The Maltese Falcon was Bogart's first major hit, a very tough and grim film noir which gives us a character, Sam Spade, who is so jaded and cynical toward humankind that modern audiences would most likely be shocked, and he is supposed to be the hero. Certainly this was the role which made Bogart's image, although it was obviously tempered somewhat for more romantic roles in Casablanca and for the romance involved with Lauren Bacall in The Big Sleep. Here, we have a man who is almost completely devoid of warmth, with only his distrust and his wit getting him through the day.
The plot, as with most crime films, is very complicated and bizarre. A woman (Mary Astor) enters the offices of private detective Spade claiming that her sister is in danger from her fiancé. She wants someone to shadow the man while he and the woman conduct a meeting. Spade's partner is sent out on the case, but by the end of the night, the partner is murdered, and the man he was to follow is soon killed as well. Spade finds himself in deep, as suspicion grows that he might have had reason to kill either one of these people. And while Spade tries to get himself out of a murder rap, the woman who started this dilemma begins uncovering her true colours. In truth, she is one of a number of dastardly sorts searching frantically for an artifact known as the Maltese Falcon, apparently a valuable treasure that passed through many hands over the centuries, and who has now struck her and a few others, played by Sydney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre, dumb by its apparent value.
The title artifact is really unimportant to the story (there's a silly "historical" crawl at the beginning which really doesn't mean much of anything). What is important is that the behavior of these characters pretty much justifies Spade's own world view, as he deals with one act after another based on greed and self-interest. It is worthy to note Spade`s reactions to a lot of this activity. The funniest sequence in the movie involves Lorre`s demanding of Spade on the whereabouts of the Falcon. In the course of about five minutes screen time, Lorre manages to pull out his gun twice, yet Spade never, ever, lets himself become vulnerable. In fact, Spade seems so removed from caring that he even laughs at the sight of Lorre pulling the same trick twice. Yet Spade`s apparent unconcern is really an admission that he has a heart of stone; that he will never let sentimentality get in the way of a strict moral code. This is evident at the film's conclusion, one that modern audiences may not be able to accept, in which Spade deftly and swiftly turns the tables on our female protagonist.
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