Maltese Falcon

The movie revolves around of missing persons. Two private detectives, Spade (Humphrey Bogart) and Archer (Jerome Cowan) take on Brigid O'Shaughnessy (Mary Astor)’s case of her missing sister whom was suspiciously involved with Floyd Thursby. Yet, there is trouble when a shooting occurs. When Archer was tailing the possible suspect Thursby, Archer was shot and killed. The trouble does not stop there, there is a bigger story that Spade faces. The case turns out to be related to a highly prized stolen artifact, the Maltese Falcon. The history of the Maltese is that it was stolen and worth thousands of dollars. Kasper Gutman, the “fat man”, attempts to get it back from the owner. But as the story proceeds, there are lots of layers of theft which makes the real owner of the Falcon unknown. As Spade encounters Cairo and Wilmer (two of Gutman’s armed cronies), he interferes with Gutman’s plot to steal the Falcon back. As the police attempt to find Archer’s killer, Space is blamed for his partner’s murder. Spade, also continues to deal with the meddling police as he tries to find the solution to the story with the Maltese Falcon, remain alive, and identify the true killer. The twists and unexpected turns in this story intrigue the audience while the quick wit of the characters entertains.

Overall, I would say that I did not enjoy this film. Generally, women able to speak at lightening speaks while reaming helpless bothers me. Unforunately, this is very much the case for 50’s social norms. Also, the men (almost always) call the females pet names, like ‘doll, sugar, honey, angel,’ etc. This part alone did not ruin the movie for me, but it just points out the obvious gender differences of this time.

Unrelated to the movie’s genre of film noir, the power differences and social expectations bother me. Yet, I do understand that this movie was filmed during this period where interactions were expected to be lopsided.

However, I did like the main character’s cleverness and charisma. Like most other male main character in film noir, there I something clever and wily about him which allows him to get out of danger. This character is funny to me because he is fantasy and rare in real life.

Again, I did not like this movie as w hole as much as others, yet there were aspects in which I did enjoy, like relating to the characters, laughing at funny moments, and appreciating the quick sarcasm/wit.