The Maltese Falcon [Blu-ray]

The Maltese Falcon [Blu-ray] Review

I really wish that I hosted `TCM'. I mean, when you watch it and Ben Mankiewicz (I mention him mainly because I really like Robert Osborne) is raving about these older films with such enthusiasm and then you watch the film and you're wondering why he's not more critical, it just makes you want to share your point of view. Shouldn't they be a tad more subjective when discussing these films? Just because they are technically classic films doesn't mean they are flawless. That is why I love it when Alec Baldwin makes a remark about an actress not delivering as strongly as he wanted and you can see the look on Robert Osborne's face, like he's trying to find a way to spin that into a positive.

Anyways, I thought about this while watching `The Maltese Falcon'.

Don't get me wrong, the film is very good, but it isn't spectacular. In fact, the reason I started thinking about the hosts not thinking subjectively enough was because Mankiewicz almost robotically started talking about how Sydney Greenstreet was the films standout, simply because he received an Oscar nomination. Now, I liked his performance, but you'll be hard-pressed to convince me that he is better in this film than Peter Lorre or Mary Astor, both of whom completely elevate the film for me.

I almost felt like yelling "have an opinion, that's what you're paid for" but I didn't.

I heart you TCM, please know that.

Anyways, `The Maltese Falcon' is a very good film, not a great one, but a very good one. It is a noir that revolves around a private eye named Sam Spade who gets in over his head when he is propositioned by a beautiful young woman named Brigid O'Shaughnessy. Brigid says she is looking for her sister, but as it turns out she is really looking for a priceless artifact known as the Maltese Falcon. When Sam's partner winds up dead, and then the man he was paid to tail winds up dead, the police start to close in on Sam himself. It's not just the police he has to worry about though, for Brigid not only brought a bollix story, she also brought a healthy dose of criminal activity in the form of Kasper Gutman and his henchmen, Joel Cairo and Wilmer Cook.

Overall I found the film to be engaging and the twist at the end was VERY fulfilling (that descending elevator shot was priceless) so I totally give props to John Huston for deliver a finely toned directorial debut here. The acting across the board was very good, but I did find that Humphrey Bogart's performance was a tad to clichéd and almost chalky in delivery. He was pigeonholed for a time in this brand of acting, and at times it really worked for him and other times it came off a tad awkward. I didn't like him much here, especially when everyone else in the cast outshined him without even trying. At times I found the films script to be unnecessarily complicated, and you could tell it was trying to deceive you (which is almost never a good thing) but in the end you are left with an engaging experience, so you forgive the flaws.

Anyways, I'm done with my rant. Like I said, this film is very good, I just wish that some people looked at these films a little more objectively and didn't always tack on labels they feel the rest of the world expects them to tack on.

The Maltese Falcon [Blu-ray] Overview

A gallery of high-living lowlifes will stop at nothing to get their sweaty hands on a jewel-encrusted falcon. Detective Sam Spade (Humphrey Bogart) wants to find out why--and who'll take the fall for his partner's murder. An all-star cast (including Sydney Greenstreet, Mary Astor, Peter Lorre and Elisha Cook Jr.) joins Bogart in this crackling mystery masterwork written for the screen (from Dashiell Hammett's novel) and directed by John Huston. This nominee for 3 Academy Awards00Best Picture, Supporting Actor (Greenstreet) and Screenplay (Huston)--catapulted Bogart to stardom and launched Huston’s directorial career. All with a bird and a bang!

The Maltese Falcon [Blu-ray] Specifications

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 Sydney 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

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