San Francisco, back in 1941 or somewhere abouts, before it became the Shit Capital of the World. Ah, good times! Private Investigative office of Spade & Archer. Damsel in distress hires em to find her sister. Suspect Info is given. Plots unfold. People die.
Since this is a classic detective story, the less known goin into the better. Sure, it’s black and white, but that doesn’t detract from the story. This Detective guy Sam Spade, played systematically (and well) by Humphrey Bogart, is one cool dude. Rollin smokes, Smokin cigs, and Solvin shit. That just how he rolls.
Fast-paced dialogue doesn’t hide the fact there’s some good lines here and a tightly paced story that goes over a lot of ground before the end. Spade even gives the line “whatdaya want me to do, learn to stutter?” There’s smokin, there’s drinkin, there’s even a mickey. What’s that, you ask? Drink one and find out. Mary Aster does a decent enough job as the broad, and Peter Lorre is perfect as one of the parties involved in the search for said Maltese Falcon. While the book it was based on was written by noted Detectivins author Dashiell Hammett about ten years prior and already filmed twice(!), first-time director John Huston did a great job with this third version before going on to direct a lot of decent films, including The African Queen with his buddy Bogart.
