The Maltese Falcon

John Huston, USA, 1941
4 out of 4 stars

I first saw this film before graduate school, and I have now shown it three times for the last class in the composition series. The last time, I went out for a sandwich at one point, so I don't consider that a "full" viewing.

The time before that, I registered some displeasure at the one time that my students laughed. Well, if that's truly a bad thing, then I should have been out of my mind this time, as a big chunk of my students laughed numerous times throughout the movie. Actually, one student later explained in office hours that one of her peers in that corner of the room had a very contagious laugh, which makes a lot of sense, if only because I found myself laughing quite a bit as well!

So, did it take the serendipity of a giggly 19-year-old woman to reveal that The Maltese Falcon was actually a comedy after all? I think that's going a bit far, but it did make me think more carefully about the obvious fact of how ridiculous many elements are - deliberately, mind you. Joel Cairo (Peter Lorre), the walking gay/foreign stereotype is always throwing these absurd fits, while Sam Spade (Humphrey Bogart) at one point throws his own fit, just to get his foes into the right mindset (why this works is unclear, but it certianly does, and he calms down as soon as he leaves the room, to let us know he was just kidding - he doesn't really have that much emotion!).

I'm not sure I have much more to add than that for this viewing. I did raise the rating by a half star, if only because I'm not sure that I can find a whole half-star worth of flaws in this movie (does it really matter that much that Mary Astor is not that convincing? Maybe she's not supposed to be).

Source: Warner special edition DVD
24 July, 11:30 AM