Sam Spade isn’t a man of wild theories.
No, he doesn’t leap to flashy deductions. He’s a guy who leans on years of gumshoe experience, well-phrased questions, hours of patient watching and a pack of cigs in his coat pocket.
That said, when Spade’s detective partner is shot dead during a simple tail job, Sam starts to think there’s something not quite so simple going on. And then when a little twitchy guy with gardenia-scented business cards shows up in his office, Sam is sure of it.
It all started when this good looker named Miss Wonderly showed up at his door. Her name was probably fake. And her story about a lost sister and the need to trail her sis’ suspicious suitor, was likely a ruse, too. But the C-note that the woman produced was certainly real enough.
Spade’s partner, Miles Archer, liked the look of that bank note. But he liked the look of the dame handing it over even more. So Archer took the job. Then Archer took a bullet. Then the guy Archer was trailing ended up dead, too. Shot four times in the back.
And now this sweet-scented guy named Cairo is in Sam’s office.
He twitches and stutters, he fingers his walking stick and shifts in his chair. Sam just waits. He rolls another cigarette and lights it up. He looks at the little man through a cloud of smoke. Sometimes that’s all it takes to start getting the information you’re looking for. Time. And then the little man begins to break.
Cairo pulls out a tiny pistol and asks if Sam has “it.” Sam takes a long drag on his cigarette, without a clue about what Cairo’s asking. “Maybe I do, maybe I don’t,” he says. Cairo demands to search Sam’s office. And before you can say, “Ain’t that gun a cutie,” Sam has disarmed him, knocked him out and started searching his pockets.
Sam hates anybody trying to muscle him in his own office. More than that, he hates not knowing why he’s being muscled. So when Cairo comes to, Sam settles in to ask a few questions of his own.
These interconnected events seem to involve something called a Maltese Falcon. It’s an object of great value. Probably worth much more than the $5000 that Cairo is offering Sam to retrieve it.
But whatever this Falcon is, Sam has gleaned that there appear to be several interested parties. All he has to do is listen and watch, ask the right questions to the right people in order to see who pops out of the woodwork and where the pieces start to fit.
No theories needed. Just a bit of detective work and little well-applied time.
And that’s Sam Spade’s forte.
For all of Sam’s manipulative ways and cold demeanor, he does operate within the law (sometimes out of self-preservation, if nothing else). And the one person he protects and respects is his secretary, Effie. He asks her to go above and beyond her job expectations and calls her pet names that today’s women would likely blanch over, but he’s always upright and honest with her.
None.
It’s implied that Sam is pretty fast and loose sexually. He kisses Archer’s widow, Iva, giving the impression that the two were having an affair behind her husband’s back. But when Iva gets clingy, he tells Effie, “I wish I’d never laid eyes on her.”
Sam is also quick to kiss Brigid O’Shaughnessy (the real name of his female client). It’s implied that the two later end up in bed together after O’Shaughnessy suggestively asks him, “What else is there I can buy you with?” We don’t see that later interaction, however.
And it’s also obvious that O’Shaughnessy is quite accustomed to using her sex appeal to manipulate any man she deals with. But ultimately Sam pushes her attempts to control him aside.
Miles Archer ogles the pretty Miss Wonderly (O’Shaughnessy). Later on, it’s plain that he wants to make a move on her, even though he’s married.
Several murders happen in connection with the Falcon. We only hear about some of them. But in one case, we see a man shot from a distance and tumble down over a hillside. And in another scene, a wounded man staggers into an office, collapses on a chair and dies. Sam examines him and gives us the impression that he’s badly bloodied, but we don’t see the wounds or the gore.
Sam gets punched by a police detective and kicked in the head by someone else after being drugged. (We see a bad bruise on his forehead when he gets up.) Cairo, however, receives the worst of the beatings. He’s punched and slapped several times by both Sam and O’Shaughnessy. And then Cairo is pistol whipped offscreen, leaving his face cut and bleeding.
A ship at a local port is set ablaze.
None.
Nearly everyone smokes cigarettes or cigars. Sam smokes both. Sam and another man, Kasper Gutman, also drink quite a bit of Scotch. Gutman uses the alcohol to drug Sam and knock him unconscious.
[Spoiler Warning] Everyone in this film, except for Effie, lies and manipulates those around them emotionally and, in some cases, sexually. And they’re not apologetic for their deceptive actions. Sam Spade, however, appears to be the coldest of them all. At the end, he turns a love interest over to the police for the murder she’s committed, saying: “I hope they don’t hang you, precious, by that sweet neck. Yes, angel, I’m gonna send you over. The chances are you’ll get off with life. That means if you’re a good girl, you’ll be out in 20 years. I’ll be waiting for you. If they hang you, I’ll always remember you.”
The Maltese Falcon currently sits at No. 31 on the American Film Institute’s list of the 100 greatest films of all time. But if you look at this pic from a purely modern and linear perspective, it wouldn’t be outlandish to suggest that it doesn’t necessarily feel like blockbuster material. The monochrome story is slow and measured with no dynamic chase scenes or bad guy shoot outs.
But this is undeniably a groundbreaking film classic.
Many consider it to be one of the first examples of true American film noir. That term refers to stylishly lit and photographed movies, often inspired by hardboiled American crime fiction, that thematically showed the dark and cynical side of human nature.
This pic and its hard-boiled detective protagonist defined star Humphrey Bogart’s career and set the stage for his future great films, including Casablanca, Treasure of the Sierra Madre and The African Queen. It was the first film directed by John Huston. And it used a prime example of what director Alfred Hitchcock once called a “story MacGuffin,” an item that drives everything and means nothing.
Protagonist Sam Spade is cold, hard and calculating. He looks at every situation with an eye to play everyone against one another and to cover every angle. And director Huston’s camera shots showcase every reaction, every ploy, every subterfuge in a measured and perfectly placed composition.
Add that all up, and you’ve got a film that really isn’t about a linear plot at all. It’s about character. It’s about style. It’s about a cynical world filled with sharp-edged heroes, tough dames and mean city streets. They talk in small rooms, and their mystery is revealed one peeled-onion skin layer at a time. In the end, The Maltese Falcon dramatically illustrates how greed controls and corrupts humankind.
From a family viewing angle, however, it has some content concerns. It’s implied that one character is gay, and Sam Spade takes a bit of joy in manhandling this gardenia-scented guy. “When you’re slapped, you’ll take it and like it,” Sam tells the man with gritted teeth.
It’s also implied that Sam casually has sexual affairs with the women in his life, including his detective partner’s wife as well as his client, Brigid O’Shaughnessy. This is a tough story of people who lie continually, drink heavily and smoke regularly. Then, of course, there’s the murder in the mix.
No, The Maltese Falcon doesn’t go easy on viewers as it examines the big city pessimism that Americans were feeling at the end of the Great Depression and WWII. But thanks to the Hays Code, it does at least imply some of its hardest hitting content rather than explicitly showing it.
After spending more than two decades touring, directing, writing and producing for Christian theater and radio (most recently for Adventures in Odyssey, which he still contributes to), Bob joined the Plugged In staff to help us focus more heavily on video games. He is also one of our primary movie reviewers.
