The Maltese Falcon - 9/10


These words first appear onscreen:

The 1539, the Knight Templars of Malta paid tribute to Charles V of Spain by sending him a golden falcon encrusted from beak to claw with the rarest jewels -- but pirates seized the galley carrying thie priceless token and the fate of the Maltese Falcon remains a mystery to this day.
I loved the feeling of this film. I love the story, how it's complicated and how it twists and turns and how new characters emerge well into the running. I love that it's such a typcial LA PI film noir (even though it's set in SF); it fits the stereotype so perfectly. And Sam Spade is such a typical PI character - always with his wits about him, always concerned about the case, even when he appears to not be.

It was so interesting hearing the streetnames and cross-streets and cities, knowing I've been to all of those places. Also, I loved hearing things said in this film like "Let's get to a phonebooth." It offers a clear separation between that decade and our current one. Hell, with the internet, PI jobs aren't even needed. I wonder if they even still exist or if they've long been extinct.

The music was wonderful. It very much reminded me of Ben-Hur and The Ten Commandments. I expected Charleton Heston to step into the shot at any moment.

Throughout the film, Sam is skeptical, unfeeling and seemingly fearless. He's slick. He wears double-breasted suits and fedoras. (SPOILER)He doesn't talk about Miles dying, stops anyone who tries to bring it up and seems to generally be unaffected by the death of his partner. He's not afraid of guns pointed at him several times. In fact, he shows no fear throughout the entirety of the film at all. He always seems to have an ace up his sleeve, but he isn't coy about it. He's classy and cool, he's sharp as a tack, and he puts the case and his sense of honor before his own interests and desires.

There is something I've been wondering in the hours since I watched it earlier, though. (SPOILER)I do wonder if he knew all along that Bridgid murdered Miles. If he did, why did he keep it going so long?

The absolute best moment in this film is at the end when he confronts her and she tries to deny it and then twist and turn words against him, but he's not having it. The reason it's just so goddamn good is because of how unfeeling he seemed to be about Miles the entire film - keeping her from saying words about Miles earlier, stopping others from speaking about him, telling Effie to immediately take down his name from the sign, etc. But it all boils back to Miles and his honor about how he was his partner. He kept a damn good poker face on the entire time and it surprised me.

I wrote up a review with a bit more depth to it here. No major spoilers, but there's quite a bit of a re-cap about the first twenty or thirty minutes.

God bless Humphrey Bogart.