Header image  
John Huston 's Films Collection  
 
    home  / collection
 

The Maltese Falcon(Special Edition)(3 disc)

 

 

Written and Directed by John Huston


US 1941 / Mystery / Film Noir / Detective Film / 178 min / Black & White / Monaural / 1.33: 1 Original Aspect Ratio / NTSC /  In English with Optional English, French and Spanish Subtitles

Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, Peter Lorre , Sydney Greenstreet, Ward Bond, Barton MacLane , Gladys George.

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.

 
       

Bonus Features:

* Disc 1
* New Digital transfer of 1941
* Movie from restored elements
* Commentary by Bogart biographer Eric Lax
* Warner Night at the Movies 1947 Short subjects gallery: vintage newsreel, Technicolor musical short The Gay Parisian, classic cartoons


* Discs 2 and 3
* 2 Previous movie versions of the Classic Hammett Caper:

# The Maltese Falcon (1931) with Bebe Daniels and Recardo Cortez
# Satan Met a Lady (1936) with Bette Davis and Warren William
* New Documentary "The Maltese Falcon: One Magnificent Bird"
* Robert Osborne hosts Becoming Attractions: The trailers of Humphrey Bogart
* Breakdowns of 1941: Studio blooper reel
* Makeup tests
* Audio-only bonus: 3 radio show adaptations including a version starring Edward G. Robinson