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After two previous film versions of Dashiell Hammett's detective classic The Maltese Falcon, Warner Bros. finally got it right in 1941--or, rather, John Huston, a long-established screenwriter making his directorial debut, got it right, simply by adhering as closely as possible to the original. Taking over from a recalcitrant George Raft, Humphrey Bogart achieved true stardom as Sam Spade, a hard-boiled San Francisco private eye who can be as unscrupulous as the next guy but also adheres to his own personal code of honor. Into the offices of the Spade & Archer detective agency sweeps a Miss Wonderly (Mary Astor), who offers a large retainer to Sam and his partner Miles Archer (Jerome Cowan) if they'll protect her from someone named Floyd Thursby. The detectives believe neither Miss Wonderly nor her story, but they believe her money. Since Archer saw her first, he takes the case -- and later that evening he is shot to death, as is the mysterious Thursby. Miss Wonderly's real name turns out to be Brigid O'Shaughnessey, and, as the story continues, Sam is also introduced to the effeminate Joel Cairo (Peter Lorre) and the fat, erudite Kasper Gutman (Sydney Greenstreet, in his film debut). It turns out that Brigid, Cairo and Gutman are all international scoundrels, all involved in the search for a foot-high, jewel-encrusted statuette in the shape of a falcon. Though both Cairo and Gutman offer Spade small fortunes to find the "black bird," they are obviously willing to commit mayhem and murder towards that goal: Gutman, for example, drugs Spade and allows his "gunsel" Wilmer (Elisha Cook Jr.) to kick and beat the unconscious detective. This classic film noir detective yarn gets better with each viewing, which is more than can be said for the first two Maltese Falcons and the ill-advised 1975 "sequel" The Black Bird.
Code:
STARS.........: Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, Gladys George
DIRECTOR......: John Huston
WRITERS.......: John Huston
GENRE.........: Film-Noir, Mystery
METASCORE.....: 96
TOMATOMETER...: 100
IMDB RATING...: 8.1/10 132,620 votes
IMDB LINK.....: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0033870
RUNTIME.......: 1h 40mn
SIZE..........: 4.41 GB
VIDEO CODEC...: HEVC ( [email protected])
BITRATE.......: 6000 Kbps (2-pass)
RESOLUTION....: 1920x1080
ASPECT RATIO..: 1.37:1
FRAMERATE.....: 23.976 fps
AUDIO1........: English AAC 1.0 192kbps
AUDIO2........: Commentary by Bogart biographer Eric Lax
SUBTITLES.....: ENG, FRE, SPA
CHAPTERS......: Yes
SOURCE........: Blu Ray
ENCODED BY....: Sartre
ENCODE DATE...: 2018-05-06
Sample Clip (Download file for actual quality)
https://drive.google.com/open?id=129Cg6nbY_okIMWq7TfUdGoKHK7xyBRDP
Extras
• Commentary by Bogart biographer Eric Lax;
• The Maltese Falcon: One Magnificent Bird (SD; 32:05) - A very good featurette with a host of expected and unexpected (Henry Rollins?) talking heads, and a wealth of production information;
• Breakdowns of 1941 (SD; 12:53) - A very funny compilation of on-set gaffes, which will make you hate the weird whistling of Jimmy Cagney within seconds;
• Makeup Tests (SD; 1:16), showing Astor assuming her two-faced role;
• Becoming Attractions: The Trailers of Humphrey Bogart (SD; 44:45) - A really interesting Robert Osborne hosted piece that traces Warner's marketing campaigns for various Bogart features, from The Petrified Forest to Treasure of the Sierra Madre;
• Warner Night at the Movies (SD; 38:14) - The programmable multi-featurette offering which recreates a 1941 night at the theater. This set includes a the Sergeant York trailer, a Newsreel, the musical short A Gay Parisian, and two cartoons, Hiawatha's Rabbit Hunt and Meet John Doughboy;
• Three Radio Show Adaptations of the piece, two with the film's stars, the third with Edward G. Robinson.
• Trailers for The Maltese Falcon and Satan Met a Lady round out the supplements.
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