The Maltese Falcon (1941)

 John Huston's "The Maltese Falcon"


As far as film noirs go, John Huston's directorial debut "The Maltese Falcon" stands as one of the most memorable in Hollywood history. It doesn't seem like the visual aesthetics of the 'noir' film would come about until a few years later when Billy Wilder injected high-contrast darkness with the zenith of all film noirs, "Double Indemnity." However, despite lacking the visual congruency with the genre, "The Maltese Falcon" could be called a 'proto-noir,' given that the film lay many of the structural framework of the genre.

Like with most noir films, "The Maltese Falcon" follows a detective, played by Humphrey Bogart. Bogart's detective untangles a web of crime and intrigue, following the mysterious happenings of a woman and two men looking for a priceless artifact dubbed the 'Maltese Falcon.' As the story progresses, what these group of people (including our detective) won't do to procure this artifact becomes smaller and smaller, demonstrating the demoralizing nature of greed and power.

What distinguished "The Maltese Falcon" from other major Hollywood productions at the time was the film's inherent bleakness and cynicism. The soul of these characters and laid bare and what we examine about them aren't pretty. This incredibly sardonic look at human behavior, especially at the onset of the U.S.'s involvement in World War II, is perhaps what wet the appetite for American audiences towards the noir genre to come. If you contrast this film to say propaganda films of the same year, like Howard Hawks' "Sergeant York," it becomes quite clear that the internal cynicism of the American population was beginning to combat the more hopeful, feel-good nationalism that major studios were wanting to churn out. 

At the end of the film, it becomes clear that the 'Maltese Falcon' artifact was nothing more than a red herring. It ended up being worth nothing, but was able to bend and manipulate the morality of those that tried to seek it. If simply the promise of wealth and power is enough to warp your conscious behavior, then what hope do we have for good-natured heroism? 



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