The Maltese Falcon 5 Star Movies
		Made: 1941 Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, Peter Lorre, Sydney Greenstreet, Lee Patrick, Elisha Cook Jr. Director: John Huston Screenwriter: John Huston Cinematographer: Arthur Edeson Producer: Henry Blanke                          "You are a liar."           "I am. I've always been a liar!"              "Well, don't brag about it."
	Film Noir: a dark, moody tale told with a flawed  protagonist and other characters that are dangerous in someway. Many people consider The Maltese Falcon to be the first film noir. The truth to that is that film noir, like any good genre or style, is hard to pin down to a single movie. So maybe it is safer to say that this movie was the first large scale film noir and perhaps the most influential.    Film noir is my favorite genre of movies, partly because of the mystery and partly because of the depressing characters. The character of Sam Spade, played by Humphrey Bogart, is good at heart but he doesn't liked to not be in control of the situation. In The Maltese Falcon, his partner is killed when he is hired for a simple case and Spade has to find the killer while trying to also find out why his partner was killed.    The secretary, played by Lee Patrick, knows Sam better than anyone and makes up the work slack since his partner died. Spade meets some seedy characters along the way: the woman who hired him (Mary Astor) who he also falls in love with but does not trust; a man named Cairo (Peter Lorre) who has a very sneaky but wimpy way about him; a big man named Guttman (Sydney Greenstreet) who apparently runs the whole deal. What is the deal? The search for a rare statuette of a Maltese Falcon that has been passed down through the ages and is worth millions.    Spade is one of the most interesting and deep characters in movies, even today. The look on his face when his partner dies is one of a man who knows how to take action...but is he really sad about it? Was his partner his friend? (We at least know that Spade was having relations with Archer's wife and now she wants Sam all to herself.) Later, we see that Sam at least had a great sense of loyalty  for his partner, despite all these transgressions. "When a man's partner is killed, he is supposed to do something about it," he says. He is also hard and to the point, like when he tells Astor he didn't really fall for the first story she told him. "I believed your $200, not you." It also is implied that he knows she is a constant liar like when he says, "Don't overdo it baby."    John Huston works wonders for his first film ever to direct. He also wrote the film and in doing so, created the best screenplay committed to film. Of course he had a source novel to work from, but still what he does is riveting to listen to. Other unique traits of interest include Peter Lorre's underplayed entrances, the whole private detective working with the police conflict of interest, and of course the mystery of the falcon itself.    Now the first time I saw this film, I admit I felt that the ending was not good. On multiple viewings, I realized that the real matter at hand was people's greed for money. To get what they want, the crooks in this movie have killed anyone in their way, and all three main thieves are only looking out for themselves. This is what separates Bogart from the criminals. He likes money, but he is not greedy. Spade has morals and is a cop at heart, despite all else. He even turned in the woman he loved, much like he did in Casablanca a year later. Bogart has always played these tragic men and he does it so well (better than ANYONE in my opinion), probably because he knows what it is like to be one.    There is so much about this movie I didn't talk about, but it truly is full of riches. Everyone seems to concentrate on the last couple of minutes of dialogue like Bogart's speech to Astor, but my favorite things about the movie are not the final minutes. One of them is definitely Wilber (Elisha Cook Jr.), the gunman for Guttman, who is very spooky and childish but hilarious at the same time. Just watching Bogart and Wilber fight is the funniest thing about the movie. The other less addressed point about The Maltese Falcon are the insights pointed out in the conversations between Greenstreet and Bogart. In at least three different conversations between them, deep thoughts about how people act are expressed. "You are a man who likes to talk. Well, I am a man who likes to talk to a man who likes to talk. I don't trust a man who deosn't like to talk. You must practice talking like any good skill." Qualities such as this make this movie one of my favorites. Is there another movie that is as funny, insightful, mysterious, and quoteable as this one? Once every thirty years, maybe, but there will never be another one just like it.