John Huston: The Maltese Falcon

The USPS has issued a set of four stamps honoring great film directors and the films for which they are most remembered. The four selected are: John Ford (The Searchers), John Huston (The Maltese Falcon), Frank Capra (It’s a Wonderful Life), and Billy Wilder (Some Like It Hot). We will be exploring the lives and work of these directors over the next several weeks. In this post LR Simon reviews The Maltese Falcon (1941).

John Huston’s adaptation of Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon, which is one of the more important debut efforts by a director, followed the source material closely. Huston made changes to few scenes, and added only a new, slightly altered ending. Two previous adaptations of the novel did not perform well at the box office, and the studio did not expect much from Huston’s version. While Huston’s screenplay was faithful to the novel, his vision for the film included a deeper understanding of the themes of the novel than the earlier films had. Audiences and critics received Huston’s adaptation so enthusiastically that Huston went on to direct all of his subsequent screenplays except one, Three Strangers (1946).

Huston’s preparation with extensive storyboarding allowed the crew to work efficiently, which was important for the film’s tight budget. Because Huston was a trained artist, he was able to communicate camera angles and movement, composition, and lighting in his storyboards.

The casting of Bogart as Sam Spade proved to be important to both Huston and Bogart, who would work together several more times. Prior to The Maltese Falcon, Bogart had been typecast as a villain or a heavy; this flawed but heroic role allowed him to take on a variety of roles that had been denied him, such as romantic leads (Casablanca, Sabrina). Bogart would give better performances in other films, but he gave Spade more dimension and humanity than Hammett gave him in the novel.

Huston’s The Maltese Falcon became the model for future detective melodramas. The writing, direction, and production were clean and uncomplicated. By limiting the scenes of action, Huston created a sense of claustrophobia or paranoia that would characterize film noir. Elements of Huston’s work here certainly influenced other great noir films, including The Big Sleep and Double Indemnity.

References:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Huston
http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/filmnotes/fnf97n2.html