Rating: 
Summary: I really like how this movie feels "outside of time"
Review: Some older people mention Bogart's name with far more awe than Cary Grant's, Rock Hudson's, Douglas Fairbanks', etc. They tell of how he was the big name back then, was the real marquee player, etc. All I know is this movie has aged even better than Casablanca imho, and in fact feels like it's in many ways truly timeless. Bogart's acting is great imho, and doesn't look simplistic at all (although I do love his acting in Casablanca maybe a bit more, it's just that the scenery/setwork here seems to add more to the timelessness).I love a lot of the old flics - they really are shockingly good sometimes.
Rating:
Summary: The Mislaid Ornament
Review: The Maltese Falcon (black and while; running time 101 minutes; not rated) stars Academy Award winner actor, Humphrey Bogart, along with Mary Astor, Jerome Cowan, Peter Lorre and Sydney Greenstreet. The Maltese Falcon was expertly directed by John Huston in 1941 for Warner Brothers Pictures, Inc. In this film, suspense, murder and mystery surround the search for the Maltese falcon.
When a beautiful woman, Brigid O'Shaughnessy (Mary Astor), enters the private investigation offices of Archer and Spade and asks for help, little do Samuel Spade (Humphrey Bogart) and Miles Archer (Jerome Cowan) know the effect she will have on their lives. Miles is murdered while working for Ms. O'Shaughnessy and Sam Spade must now find who killed his partner. While strongly attracted to the beautiful Ms. O'Shaughnessey, he soon realizes that she has difficulty with the truth. As events unfold, and more are murdered, Sam Spade discovers that everything revolves around the search for a rare and valuable statute of a falcon, the Maltese falcon. Not only is this what is behind the beautiful Brigid O'Shaughnessy's plea for help, but he also finds that Joel Cairo (Peter Lorre) and Kasper Gutman, "the Fat Man" (Sydney Greenstreet), will do anything to put their hands on the "mislaid ornament". Through a twist of fate, Sam ends up in possession of the Maltese Falcon and then uses the statute to pull together all the people and all the information he needs to reveal the murderers. However, is this the real Maltese falcon, or does it remain "the mislaid ornament"?
This film is rated five stars (*****). The suspense, twists and turns, will keep you on the edge of your seat; and the direction by John Ford and the performance by Humphrey Bogart are timeless and classic.
Rating:
Summary: The birth of Hollywood's original noir anti-hero.
Review: Like few other actors, Humphrey Bogart ruled the Hollywood of the 1940s and 1950s - epitome of the handsome, cynical and oh-so lonesome wolf and looking unbeatably cool in his fedora and trenchcoat, a cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth; endowed with a legendary aura several times larger than his real life stature, and still admired by scores of women wishing they had been born 50+ years earlier, preferably somewhere in California and to parents connected with the movie business, so as to have at least a marginal chance of meeting him. The American Film Institute recently elected him the No. 1 film legend of the 20th century; and looking back, indeed no other actor seems to have been surrounded by the same kind of darkly magical aura as the one surrounding Bogart. "The Maltese Falcon" (1941), directed by John Huston, based on Dashiell Hammett's 1930 like-named novel and itself also ranking in the top quarter of the AFI's list of the 100 best 20th century movies, laid the groundwork for Bogart's lasting image, by transforming his on-screen persona from the tough, often two-dimensional gangsters he had portrayed before; beginning with the 1936 adaptation of Robert Sherwood's "Petrified Forest" where, like in its 1934 stage production, Bogart had starred opposite Leslie Howard, with Bette Davis as the female lead. Now imbuing his tough guy shell with a softer core, in "The Maltese Falcon" Bogart became not only Hammett's Sam Spade but, moreover, the film noir anti-hero per se; a role that stayed with him throughout the rest of his career, and in which he still remains virtually unparalleled. The movie's long-famous story centers around the mysterious statute of a falcon made from solid gold, diamonds and other precious stones; the 16th century Maltese Knights' immeasurably precious gift of thanks to Emperor Charles V for the protection he had granted them. Stolen by pirates, blackened on the outside in order to conceal its true value and passed on through the centuries by a number of unsuspecting possessors, it finally attracts the attention of two rivaling pairs of equally cunning, ruthless and high-flying scoundrels, who chase each other and the statue halfway around the world and finally end up in Sam Spade's San Francisco office - not without getting both Spade's partner Miles Archer (Jerome Cowan) and one of their own killed in the process; thus also causing additional grief for Spade, whom the police soon suspect of being behind the murders himself - or at least behind that of Archer - in order to make off with Archer's widow Iva (Gladys George). And of course, it doesn't exactly help that he has had his office sign changed from "Spade & Archer" to "Samuel Spade" within mere hours of his partner's death. Looking at the movie and its stars' almost mythical fame, it is difficult to imagine that, produced at the height of the studio system era, this was originally just one of the roughly 50 films released by Warner Brothers over the course of one year. But mass production didn't equal low quality; on the contrary, the great care given to all production values, from script-writing to camera work, editing, score and the stars' presentation in the movie itself and in its trailer, was as responsible for its lasting success as were Humphrey Bogart and his outstanding costars; first and foremost Mary Astor as the double-crossing and now partner-less Brigid O'Shaughnessy, Peter Lorre and Sydney Greenstreet (in their first of several appearances opposite Bogart) as Joel Cairo and Kaspar Guttman, O'Shaughnessy/Astor's competitors for possession of the precious statue, and Elisha Cook, Jr., as Guttman's rough but inept bodyguard Wilmer Cook. Genre-defining and the first truly giant highlight of Bogart's career, "The Maltese Falcon" is an unmissable piece of Hollywood history, captivating you from the first moment you spend in Sam Spade's office all the way to its cynical conclusion, and a thrill to watch over and over again.
Rating: 
Summary: One of The Best Old Films!
Review: The Maltese Falcon is one of the best old films I have ever seen and I recommend it. Bogart is great as always! I don't think he ever made a bad film! FYI: Ed Begley Jr was not in this movie, I doubt that he would have even been born yet or if he was he would have been just a little baby and his father Ed Begley Sr wasn't in it either, that was Elisha Cook Jr who played the crazy Wilmer Cook. Ed Begley Jr (son of actor Ed Begley Sr) played one of the young doctors on the 80's hospital drama St.. Elsewhere.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent!
Review: I saw The Maltese Falcon on TCM and I thought it was excellent and had an outstanding cast, Humphrey Bogart as private eye Sam Spade, Mary Aster as Brigid O'Shaughnessy, Peter Lorre as Joel Cairo, Sydney Greenstreet as Kasper Guttman (AKA The Fat Man) and Elisha Cook Jr as the neurotic and vicious Wilmer Cook. This is a wonderful mystery and suspence movie with a lot of red herrings. Highly recommended. I taped The Maltese Falcon when it was on TCM but I could definitely see myself buying the DVD!
Rating:
Summary: Let's talk about the black bird
Review: John Huston's 1941 remake of The Maltese Falcon became the definitive version as it opened the doors for the film noir genre. And noir movies opened up with The Glass Key, The Postman Rings Twice, Key Largo, and Dark Passage. The dark mood of these movies were put to best effect with black-and-white film, with dimly lighting in nighttime scenes reflecting the grimness of the genre. Sam Spade becomes involved in the search for the title artifact with the introduction of three characters--Brigid O'Shaughnessy, Joel Cairo, and Kaspar Guttman. All three are involved in one way or another with the title object. The cynical Spade though, shows his loyalties to no one, but the one who pays him the most. He is also quick to strike out at anyone menacing him, such as a pistol-wielding Joel Cairo or Wilmer, a hired gun. His steel heart extends to his relationship with his partner, whose wife Iva he has an affair with, and even that is passionless. Only Ebbie, his loyal secretary with a nice personality who can handle Spade, gets the less hard part of his hard edge. However, two murders entangled themselves in the web. The first is that of Spade's partner Miles Archer, who charmed by Brigid, offered to shadow a man she wanted followed. The second is Thursby, the object of his hunt. And Spade's caught up also because he is suspected of his partner's murder due to his affair with Iva, and he's got to fend off the police and D.A.'s office.
Certain camera shots get great mention, such as the shadow of the "Spade and Archer" sign cast from the window to the floor. Another is the bright spotlight effect shown on Miles's surprised face as he gets shot. And the way the camera focuses on the Fat Man's belly shows the weight he has, both physically and in terms of power. The lights and shadows enhance the costumes as well. Most of the characters are dressed in black. This was the film that pushed Bogart to film legend status, making it his biggest success since The Petrified Forest. Ahead of him lay greater roles such as Rick (Casablanca), Phil Marlowe (The Big Sleep), Allnutt (The African Queen), Queeg (The Caine Mutiny), and Linus Larrabee (Sabrina). Mary Astor (Brigitte) needed this kind of film, especially to counter the 1936 headliner scandal made over her sexual exploits with playwright George Kaufman, made public with the splashing of her diary across newspapers. Sydney Greenstreet as the plummy but dangerous "Fat Man", i.e. Guttman, Peter Lorre as the slightly effeminate Cairo, and Ed Begley Jr. as the neurotic gunsel Wilmer all add to this classic. He speaks in a low but quivering and menacing tone: "Keep on riding me, they'll be picking iron out of your liver." Cinematically, a classic, and remember that line, "the stuff that dreams are made of."
Rating:
Summary: Who dunnit? Who cares?
Review: There are so many archetypes in this film because it is based on one of several books written by Dashiell Hammett who invested detective fiction with so many innovations of his own. The result is a delightful film in which private investigator Sam Spade (Bogart) attempts to answer a series of questions which somehow seem much more important to him than they do to those who see this film. The screenplay is based on one of Hammett's novels and was written by John Huston. This is also the first film Huston directed. He and Bogart worked together on four other classics: Key Largo and The Treasure of Sierra Madre (both released in 1948), The African Queen (1951), and Beat the Devil (1953). If anything, I find this film even more amusing now than I did when I first saw it. How about the names of the characters? Miss Wonderly/Brigid O'Shaughnessy (Astor), Joel Cairo (Lorre), and Kaspar Gutman (Greenstreet). Someone's tongue was firmly in the nearest cheek. The plot makes little (if any) sense but who cares? The film's greatness is explained by the consistently superior acting and by the dialogue which never loses its Snap! Crackle! and Pop! To his great credit, amidst all the harmless nonsense, Bogart maintains his gravitas. He seems genuinely interested in "getting to the truth" to explain why his partner was murdered, why the Maltese Falcon is so valuable, etc. We tag along so as not to miss any of his interactions with a truly colorful cast of characters. Yes, that's Elisha Cook, Jr. in the role of Wilmer Cook. (No relation.) And yes, that's Huston's father Walter as Captain Jacobi. If you have not already seen it, why wait? If you have, see it again. Somehow it gets better and better, time after time, year after year after year.
Rating: 
Summary: Extremely Overrated
Review: 'The Maltese Falcon' is considered a classic, but I found it extremely overrated. I just couldn't get into a film where everyone is trying to take possession of a statue falcon. Seemes pretty shallow to me.
Rating:
Summary: In 1539 The Knight Templars of Malta¿
Review: ...paid tribute to Charles V of Spain, by sending him A Golden Falcon encrusted from beak to claw with rarest jewels..."
The Falcon was lost in time and a mystery begins when a beautiful but enigmatic woman shows up at the Spade and Archer detective agency. She gives them a story that is implausible; however they are well paid. This leads to the death of Archer. Who did it and why? The police suspect Sam Spade. Who do you suspect? As the story unfolds many suspects show up and the mystery of the missing falcon continues.
I will not go through the whole story However there is many well know actors and Hammett dialog.
I only give stars to the movie and never the media. However I lucked out because this DVD (ASIN: 6305729328) is crisp and clear and B&W. You are not forced to watch the extras but have them as an added plus.
Rating:
Summary: Gets better with each viewing - A great, great classic
Review: The mark of a truly great film is that it not only holds up with each reviewing, but actually gets better and more impressive. While it is always exhilarating to enjoy the plot the first time through, once you know what is going to happen, you get to focus on other, smaller things that may have escaped you before. For instance, notice that each scene begins with either a camera or a character in motion. You don't just get a cut to the inside of a room, but a cut to a character entering a room. This gives the film as a whole a very active, energetic feel, as if the whole picture were alive. It puts you, the viewer, in the middle of the action, instead of merely passively sitting back and watching the scenes unfold before you. Subtleties like this help make this one of the truly great films Hollywood produced. Humphrey Bogart was not an A-list actor when this film came out. He was afterwards. Earlier in 1941 he had surprised Hollywood by excelling in a lead role in HIGH SIERRA, so his success in THE MALTESE FALCON was not a complete surprise. From this point onwards, Warners and other studios always were on the lookout for the next film for him to star in. Before, he got roles by default. Note: many think he got the lead in CASABLANCA by default, but in fact Warners had him cast in the role from the beginning, but spread some false information about who was to star in it (e.g., Ronald Reagan) in order to build suspense as to who would star. But CASABLANCA was intended as a Bogart vehicle from the start, thanks to THE MALTESE FALCON. Apart from the magnificent direction by John Huston (shown in such details as the active camera mentioned above), there are two major reasons this film succeeds so well. First, many point to this film as one of the very few that is as good as the novel upon which it is based. The reason for this in this case is the fact that John Huston stuck as close to the novel as was possible in Hays Office Hollywood (i.e., he had to tone certain things down to pass the Code, like Joel Cairo's homosexuality, which was far more commented upon in the novel). Most of the best scenes are taken word-for-word from the novel, such as the "Fat Man's" great conversation with Sam Spade. Dashiell Hammett had a genius for hard-hitting dialog, and Huston wisely decided to leave it alone. Huston was brilliant at transparently adapting Hammett's novel with as little tinkering as possible. The third great reason for the film's success is the virtually perfect cast. Although Bogart wasn't the first choice for the film, it is now impossible to imagine anyone else in the role. The movie, in fact, made stars of many of the principles involved. Mary Astor had her career revived, Sydney Greenstreet immediately became one of the leading character actors in Hollywood, Elisha Wood Jr. became a familiar face in film, and Peter Lorre, who had made a long string of films in England and the US (including the Mr. Moto movies) since leaving Germany upon the Nazis rise to power, became a much more prominent figure in American film. Huston himself was one of the more prominent directors in Hollywood for the rest of his career, thanks to his great success in this, his first film. A final note: the film is remarkable for its cinematography, and is rightfully considered one of the first film noirs for its use of light and shadow. Interestingly, the person in charge of photography, Arthur Edeson, had been the cinematographer on the 1936 William Dieterle's SATAN MET A LADY, the second film version of Hammett's novel, the film (Huston's being the third). I'm not aware if his previous experience added to the quality of the film, but it is a fascinating coincidence.
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