The Maltese Falcon (1941)
Average Rating: 9/10
Reviews Counted: 44
Fresh: 44 | Rotten: 0
Suspenseful, labyrinthine, and brilliantly cast, The Maltese Falcon is one of the most influential noirs -- as well as a showcase for Humphrey Bogart at his finest.
Average Rating: 8.1/10
Critic Reviews: 8
Fresh: 8 | Rotten: 0
Suspenseful, labyrinthine, and brilliantly cast, The Maltese Falcon is one of the most influential noirs -- as well as a showcase for Humphrey Bogart at his finest.
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Average Rating: 4/5
User Ratings: 54,859
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Movie Info
After two previous film versions of Dashiell Hammett's detective classic The Maltese Falcon, Warner Bros. finally got it right in 1941--or, rather, John Huston, a long-established screenwriter making his directorial debut, got it right, simply by adhering as closely as possible to the original. Taking over from a recalcitrant George Raft, Humphrey Bogart achieved true stardom as Sam Spade, a hard-boiled San Francisco private eye who can be as unscrupulous as the next guy but also adheres to his
Oct 18, 1941 Wide
Feb 15, 2000
Warner Bros.
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Cast
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Humphrey Bogart
Sam Spade -
Mary Astor
Brigid O'Shaughnessy -
Peter Lorre
Joel Cairo -
Sydney Greenstreet
Kasper Gutman the Fat M... -
Ward Bond
Detective Tom Polhaus -
Barton MacLane
Detective Lt. Dundy -
Gladys George
Iva Archer -
Lee Patrick
Effie Perine -
Jerome Cowan
Miles Archer -
Elisha Cook Jr.
Wilmer Cook -
James Burke
Luke -
Murray Alper
Frank Richman -
John Hamilton
Attorney Bryan -
Charles Drake
Reporter -
Creighton Hale
Stenographer -
Robert E. Homans
Policeman -
William Hopper
Reporter -
Walter Huston
Capt. Jacobi the Ship's... -
Hank Mann
Reporter -
Jack Mower
Announcer -
Emory Parnell
Ship's Mate
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All Critics (44) | Top Critics (8) | Fresh (52) | Rotten (0) | DVD (23)
The Maltese Falcon is the first crime melodrama with finish, speed and bang to come along in what seems ages.
Frighteningly good evidence that the British (Alfred Hitchcock, Carol Reed, et al.) have no monopoly on the technique of making mystery films.
Top CriticThe Maltese Falcon is among the most important and influential movies to emerge from the Hollywood system -- as significant in some ways as its contemporary, Citizen Kane.
This is one of the best examples of actionful and suspenseful melodramatic story telling in cinematic form.
Who can argue with Bogart's glower or Mary Astor in her ratty fur?
Filmed almost entirely in interiors, it presents a claustrophobic world animated by betrayal, perversion and pain.
It's the classic hardboiled private-eye movie; the nervy maiden offering of its celebrated director, John Huston; the first glamorous star vehicle for Humphrey Bogart...
Immaculately designed, evocatively photographed, and easy to watch but also spiky, morally complex, and ultimately unsettling.
Excellent but too mature for the littlest kids.
John Huston's just-slightly overpraised noir debut gets its fair shake from Warner Bros. via an overall exceptional Blu-ray.
Ground zero for film noir. Iconic.
This Spade is no stranger to the guile of shady clients and colorful suspects...
The film is made up almost entirely of talk, and yet the performances are so wonderfully flamboyant and focused that conversations become the action of the movie.
Perfect use of the old McGuffin.
Arguably the finest remake ever.
With its dark, complex plotting, stark black-and-white photography, concentration on the baseness of man, and a cynical mood sustained to its still shockingly grim conclusion, this is the prototypical film noir.
... part of what makes a film great is its power to obliterate whatever preconceptions we bring to it. There is brittle wit and sparkling harm and a very adult sense of fun present in The Maltese Falcon; it still works as a movie
sharp and jagged... stripped clean
In tribute to the best, Warner Home Video's Blu-ray transfer of the film is truly 'the stuff that dreams are made of.' (Blu-ray Edition)
If 'The Maltese Falcon' doesn't qualify as the best private-eye yarn ever filmed, I don't know what does.
Audience Reviews for The Maltese Falcon
Super Reviewer
Super Reviewer
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- Sam Spade: When you're slapped, you'll take it and like it.
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- Sam Spade: The stuff that dreams are made of.
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- Sam Spade: Play it again Sam.
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- Sam Spade: When you're slapped, you'll take it and like it.
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- Sam Spade: If you kill, me how you going to get the bird? And if I know you can't afford to kill me, how you going to scare me into giving it to you?
- Kasper Gutman the Fat Man: Well, sir, there are other means of persuasion besides killing and threatening to kill.
- Sam Spade: Yes, that's . . . That's true. But, there're none of them any good unless the threat of death is behind them. You see what I mean? If you start something, I'll make it a matter of your having to kill me or call it off.
- Kasper Gutman the Fat Man: That's an attitude, sir, that calls for the most delicate judgement on both sides. Because, as you know, sir, in the heat of action men are likely to forget where their best interests lie and let their emotions carry them away.
- Sam Spade: Then the trick from my angle is to make my play strong enough to tie you up, but not to make you mad enough to bump me off against your better judgement.
- Kasper Gutman the Fat Man: By gad, sir, you are a character.
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- Sam Spade: Don't be too sure I'm as crooked as I'm suppose to be.
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Foreign Titles
- Der Malteser Falke (DE)
- The Maltese Falcon (UK)
