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The Stuff of which Dreams Are Made! This
is the role that made Bogart a star and established his trend-setting (and
still influential) antihero persona. |
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The Maltese Falcon by John Huston
and starring Humphrey Bogart and Mary Astor |
After his partner's death, private eye Sam Spade
becomes involved in a search for a priceless statuette. Based on Dashiell
Hammett's classic novel.
Review
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.
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