2/01/2009

The Maltese Falcon (1941)


Quite an honor for me to speak about "The Maltese Falcon" probably one of the greatest American movies of all times, with one legendary detective Figure Mr Sam Spade, and is considered the first film noir to establish the codes and the visual aspects of the genre.

Sam Spade is a new york private eye, in an agency he shares with his partner Miles Archer, one day a Mysterious and beautiful women (femme fatale) enters the office, asking the pair to investigate the disappearing of her sister of whome she had no news, while asking them to follow a man she thinks has the information, Archer is immediatly attracted to the woman with serious consequences to him and his family, and Sam Spade has to deal with her, as he finds out that her story was false, and the she is one of the players in an international quest for a mysterious and powerful falcon which has a history linked to the Templar knights of Malte, and Charles V of Spain.

Sam Spade played beautifully by Humphrey Bogart, is the center of this story, he is both corageous and ruthless with a fearless attitude and an obvious despise and a fearless attitude towards the underworld people and the guns they carry sometimes in both pockets of their trenchcoats.

So many famous detective artifacts originate in here, the whole trenchcoat, hat, pretending to read a newspaper thing come from her, it's much more amazing knowing that it was John Huston's first movie, but the word is that he worked and planned his movie extensivly, and frankly the work shows, because the movie advances like a clockwork.

The characters are the true force of the film, from the sinister kingpin Kasper "Fatman"Gutman (Sydney Greenstreet) or the effiminate Joel Cairo (Peter Lorre), or the fatman's bodyguard Wilmer, not forgetting the Femme Fatale (Mary Astor) and of course the attractive secretary, their distinctive stories and their fatal attraction towards the Falcon, which leads to a distinctive end scene which could possible be an early ancestor to the famous Mexican standoff.

The Cinematography is so inventive either, with the use of unusual Camera Angles, and the tradmarked Low Key look of the Noir Genre, especially one scene where Spade Follows Gutman while he explains the story of the Falcon, this scene is a must see for all the movie lovers, it's so fluid that you might even be attracted into it, and not even notice it.

As Jay-Z said "what more can i say", this movie is a must see for the Noir lovers, the cinema lovers, the litterature lovers, and everybody who loves brilliant art, and you will probably know why this movie was so influencial that they named a nuclear bomb after one of it's characters !

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