The Maltese Falcon (1941, United States)
mysterious deathdetective stories
Running time: 100 minutes
Language: English
The Maltese Falcon 1941 American mystery thriller review
Sam Spade is a private detective, who runs his agency in San Francisco, together with his partner, Miles Archer. The new client, a woman who introduced herself as Ruth Wonderly, hires them both to search for her missing sister. She even provides them with a name of a man, who could be behind the disappearance, Floyd Thursby. But this simple case soon takes a nasty turn when the police inform Sam that Miles Archer was found dead. His partner was supposed to observe their suspect was murdered and now police knocks on the door of Sam Spade not only to inform him about that, but also to interrogate him as a suspect. As it turns out, Sam had an affair with the Archer’s wife, which puts him in the crosshair of this investigation. Spade tries to contact the client, Ruth Wonderly, but she checked out of her hotel. Soon the body of Floyd Thursby is also found, and the police are closing in on Sam Spade.
The Maltese Falcon is a classic film-noir, which pretty much defined the genre of a detective movie in the 1940s - a wise-cracking tough guy, who will never be surprised by anything and suspects everyone, especially the clients. The story of The Maltese Falcon (based upon Dashiell Hammett’s novel) is perhaps not a perfect one (some parts of it are... questionable at best), the style of the genre could have shifted since the premiere of this film, but still, it is a classic worth to know.
Do you like unsolved mysteries?
Our rating |
7.6 / 10 |
Movie value |
8 / 10 |
Realism factor |
3 / 5 |
Adventure factor |
4 / 5 |
Story complexity |
4 / 5 |
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Watch The Maltese Falcon
Creators of The Maltese Falcon
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director | |
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screenplay | |
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screenplay |
Cast of The Maltese Falcon
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as Sam Spade | |
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as Ruth Wonderly | |
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as Joel Cairo | |
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as Kasper Gutman | |
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as Iva Archer | |
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as Lieutenant Dundy | |
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as Effie Perine | |
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as Wilmer Cook | |
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as Miles Archer |
The Maltese Falcon quotes
Detective Tom Polhaus: [picks up the falcon] Heavy. What is it?
Sam Spade: The stuff that dreams are made of.
Ruth Wonderly: I haven’t lived a good life. I’ve been bad, worse than you could know.
Sam Spade: You know, that’s good, because if you actually were as innocent as you pretend to be, we’d never get anywhere.
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