FILM: The Maltese Falcon

“What is it?”
“The stuff that dreams are made of”

Based on Dashiell Hammet’s 1929 novel of the same name, John Huston’s 1941 picture, The Maltese Falcon, is an American classic widely recognized as the first (and consummate) Film Noir. The genre was given this moniker by French film critics in response to the darker uncertainty found in some American war-era films. These were movies which the European public did not see until cinemas reopened following the second World War, at which point a
flood of American pop culture and Marshall-plan support were presented to European markets.

In The Maltese Falcon Humphrey Bogart plays a hard-boiled private investigator, confidently flirting with danger alongside other period actors such as Sydney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre. The film is a look into mindset and morality at the time, as well as a piece of vintage detective lore.

John Huston
United States
1941
Blu-ray
100 Minutes