The Maltese Falcon -- Is it Noir?

[Steve-O]

Like THE MALTESE FALCON, KEY LARGO is really not a film noir. Both films traffic in the trappings of noir, but they lack that certain something that defines what noir is to me.

This is how I can tell if someone is a true noir fan: if they can state that The Maltese Falcon isn't a noir and be able to back it up! eubiecat, I do understand your feelings about The Maltese Falcon (featured in the Noir of the Week here (http://www.noiroftheweek.com/2007/09/maltese-falcon-1941.html) and here (http://www.noiroftheweek.com/2007/11/john-huston-great-noir-director-part-1.html)) but I think that this is the first noir... therefore many of the elements we know of in film noir today were not part of movies yet. Film noir as we know it was still being developed. Falcon director John Huston would latter make the perfect noir when he did The Asphalt Jungle a few years later. But The Maltese Falcon is a film noir.

I'd like to know what others think about it... and there's a poll above too.

17

[Hart]

Yeah, I would agree, Steve-O. If the Maltese Falcon ain't noir than I wonder what is...........sometimes people have all kinds of weird reasons for discarding a film from the canon. Reminds me of a guy at one of the Roxie noir festivals in Frisco last year who told me while we were waiting outside of the theater that Out of the Past wasn't noir because it was 'just melodrama.' I told him some noirs were heavy with melodrama, and besides that what about everything else in the film (the cinematography, low or odd camera angles, the sense of fatalism, a corrupted P.I., Greer as the beautiful femme fatale, etc.). All he could answer was that it didn't strike him as noir--at least compared to his personal favorites in the genre/style.

Anyways, about the Falcon, I'd say it has everything I mentioned above about Out of the Past, but perhaps its not as stylish or as dour of a film? I've heard those complaints before. Visually it looks rather flat in comparsion to later noirs and Spade isn't as morally weak as someone like Mitchum in Out of the Past, and doesn't give in to the femme fatale character and the destruction she brings. Perhaps legit commentary on the Falcon but do all all of the movies in the canon have to have all of the same elements to be considered noir?

[JCharles]

I would say The Maltese Falcon is definitely a film noir, and, Steve-O, your point is well stated that film noir had to go through stages of development and that this film may be the earliest example. Certainly, in terms of stylistics, there are shadows and plenty of fog. Huston adds some nice visual flourishes throughout the film (Spade's hand reaching for the phone, curtains blowing languidly in the breeze, close-ups of Greenstreet's bulk, the characters faces shot from a low angle while staring at Elisha Cook etc.)
It is well-documented that Huston wrote the script almost verbatim from Hammet's great novel, and, for the film, it retains a central noir theme: Most of the characters are deceptive and untrustworthy; they are frequently, if not always, lying to each other in an effort to gain the upper hand. Spade, too, has much to hide, but he reveals himself to Brigid at the end. He sends her over for Miles' murder and helps the police apprehend the remaining criminals. Although he does the right thing, he is not untouched or unscathed by what has gone on and that certainly makes this story noir.

[Fast Eddie]

Here's my take on it, which focuses more on what Bogart brought to the screen, than the pictorial quality...

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/02/06/CMGS7AO2O31.DTL&type=printable

Hope to see some of you in NYC Friday when we present THE PROWLER, restored, at Film Forum. I'll intro the 7:40 pm show.

Cheers,

EM

[eubiecat]

I'm honored that my admittedly controversial comment should inspire another post!

THE MALTESE FALCON is, to me, a classic detective story, but it belongs to a pre-noir, pre-Depression America. It is neat and orderly, with a little leftover flavor of the late Victorian era.

It is riveting as a detective story, but stylistically, the film is static and cold to me. It is a filmed book--a very fine filmed book, but a filmed book nonetheless.

Dashiell Hammett does not seem noir to me. Raymond Chandler does. That is why I can still read Chandler and get something out of it, whereas Hammett leaves me somewhat cold.

Noir to me is Cornell Woolrich, Fredric Brown, David Goodis, Horace McCoy, Jonathan Latimer, et al. It is a product of the Depression, and of World War Two.

THE STRANGER ON THE THIRD FLOOR and I WAKE UP SCREAMING are film noirs. Those are the two films that I feel hit upon this certain recipe of fatalism, visual style and character that make the genre distinct.

MALTESE FALCON is too much of a piece with the locked-room mysteries and more intellectual bent of pre-Depression mystery fiction.

Obviously, I'm in the minority with this view. Thank you for letting me express this unpopular POV, and of putting this on the table.

[JCharles]

Thanks, EM, for sharing your fine article, I enjoyed reading it and I'm looking forward to tomorrow night's show.