Most consider The Maltese Falcon to be the first noir, and it’s hard to deny it. The movie follows Sam Spade (Humphrey Bogart) as he navigates the schemers and dreamers of San Francisco. When Ruth Wonderly (Mary Astor) walks through his door, Spade gets more than he bargained for. She asks for help in finding her missing sister, and Spade’s partner, Miles Archer readily agrees. The next day, Spade is visited by the cops. Archer is dead, and Spade is suspected to be involved. Spade runs into Wonderly again, only now he discovers her real name is Brigid O’Shaughnessy and Spade suspects she had a hand in Archer’s death. To make matters worse, Spade is offered $50,000 from a greedy pair, Kasper Gutman (Sydney Greenstreet) and Joel Cairo (Peter Lorre), to find a rare artifact, the Maltese Falcon – possibly a more dangerous job than dealing with O’Shaughnessy. Spade has to keep himself afloat and not wind up dead in the gutter.

The Maltese Falcon is based on the novel by Dashiell Hammett, a former Pinkerton Agency detective-turned-writer who put some of his own experiences into his book, and also wrote Red Harvest and The Thin Man. John Huston, son of actor Walter Huston, was given the reins of the movie adaptation as his first directing job. He was so concerned with proving himself as a director that he meticulously planned out and sketched every shot in the film ahead of time. Because of this, he not only finished on time and within his budget, but he was also able to film in sequential order and leave almost nothing on the cutting room floor.

Bogart took the role of Sam Spade when George Raft didn’t want it, and between this film and High Sierra, which came out earlier in 1941, he shot to superstardom. Before 1941, Humphrey Bogart was relegated to villains and sidekicks, which really says something about what the right part can do for an actor. He fit Spade so well and the film was such a hit, that he became a romantic leading man despite having the looks of someone who should play villains their entire life. Mary Astor, based on the trailer, is “the most exciting woman [Spade’s] ever met.” I don’t know about that one. She’s good, don’t get me wrong, but she’s more exciting in the next movie she did, The Palm Beach Story. Peter Lorre does his sniveling, conniving Peter Lorre thing that’s been parodied to death, but like usual, it’s done well. All of the performances shine here.

Proof of the Peter Lorre thing:

Bonus Review: Chinatown

Personal feelings of Roman Polanski aside, Chinatown is one of those great examples of noir. Jake Gittes (Jack Nicholson) is hired by Evelyn Mulwray (Faye Dunaway) to gather proof of her husband’s infidelity. Instead, Jake unravels much more than he bargained for after finding the husband’s body in a freshwater reservoir with saltwater in his lungs. Evelyn strings Jake along with lie after lie, leading him into danger at every turn before admitting to the truth of her story. In this revelation, it’s revealed that Evelyn is not the biggest threat to Jake’s life nor is she the worst of the seedy underbelly of Los Angeles. Chinatown refuses to let up off the gas until the very end.

Hey, speaking of John Huston, he’s in this movie as the sexually abusive father of Evelyn and Evelyn’s daughter, Katherine. If that doesn’t read clearly enough, I’ll spell it out. Jack Huston’s character, Noah Cross, rapes his own daughter and impregnates her. Eww. Anyway, Chinatown I think works best as a critique of LA life and culture, particularly Hollywood. The perversions of its denizens are commonplace and so everyone just throws it under the rug, which is rich coming from Roman Polanski who was convicted of raping a 13-year-old girl. But maybe he sees himself in the Cross character instead of Gittes?

Chinatown is a slower-paced noir, so there are times where it feels like nothing is happening, but it builds to a shocking and powerful finale. Honestly, the weight of the ending is what gives the film its staying power when its creator has fallen from grace. It’s definitely a strong example of needing to separate the art from the artist.