The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett
Review by Elleanore Vance Any fan of film noir has at least heard of The Maltese Falcon. Most aren't aware that the 1941 film starring Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, Peter Lorre and Sydney Greenstreet was in fact the third stab at the source material. The first in 1931 starring Bebe Daniels as Miss Wonderly and Ricardo Cortez as Sam Spade and it flopped. The second was called Satan Met a Lady in 1936, and was more of a spoof along todays lines of the Naked Gun movies than a true adaptation. It starred Warren William and Bette Davis, and also flopped. Thank heaven Hollywood actually had the sense back then to only remake the films that didn't do well. It gave us one of the greatest film masterpieces of all time, based on one of the world's greatest detective stories. Dashiell Hammett's 1929 novel is considered a quintessential work of crime fiction and a perfect example of the Noir subgenre. Sam Spade is the private eye who keeps his thoughts to himself. Miss Wonderly is ...