Amazon.com essential video: 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
Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
Rating: - The Stuff Dreams are made Of
"The Maltese Falcon" is a great movie because of its great actors and tight dialogue. Bogart, as the cynical but ultimately ultramoral, Sam Spade, is great as are his antitheses, Peter Lorre, Sidney Greenstreet and Mary Astor. Spade is suckered by a beautiful woman [Astor] into what turns out to be the criminal enterprise of locating the 'Maltese Falcon', a ceramic bird worth millions. Men and women fight and die to gain its possession.
The plot is convoluted but convincing and, finally, after the murder of several illicit wealth-seekers, the Falcon is located it and is found to ... Read More
Rating: - The Maltese Falcon ( 3-disc set)
This an classic by bogart, and I love this special edition 3-disc set. If love the classic, you had to buy this 3-disc set, I got an great deal at Amazon.com.
Rating: - Movie mastery throughout
How do you review an acknowledged classic movie? One must say that, of its kind, 'The Maltese Falcon' is justifiably classified as among the very best. I refer, of course and only, to the Humphrey Bogart, Sydney Greenstreet and Peter Lore version.
These 'old' black and white movies probably appear very 'out of date' to many younger people. This might be, but the films themselves are masterpieces. They rely on acting, directing and a good story to carry them along. Today, with all the bells and whistles - particularly the 'special effects', absolute rubbish is often considered good ... Read More
Rating: - Maltese Falcon three disc special
Fascinating to see the three different versions, and how the dialogue and the whole style changes from one to the other, while the story remains essentially the same.Thoroughly recommended
Rating: - The Matlese Falcon is made out of PEOPLE ... PEOPLE ...
Quick - as a young, energetic, inexperienced director you must make a final decision. As this director, one must either decide to show the audience the famed jeweled bird that has nearly taken up an hour and forty minutes of time, or transform a rather talking ending into a glorified public service announcement. The decision is a difficult one, but one must remember to reward the audience for their patience and time. Alas, that is not the case with this director in his first film "The Maltese Falcon". We are speaking of John Huston and his directorial debut with this live-action version of Dashiell ... Read More
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