summer of 1946 and was admiringly characterized as part of a major new style in American film dubbed film noir.

The enthusiastic French response to the film stressed somewhat different issues than the American response, such as the international literary prestige of Dashiell Hammett. In fact, Nino Frank opened his review of the film in L'Ecran Francais (August 7, 1946) in this way: "I will not insult my reader by telling him who Dashiell Hammett is: a private detective become writer." But even beyond Hammett's prestige, the movie was singled out with others that appeared in France after World War II for ushering in "a new type of detective story." This phrase was used as the title of a related article by Frank in the same journal (August 28, 1946) in which, referring to the traditional type of detective film, he simply says, "We are witnesses to the death of this formula" and "Thus these 'black' films have nothing in common with detective films of the usual type." Like American reviews, but with a different focus, the French reviews celebrate something new and important being born.

While the film was an immediate success, the people associated with it took some time to achieve the prominence in film history they now have. After The Maltese Falcon, Warner Bros. gave Huston a prestigious Bette Davis film, In This Our Life (1942), that turned out to be one of his least-known works. He did not enjoy another major Hollywood success until The Treasure of the Sierra Madre in 1948. Comparably, Humphrey Bogart was making the transition from featured character roles to star roles; although he had a distinguishing success with High Sierra (1941), he did not become a major star until Casablancain 1943. However, The Maltese Falcon would forever be seen as the turning point in both Huston's and Bogart's careers: Before it, they were minor figures in Hollywood; after it, they became industry legends.

The movie's star-making potential was immediately recognized. This is evident in a bevy of jokes in gossip columns when the film appeared in late 1941. The LA. Heraldreported that since Bogart "clicked" in three roles turned down by George Raft (High Sierra, All Through the Night, and The Maltese Falcon), "he says he won't take another role unless Raft turns it down." Raft, in turn, when asked to comment on Bogart's success in the role, retorted, "There, but for the grace of me, go I" (New York Post, October 10, 1941). These jokes continued into the next year. Sidney Skolsky quoted Bogart in The Citizen News(March 16, 1942) as saying, "That Mark Twain is a great part. I hope they give it to George Raft, because I'd love to play it." Underlying the playful banter was the widespread assumption that The Maltese Falconhad done something of major significance for Bogart. /6/

Although this was the only time he played Sam Spade in films, he has become indelibly linked with the character, and "Sam Spade" has become a generic term for hard-boiled private detective, recognized even by those who have neither seen the movie nor read Hammett's novel.

2 fade out
-------------------------	1	2
3a fade in 3b extreme long shot
	3a	3b
4 dissolve
	4	5
6 dissolve
	6	7
9 camera pans right
	8	9
10 dissolve
	10	11a
11 camera tilts down to a medium shot of Sam Spade.
	11b	11c

	11d	11e
12 long shot of Effie 13 medium shot of Effie, low angle.
	12	13

	14	15a

	15b	15c
15e as Spade gets up, the camera rises also.
	15d	15e

	15f	15g
16a reverse shot of 15.
	16a	16b

	16c	16d
17 medium shot
	16e	17a
18 reverse shot of 17
	17b	18
19 close shot, reverse shot of 18, very close to Spade's point of view.
	19	20
22 close reaction shot of Spade while she is talking.
	21	22
23b She looks right out of the frame in response to the sound of the door opening.
	23a	23b
24 medium shot that pans right
	24a	24b
25 same setup as in 17, but with attention directed out of the frame.
	25a	25b
26 the camera pans right to establish and then maintain the frame on all three figures.
	26a	26b

	26c	26d

	26e	26f
27 reverse angle of 26. 28 close shot that is again suggestive of Spade's pont of view.
	27	28
29 reverse shot
	29a	29b
30 close shot that is slightly different from 19 and 28. This lends support to the idea that these shots are suggestive of Spade's point of view, since he has now changed his position behind the desk. 31 reverse shot that excludes Archer from the frame.
	30	31
33 reverse shot that includes Archer, but excludes her.
	32	33a
33b Spade observing Archer
	33b	34

	35a	35b

	36	37
38 same setup as in 26. The camera pans left.
	38a	38b

	38c	38d

	38e	38f
39a close low angle shot. 39b Spade enters frame and camera pulls back to a medium shot.
	39a	39b
39c/d/e camera continues to pull back as they sit down at their desks at opposite sides of the frame.
	39c	39d
39f camera tilts down to the shadow image on the floor.
	39e	39f
40 dissolve 41 feet enter frame and camera tilts up to a high angle medium shot of Archer.
	40	41a

	41b	41c

	41d	41e
42 long shot
	42a	42b
43 close shot of telephone. Spade's hand pulls it out of the frame. As he replaces it, the camera pulls back and pans slightly to the right.
	43a	43b

	43c	43d

	43e	43f

	43g	43h

	43i	43j