The Maltese Falcon Review
Adapting Dashiell_Hammett's novel -- and staying as close to the original story as the Production Code allowed -- first-time director John_Huston turned The Maltese Falcon into a movie often considered the first film noir. In his star-making performance as Sam Spade, Humphrey_Bogart embodied the coolly ruthless private eye who recognizes the dark side of humanity, in all its greedy perversity, and who feels its temptations, especially when they are embodied by a woman. While Huston's mostly straightforward visual approach renders The Maltese Falcon an instance of early noir more in its hardboiled attitude than in the chiaroscuro style common to other films noirs, the collection of venal characters, colorfully played by Sydney_Greenstreet, Peter_Lorre, and Elisha_Cook,_Jr.; Mary_Astor's femme fatale; and Bogart's morally relativistic Spade pointed the way to the mid-1940s flowering of noir in Billy_Wilder's Double_Indemnity (1944), Otto_Preminger's Laura (1944), and Howard_Hawks's The_Big_Sleep (1946). A critical as well as popular success, The Maltese Falcon was nominated for three Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Screenplay, establishing Huston as a formidable dual talent and Bogart as the archetypal detective antihero. Lucia Bozzola, Rovi
Browse More Movies:
