John Huston’s 1941 film version of Dashiell Hammet’s novel The Maltese Falcon is, in my opinion , the superior work of art (though the novel is no mean accomplishment itself).
The plot centers on the search for an extremely valuable statuette of a falcon, made centuries ago on the island of Malta , with people killing others in order to obtain it. The villains are mostly colorful, sophisticated, and at least superficially upper-class. Indeed, one of the two ways the film, in my opinion, is superior to the novel is that Mary Astor’s portrayal of Brigid O’Shaughnessy is three-dimensional, whereas in the book she is nothing more than a beautiful temptress.
The hero, private eye Sam Spade (Humphrey Bogart, in his breakthrough role) , is capable, tough, and edgy. I have used the word hero, but he is at best a tarnished one. Though he seems tired, and even sickened, of it by the time the film begins, Spade has been cuckolding his partner, Miles Archer (Jerome Cowan). Regarding Archer’s murder, Spade says, “When a man’s partner is killed, he’s supposed to do something about it.… When one of your organization gets killed, it’s … it’s bad for business to let the killer get away with it, bad all around, bad for every detective everywhere.”
This speech, it is clear, rings more of pragmatism than of a thirst for justice, let alone any sense of duty based on friendship. When at one point Spade resists the wiles of a femme fatale, he explains, “I won’t play the sap for you.” Spade avoids appealing to justice, instead referring to self-respect. Of course, justice is not necessarily opposed to all pragmatism nor to a proper measure of self-respect.
Noah is described in the Hebrew Bible as “a righteous man; perfect he hath been among his generations,” and commentators have discussed whether this means he was truly righteous or only in comparison with his debased generation. Perhaps Spade reflects this same ambiguity, for in the world of this film, greed, murder, and sexual license are pervasive. There are people who do not share in the general moral darkness—notably Spade’s secretary Effie Perine (Lee Patrick) and Detective Tom Polhaus (Ward Bond)—but they are secondary characters.
The Maltese Falcon is a wonderfully entertaining, stylish proto-film noir mystery. On top of that, and the reason I regard it as one of the finest of Hollywood films, it is a serious exploration of moral choice. It is now necessary for me to discuss the ending, and so I strongly advise anyone who has not yet seen the film to move on to the next article on this site.
It would be the easiest thing in the world for Spade to throw in with Guttman (Sydney Greenstreet) and the other crooks, both before and after the falcon is shown to be a lead substitute instead of the genuine item they were seeking. He is also strongly attracted to Brigid O’Shaughnessy and tempted to save her from arrest. He does neither, because they would go against his personal code.
Regarding Brigid, we see him wrestling with temptation, and it is not at all clear he will prevail. And when he does, it is at no small cost. True, the villains get caught in the end and justice is done, but Spade still feels deeply for Brigid, and the film ends on this note of loss.
But not entirely. The other important change from the book—and the second way in which the film. I think, is superior to the novel—is that Spade, in answering Detective Polhaus’s question about what the substitute falcon is, replies, “The, ah, stuff that dreams are made of.”
In saying this, Spade is quoting almost exactly from Shakespeare’s The Tempest (act iv, scene i), where the magician Prospero says, “We are such stuff/As dreams are made on.…” The lead falcon is false, a dream, an illusion of course, but it is not hard to see the implication that, to Spade, the original, priceless falcon is just as illusory. Spade and Polhaus then walk past Brigid as she is taken away by the police. She too, the habitual deceiver, the spinner of illusions, is of illusory value herself.
It seems to me that Spade is not necessarily denying the reputed beauty and monetary value of the real Maltese falcon, still less the physical attractiveness and personal charm of Brigid, but the first is not worth murder, and the second, the dishonesty. Neither is worth going against his personal code of honor. For Spade, I think, the falcon and the murderous, manipulative, and duplicitous Brigid O’Shaughnessy are meretricious fantasies, whereas his honor and self respect are real.
Spade, at the end, rejects illusion, falsehood, and vice. Because for Spade this is a very personal matter involving his own code of honor rather than a notional adherence to abstractions, the film successfully depicts him as a man of real, albeit imperfect integrity (remember his adultery), without romanticizing him or becoming explicitly didactic. The film simultaneously mocks human corruption and holds out the possibility of living honorably. It is a mystery thriller with moral sophistication, which may be one reason for both its continuing critical acclaim and its persistent popularity with audiences.