James Burke Luke as Luke. John Hamilton Bryan as Bryan. Charles Drake Reporter as Reporter uncredited. Creighton Hale Stenographer as Stenographer uncredited. Robert Homans Policeman as Policeman uncredited. William Hopper Reporter as Reporter uncredited. John Huston. More like this. Watch options. Storyline Edit.
Spade and Archer is the name of a San Francisco detective agency. That's for Sam Spade and Miles Archer. The two men are partners, but Sam doesn't like Miles much. A knockout, who goes by the name of Miss Wonderly, walks into their office; and by that night everything's changed. Miles is dead. And so is a man named Floyd Thursby. It seems Miss Wonderly is surrounded by dangerous men. There's Joel Cairo, who uses gardenia-scented calling cards. There's Kasper Gutman, with his enormous girth and feigned civility.
Her only hope of protection comes from Sam, who is suspected by the police of one or the other murder. More murders are yet to come, and it will all be because of these dangerous men -- and their lust for a statuette of a bird: the Maltese Falcon. It's thrilling. Crime Film-Noir Mystery Romance. Did you know Edit. This makes them some of the most valuable film props ever made; indeed, each is now worth more than three times what the film cost to make. The Knights Hospitallers of the Order of St.
John of Jerusalem, known as the Order of St. John for short, have existed since ; they were in fact based in Malta from to and hence were also called the Knights of Malta. On the other hand, the Knights of the Temple of Solomon, also called the Knights Templar or just Templars, were founded in and became the sworn enemies of the first order; this latter group was disbanded by , after King Philip IV of France had declared them heretics so that he could confiscate their wealth.
Quotes [last lines] Detective Tom Polhaus : [picks up the falcon] Heavy. Alternate versions Also available in a computer colorized version. User reviews Review. Top review.
Seven decades have passed but the suspense and thrill of The Maltese Falcon still reign supreme. Primarily remembered as John Huston's directorial debut, the movie played a decisive role in giving Film-Noire its true identity as a genre. The Maltese Falcon also gave Humphrey Bogart his highly deserved super-stardom that had hitherto eluded him. Huston creates an environment of suspicion, doubt and uncertainty that is so convoluted that even Hitchcock would be proud of it.
Warner Bros. This version is notable for coming out before the Hollywood Production Code started to be enforced, which means it has more sexual innuendo than the films of the late '30s and '40s.
In , the studio made the film again, this time under the title Satan Met a Lady , and with an inexplicable emphasis on the comedy aspects, starring Warren William and Bette Davis. Nobody liked it. The third time was the charm. John Huston, son of popular stage and screen actor Walter Huston, was a successful scriptwriter for Warner Bros. Ehrlich's Magic Bullet and Sergeant York When he asked the Warners for a shot at directing, they agreed and even let him choose the project himself , but only if his next script was a hit.
Fortunately for Huston, it was a success, and the Warners kept their word. The Maltese Falcon , also starring Bogart, was shot that summer and released in the fall. It was the first of five movies Huston and Bogart would make together.
George Raft was a handsome actor and dancer who'd narrowly escaped an actual life of crime his boyhood friends included Bugsy Siegel to become someone who merely played a lot of gangsters. He was the Warners' first choice for The Maltese Falcon. He'd been their first choice for High Sierra , too.
The Warners had given Huston free rein to make whatever movie he wanted, but they insisted on keeping some control over the casting. Huston was lucky, therefore, that Raft didn't want to work with a first-time director and turned the movie down, leaving Huston free to cast his pal Bogie. But the mold had deteriorated, so after using it to make a single replica out of resin, he destroyed the mold, then used the resin Falcon to make a new mold.
The replicas made from this mold were scrunched forward and a little lopsided—sad cousins of the original. It was made of lead and weighed 45 pounds. Milan fervently believed the heavy lead Falcon was the one used in the film. This was the lead bird, Baer claimed, that had privately been sold to Gary Milan. There was a quick, awkward exchange, during which Baer adjourned the interview.
As Risan left, Baer slid him a business card with his home number scribbled on the back. They spoke the next day. Two days later, Risan says, Baer called to say he had just been fired without cause. Studio props, she knew from her own research, were typically made of cheap plaster. There was no way, she felt, that the studio would ask Humphrey Bogart to lug around a pound monstrosity when a 6-pound plaster Falcon would suffice.
Meanwhile, Risan visited the Warner archives at U. An archivist brought out a folder bearing maybe 10 sepia-toned pages about the Falcon.
One studio memo said John Huston himself had been involved in commissioning the statuette for the film. Over the next few months Risan and his professor friends made several more trips to Los Angeles. On one, they called the Warner Bros. The first was a man named Ben Goldmond, who had worked in the Warner prop room from to Risan telephoned him. Serial numbers, Goldmond explained when the two met at a delicatessen, had been introduced at Warner during the s.
When Risan showed him his, he said it might be one of them. But the second contact was. Her name was Meta Wilde.
During a long Hollywood career, Wilde had served as script supervisor on more than films, including The Maltese Falcon. An elegant woman then in her 80s, Wilde welcomed Risan, his girlfriend, and a Santa Cruz professor into her Beverly Hills condominium in September That made her the de facto keeper of the Falcon.
She recalled that they had used four Falcons during the filming, three of plaster and one of metal—but not heavy lead. Neither could Humphrey Bogart. It seems to me that this is actually the bird we used. This is one of the plaster birds.
When I spoke to Milan in December, he made it clear in no uncertain terms that he finds Risan and his birds to be fraudulent. He [Risan] got involved with Warner Bros. If he is resurrected, you may find yourself in the middle of a very nasty lawsuit with Warner Bros. He did manage to obtain a letter from a Warner Bros. Milan had lent it to Warner, in fact, which displayed it in a company museum for years.
The case for the Milan Falcon rests on documents found in the Warner Bros. A Warner Bros. That damage, Milan says, can be clearly seen on the Falcon he sold to Steve Wynn. Milan insists there is no evidence any plaster Falcons were made for use in the film. A seven-year-old could see this is a fake. Just look at the photos. Risan argues that this is due to lighting and s photographic techniques. On the other hand, the actors seem to be holding and moving an object far lighter than 47 pounds.
The plot, in fact, was only beginning to thicken. Because just as Risan and his two Maltese Falcons stepped off the stage, another Falcon stepped on—actually two. The first surfaced that same year, , at the Golden Nugget flea market, in Lambertville, New Jersey, where it was spotted by a documentary-film maker named Ara Chekmayan. Chekmayan had earned an Oscar nomination for his film, Children of Darkness, and was a three-time Emmy winner. He found the little statue—a foot-tall black Falcon made of resin—among several rusted tools.
On the bottom of it he found a serial number, WB. Much like Risan had done, Chekmayan launched his own quest to authenticate his Falcon. His brother interviewed Meta Wilde; she thought it could be another of the three or four Falcons. Prop records had long since been lost. Chekmayan gave in. Risan, for one, believes the Chekmayan bird was made for the movie. A heavy lead statuette with a bronze patina, it was found in the California home of the actor William Conrad, star of the Cannon television series, after his death.
Warner Bros. In fact, legend around the Warner lot has it that Jack Warner kept the Falcon mold and from time to time would have a lead Falcon cast from it as a special gift although no others of this kind have yet surfaced. Reversing its earlier position, Warner now confirmed that there was not just one Falcon but at least two.
The Conrad Falcon had a notable fate. He hired a well-known Bogart look-alike, Tony Heller, to play Sam Spade and staged the play as a private event for a select group of invited guests.
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