The Maltese Falcon

The Maltese Falcon (1931)

A lovely dame with dangerous lies employs the services of a private detective, who is quickly caught up in the mystery and intrigue of a statuette known as the Maltese Falcon.

Date of release
1931-05-23
TMDB
6.4 / 10 (55)
Runtime
1h 20m
Genres
Mystery, Crime
Director
Roy Del Ruth

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Based on: The Maltese Falcon

The Maltese Falcon is a 1931 American pre-Code crime film based on the 1930 novel The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett and directed by Roy Del Ruth. The film stars Ricardo Cortez as private detective Sam Spade and Bebe Daniels as femme fatale Ruth Wonderly. The supporting cast features Dudley Digges, Thelma Todd, Walter Long, Una Merkel, and Dwight Frye. Maude Fulton and Brown Holmes wrote the screenplay; one contemporaneous report said that Lucien Hubbard was assisting them.

Production

The Maltese Falcon was not the first Hammett story to be adapted into a motion picture. Earlier stories by Hammett, Red Harvest (filmed in 1930 as Roadhouse Nights) and City Streets (1931), preceded it. Working and alternate titles for the film have been All Women, A Woman of the World and Dangerous Female.

Principal photography took place from late January to early February 1931.

Some scenes in the film were reported to be shot on location in San Francisco, though it may be that only stock footage was used.

Oscar Apfel was initially cast and listed in some studio promotions as the district attorney; however, for unknown reasons, he was replaced by Wallace.

The film closely follows the plot of the book. The 1941 adaptation, which began with a revised version of the 1931 script, closely follows the book as well, although most references to homosexuality, nudity, and other no longer permissible portions under the Motion Picture Production Code are missing. The dialogue for both films is often taken verbatim directly from the novel.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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