Sam Spade: What do you want me to do, learn to stutter? Joel Cairo: You always have a very smooth explanation ready, don’t you? Ruth Wonderly (Mary Astor), followed by curious cohorts like the corpulent and corrupt Kaspar Gutman (Sydney Greenstreet), the effeminate Joel Cairo (Peter Lorre), and the weaselly gunsel Elmer Cook (Elisha Cook Jr.), all newly arrived in the City by the Bay in search of “uh, the stuff that dreams are made of.”
…and trouble indeed finds Sam Spade in the form of Brigid O’Shaughnessy, a.k.a. The Maltese Falcon was the directorial debut for John Huston, who had faithfully adapted Hammett’s source material for his sharp script and demonstrated his sense of methodical efficiency, resulting in a masterpiece that benefited from the formula of director of photography Arthur Edelson’s low-key cinematography and a perfect cast led by Humphrey Bogart as the wisecracking gumshoe who “don’t mind a reasonable amount of trouble.”
Dashiell Hammett’s excellent 1930 detective novel had already been adapted twice for the screen-once as a “lewd” pre-Code thriller and recycled as a zanier mid-’30s vehicle for Bette Davis-before Warner Bros. Now considered a seminal film noir, The Maltese Falcon celebrated its 80th anniversary last month. Humphrey Bogart as Sam Spade, smooth private detective and “a chap worth knowing”Ĭostume Designer: Orry-Kelly ( credited for gowns) Background Humphrey Bogart as Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon (1941) Vitals
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