[5]

A mysterious woman enters detective Sam Spade’s office with information about a valuable statue called the Maltese Falcon. Spade is soon swept up into a mystery involving multiple pursuers of the statue in this famous story from Dashielle Hammett. This film directed by Roy Del Ruth is the first of three film iterations of the story. The third version — directed by John Huston — is the one that went down in history, but the story and dialogue are very nearly identical between the first and third. Actor Ricardo Cortez’s take on Sam Spade is very different than Bogart’s. Cortez plays Spade with a flirtatious, shit-eating grin. After seeing Bogey in the role, you just can’t accept this earlier portrayal. Other members of the cast do a good job, even rivaling the Huston cast members. Bebe Daniels plays Wonderly (O’Shaugnessy) more sweet and naive, which makes her fate a little more bittersweet. Dudley Digges seems cut from the same cloth as Sidney Greenstreet, and Dwight Frye actually outshines Elisha Cook Jr in the role of Wilmer. (Frye is quickly becoming one of my favorite old character actors.) Production values are fairly high in this film, but it’s not quite as stylish as Huston’s take.