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The Maltese Falcon [1941]
starring: Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, Gladys George, Peter Lorre, Barton MacLane
directed by: John Huston

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Used Price: £0.46
Collectible Price: £3.50
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Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days Audience Rating: Parental Guidance
Binding: VHS Tape
EAN: 5014789922021
Format: Black & White, PAL
Label: Warner Home Video
Manufacturer: Warner Home Video
Number Of Discs: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Warner Home Video
Release Date: March 06, 2000
Running Time: 99 minutes
Studio: Warner Home Video
Theatrical Release Date: October 18, 1941
Sales Rank: 2840

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Editorial Review:

Amazon.co.uk Review:
The Maltese Falcon is still the tightest, sharpest, and most cynical of Hollywood's official deathless classics, bracingly tough even by post-Tarantino standards. Humphrey Bogart is Dashiell Hammett's definitive private eye, Sam Spade, struggling to keep his hard-boiled cool as the double-crosses pile up around his ankles. The plot, which dances all around the stolen Middle Eastern statuette of the title, is too baroque to try to follow, and it doesn't make a bit of difference. The dialogue, much of it lifted straight from Hammett, is delivered with whip-crack speed and sneering ferocity, as Bogie faces off against Peter Lorre and Sidney Greenstreet, fends off the duplicitous advances of Mary Astor, and roughs up a cringing "gunsel" played by Elisha Cook Jr. It's an action movie of sorts, at least by implication: the characters always seem keyed up, right on the verge of erupting into violence. This is a turning-point picture in several respects: John Huston (The African Queen) made his directorial debut here in 1941, and Bogart, who had mostly played bad guys, was a last-minute substitution for George Raft, who must have been kicking himself for years afterward. This is the role that made Bogart a star and established his trend-setting (and still influential) antihero persona. --David Chute

Customer Reviews

Average Rating: out of 5 stars

Rating:

- falcon flies high
At least for two reasons, "The Maltese Falcon" is a milestone in the evolution of American genre cinema. First, this is one of the very first pictures that ushered the era of classic film noir. Its bizarre characterizations, twisty plot and cliché-drenched events serve as a perfect template that has been utilized in countless films through six decades after its making. Second, this is the movie that catapulted Humphrey Bogart's career into stardom. He had been a strong supporting character, mostly playing villains (as in "High Sierra" & "The Petrified Forest"). After his performance as hard-boiled private eye Sam Spade, he became a major star.

The movie represents a complex study of human psyche, especially taking a dismal ... Read More:

Rating:

- John Huston directorial debut
Film noir was a term coined by the French when they began to see the wave of American pictures they had missed during the Nazi occupation of WW II. It didn't necessarily describe a style of filmmaking, but rather a mood. The pictures were dark, and peopled almost entirely with anti-heroes.
The Maltese Falcon established a whole new set of ground rules for the mystery movie, and its initial formula has been mimicked time and time again. The hard boiled tough guy detective. The sobbing damsel, who may or may not be a cold blooded killer. A virtual circus of greedy, slimy bad guys. The fisticuffs and gunplay. Toying with the idea of romance between the leads, but not always following through. All of these concepts became a part of ... Read More:

Rating:

- In 1539 The Knights Templar of Malta...
...paid tribute to Charles V of Spain, by sending him A Golden Falcon encrusted from beak to claw with rarest jewels..."

The Falcon was lost in time.
Our mystery begins when a beautiful but enigmatic woman (Mary Astor) shows up at the Spade and Archer detective agency. She gives them a story that is implausible; however they are well paid. This leads to the death of Archer.
Who did it and why? The police suspect Sam Spade.
Who do you suspect?
As the story unfolds many interesting characters (suspects) show up and the story takes different turns as the mystery of the missing falcon continues.

I will not go through the whole story However there is many well know actors and Hammett dialog.
... Read More:

Rating:

- A classic worthy of the title
A no-nonsense tough as nails detective of the 40's finds himself caught up in a web of lies and deceit when his partner is murdered and a raft of outlandish characters appear to complicate matters.
Everybody winds up searching for the jewel encrusted falcon of the title and much double crossing and stabbing of backs ensues.
The story though plays second fiddle to a collection of actors who bring their characters to sparkling, seedy, life. Bogart is memorably iconic as Sam Spade, Mourning the recent death of his partner he casually tells his secretary to have the partners name scratched off the office doors & windows and to replace it with "Samuel Spade" instead. His is the focal character around which all others orbit, tough, ruthless ... Read More:

Rating:

- The birth of Hollywood's original noir anti-hero.
Like few other actors, Humphrey Bogart ruled the Hollywood of the 1940s and 1950s - epitome of the handsome, cynical and oh-so lonesome wolf and looking unbeatably cool in his fedora and trenchcoat, a cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth; endowed with a legendary aura several times larger than his real life stature, and still admired by scores of women wishing they had been born 50+ years earlier, preferably somewhere in California and to parents connected with the movie business, so as to have at least a marginal chance of meeting him. The American Film Institute recently elected him the No. 1 film legend of the 20th century; and looking back, indeed no other actor seems to have been surrounded by the same kind of darkly magical aura as the ... Read More:

VHS : The Maltese Falcon [1941]