On The Case
Sam Spade and his partner Miles Archer run a small detective agency in San Francisco. One morning, a woman named Brigid O’Shaughnessy (Mary Astor) comes in to ask for their help. She claims that her sister may have been kidnapped or is otherwise in some distress from a certain man in San Francisco. Archer decides to trail this man that evening, but he gets gunned down, but so does the man he was trailing. Spade begins to look into the matter and soon begins to discover that a high-dollar jeweled falcon statue is the source of all of the trouble. Spade encounters Joel Cairo and his cohort Kasper Gutman, who are determined to locate the statue. Meanwhile, Ms. O’Shaughnessy continues to walk a fine line between telling the truth and lying, creating another complication for Spade as he tries to clear his name from the police (who think he was behind the murder of his partner) and stay out of the way of Gutman’s hitmen.
The Maltese Falcon is an intriguing film. There is much to like with the film, although I thought O’Shaughnessy’s character added to much of a romantic and overly dramatic weight to an otherwise nicely paced and steadily interesting piece. This complication makes it harder to enjoy the film on repeat viewings, although it’s a movie that any fan of Bogart’s or the time period shouldn’t miss.
The Falcon Shines On Blu-ray
The Maltese Falcon on Blu-ray is presented in its original 4:3 frame and in black and white. The image quality is very crisp and with no technical flaws, making this is an impressive HD transfer. I’m glad that Warner didn’t try to alter the original film in terms of colorizing or changing the image format — the original frame and (lack of) color look great as they are. The audio track is a DTS-HD Master in 1.0, with subtitle support offered in English, Spanish, German, French, and several other languages.
There are several extra features as well. They are:
Warner Night At the Movies:
–Sergeant York Trailer (SD, 2m)
-Newsreel (SD, 1m25s) – Footage of Churchill at sea.
–The Gay Parisian (SD, 20m) A colorful, short, musical/dance film.
–Hiawatha’s Rabbit Hunt (SD, 7m) – A Looney Tunes cartoon featuring Bugs Bunny.
–Meet John Doughboy (HD, 7m) – For as sharp as this looked, I’m pretty certain this was actually an HD transfer. That said, it’s an animated short featuring Porky Pig.
-Audio Commentary with Eric Lax (The Maltese Falcon: One Magnificent Bird)
-Becoming Attractions: The Trailers of Humphrey Bogart (SD, 44m) – A TCM feature on Bogart and many of his film trailers.
-Breakdowns of 1941 (SD, 13m) – A gag reel from a variety of films from 1941 — who would have thought! It’s actually pretty entertaining.
-Makeup Tests (SD, 1m16s) – Two scenes of Mary Astor from the film, doing a make-up test.
Audio Only Versions of the film as heard on:
2/8/1943 – Lux Radio Broadcast (58m)
9/20/1943 – Screen Guild Theater Broadcast (28.5m)
7/3/1946 – Academy Award Theater Broadcast (27.5m)
Trailers – Satan Met A Lady, (1936), and The Maltese Falcon, (1941)
With that, lets get to the summary…