The Maltese Falcon

Hard Boiled

I like to think I'm a sophisticated connoisseur of films, but some of the classics leave me scratching my head as to why I'm not more excited about them once I've seen them. There's a certain pleasure to watching Humphrey Bogart in action as a hard-boiled detective. His performance in The Maltese Falcon became the standard to which all others were compared. He has the perfect, world-weary look, the snide delivery, and the quick moves that suggest a man used to triumphing over all of the low-lifes around him. The John Huston adaptation of the Dashiell Hammett novel gives him great dialogue and a decent mystery, but the rest of the movie is a little less thrilling. I was hoping for scintillating visuals on the level of Notorious or The Lost Weekend, but there is only one inspired sequence: moodily-lit still lifes of the main cast as seen by someone they've betrayed. The exposition is a touch on the slow side, and not in a particularly gripping way, as I never thought anyone of significance was in for it. As for the supposed romance between Spade and O'Shaughnessy, I didn't really buy into it. I guess I'm just not tuned in to the cues that worked so well sixty years ago.