The Maltese Falcon (1941)
Directed by John Huston
A private detective takes on a case that involves him with three eccentric criminals, a beautiful liar, and their quest for a priceless statuette.
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What critics compared The Maltese Falcon to
The largely accepted chronological definition of what �film noir� is is that it more or less began with The Maltese Falcon in 1941, and came to a triumphant end with Touch of Evil in 1958.
Yet by the end of the movie this awesome meathead has become a poignant figure, wounded by love and conscious that -- like Wilmer in The Maltese Falcon -- he's nothing but a pawn to his boss.
As the plot gets increasingly complex (though no more so than "The Maltese Falcon," to which this film gives many nods), "Brick" becomes less clever and more quirky; at times so overwrought that it becomes a little silly.
If the great mystery writer Dashiell Hammett ("The Maltese Falcon," "The Glass Key") had written about teenagers, it might have turned out to be quite a bit like "Brick," a moody puzzler written and directed by Hammett admirer Rian Johnson.
While Humphrey Bogart and the lowlifes that peppered hard-boiled masterpieces like “The Maltese Falcon” always seemed one small step away from disaster, the high schoolers in “Brick” also seem precariously balanced on a ledge.
A final comment for film buffs: I don't want to reveal the ending, but let's just say that it is an interesting commentary on changing values in well-made American crime movies in the past 65 years to compare what happens between Colin Farrell and Gong Li at the end of "Miami Vice" with how existential hero Humphrey Bogart treats Mary Astor at the end of "The Maltese Falcon."
He has the molls, the cynicism and the corruption of a Bogart movie; in fact, "The Big Sleep" and "The Maltese Falcon" echo loudly throughout.
That's not to say it isn't derivative, though; it's a clearcut film noir homage, complete with hard-boiled narration by the eponymous taxi-driving hero (voiced by Richard Romanus, who did a lot of work for Bakshi's urban toons), an obese gangster who wants something the hero has, a femme fatale -- what we have here is a cyberpunk remix of The Maltese Falcon.
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Whenever Sam or one of his conspiracy-theory fellow travelers starts working themselves into a frenzy about everything being connected, man, one can’t help but think of The Maltese Falcon (1941): “The cheaper the crook, the gaudier the patter.”
It's a very particular ruling-class fantasy punctuated by gadgets and automobiles--film noir, except the code our ambiguous hero plays by is more Humphrey Bogart's from In a Lonely Place than Bogey's from The Maltese Falcon.
Over the years, I have found that many of my other favorite examples of the genre—things like “The Maltese Falcon,” “The Big Sleep,” “The Long Goodbye,” “Chinatown” and “The Big Lebowski”—have tended to lean that way as well and that is why they have managed to stand the test of time.
The best mysteries ( Hound of the Baskervilles , Murder by Death , The Maltese Falcon ) have an effective con at play, a backdrop where only us and our leading character know an insidious game is afoot.
It’s not a MacGuffin, like the eponymous statue in The Maltese Falcon.
Once Healy and March realize they share a common interest, they work together to get to the bottom of the mystery, which unfolds with the twists of a classic noir but with more swearing, more violence, and more boobs than, say, “The Maltese Falcon.”
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That would be like saying John Huston’s The Maltese Falcon (1941)—which along with Howard Hawks’s The Big Sleep (1946), and Robert Altman’s The Long Goodbye (1973) comprise the holy trinity of noirs the Coens pillaged to piece together their own plot and dramaturgy—is about a guy trying to get his hands on a statue.
Daniel Day-Lewis, in the role of oil prospector Daniel Plainview in There Will Be Blood, plays the entire film in the unmistakable voice of Huston, the late filmmaker and actor famed for directing such classics as The Maltese Falcon, Key Largo, The African Queen, and The Night of the Iguana, and for acting in numerous other movies.