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DVD review: The Maltese Falcon
Deluxe Falcon DVD release soars
By Clarke Reader
creader3@mscd.edu

The Maltese Falcon Not rated 101 minutes $29.98

In 1941, a year before Humphrey Bogart became Hollywood’s top leading man with his success in Casablanca, the actor made his big-budget debut in a thriller that would leave a permanent mark on film history.

The Maltese Falcon carried a top cast and brilliantly written dialogue that rang true to life. And with its revolutionary use of color and cinematography, The Maltese Falcon earned its status as a true classic.

Forty-five years after its initial release, the film is still compelling and pivotal. In the new three-disc DVD re-release of John Huston’s film noir masterpiece, viewers get an in-depth view into the film’s evolution and the birth of an international movie star.

Bogart plays San Francisco detective Sam Spade, a cynical, sarcastic man who is sleeping with his partner’s wife and who will do anything to accomplish his goals.

Spade is one of film’s first anti-heroes, a protagonist that audiences could love and hate at the same time. Spade gets more than he bargains for when he agrees to help Brigid O’Shaughnessy (Mary Astor) retrieve a Templar falcon statuette before her enemies do.

The film, based on the novel by Dashiell Hammett, is notable in part for its rapid-fire dialogue. The words crack at lightning-quick speed, even as they ring with authenticity and immediacy.

The Maltese Falcon helped define film noir and can be seen as the predecessor of such films as Sin City and Brick. Indeed, Falcon was the first big-budget blockbuster to bring this stark cinematic style to the mainstream public.

Bogart’s version will forever be the version of Falcon, but Warner Bros. had made two versions of the film before the final version.

The first, made in 1931, lacks the bang of the 1941 version and instead played up the fact that Spade was some kind of playboy. The 1936 retelling, called Satan Met A Lady, is more comic farce than anything, which is hard to take seriously after seeing Bogie and gang sink their teeth into the final version.

Both the 1931 and 1936 films are available on the second disc, and while they are interesting to watch for history’s sake, they don’t offer much else.

The most interesting of the special features included on the third disc is the documentary “The Maltese Falcon: One Magnificent Bird.” The feature traces the history of the film from Hammett’s novel to its cinematic realization by Huston. Insights by people such as Henry Rollins, Frank Miller – who wrote/directed Sin City – James Cromwell and Hammet’s granddaughter show just how wide an audience the film has reached.

There’s also a collection of all the movie trailers Bogart was in, a surprisingly funny Warner Bros. blooper reel from 1941, and three radio-show adaptations.

At the end of the movie, Sam Spade gets asked what the Maltese Falcon is. He pauses for just a minute, looks at the bird and says, “The stuff that dreams are made of.” For fans of Humphrey Bogart, film noir flicks or just good movies, the same could be said of this DVD set.