Facts > Films > The Maltese Falcon
The Maltese Falcon (1941) Facts
| Director(s) | John Huston |
| Producer(s) | Hal B. Wallis, Henry Blanke |
| Featured Cast | Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, Gladys George, Peter Lorre, Barton MacLane |
| Total Facts | 68 |
The first pairing of Sydney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre who would go on to make nine more movies together.
The now-famous seven-minute take - truly innovative in its day - took two days to rehearse.
The opening scroll about the history of the Maltese Falcon is entirely made up.
The revolver used to shoot Miles is correctly identified by Sam as a Webley-Fosbery. All Sam says about it is, "They don't make 'em anymore." Much more than that, it was an experiment to get a handgun to automatically reload and cock itself between shots. We're familiar with a typical semi-automatic pistol with a moving slide, but this was a revolver that used its backward momentum to cock the hammer and rotate the cylinder, readying it for the next pull of the trigger. They are very sought after by collectors. (see also Goofs)
The role of Brigid O'Shaughnessy was first offered to 27-year-old Geraldine Fitzgerald. Although the studio desperately wanted the newcomer in the role, she turned it down flat because it interfered with a scheduled trip to the East Coast. Other candidates for the role included Olivia de Havilland, Rita Hayworth, and Ingrid Bergman.
The scene where Sydney Greenstreet tries to get Humphrey Bogart to take a drink which is drugged was the former's first time in front of a Hollywood camera.
The total cost of designing, casting and painting all of the Maltese Falcons prepared for the film was less than $700.00.
There is an inordinate amount of smoking done by the main actors in this film. According to then-studio employee (and future screenwriter) Stuart Jerome, this resulted in a feud between stars Humphrey Bogart and Peter Lorre, and studio head Jack L. Warner. Warner hated to see actors smoking on the screen, fearing it would prompt smokers in the movie audience to step out into the lobby for a cigarette. During the filming of _Maltese Falcon, The (1941)_, Warner told director John Huston that smoking in the film should be kept to a minimum. Bogart and Lorre thought it would be fun to annoy Warner by smoking as often as possible, and got their co-stars, Mary Astor and Sydney Greenstreet to go along with the joke. During the initial filming of the climactic confrontation, all four actors smoked heavily. After seeing the rushes, Warner furiously called Huston to his office and threatened to fire him from the picture if he didn't tell Bogart and Lorre to knock it off. Realizing their prank had backfired, Bogart and Lorre agreed to stop smoking on camera. However, when the next series of rushes came back, i
There were several 11-1/2" tall falcon props made for use in the film. Some were cast of plastic resin, some of lead. Only two 45 lb. lead falcons and two 5 lb., 5.4 oz resin falcons are verified to be in existence today. One lead Falcon has been displayed for years at various venues. The second, which was marred at the end of the movie by Sydney Greenstreet, was a gift to William Conrad by studio chief Jack L. Warner. It was auctioned in December 1994, nine months after Conrad's death for $398,500 to Ronald Winston of Harry Winston, Inc. At that time, it was the highest price paid for a movie prop ever sold for. It was used to model a 10 lb. gold replica displayed at the 69th Academy Awards. The replica has Burmese ruby eyes, interchangeable claws (one set of gold, one set of coral) and holds a platinum chain in its beak with a 42.98 flawless diamond at the end. It's valued at over $8 million. The lead and resin falcons are valued in excess of $2 million - coincidentally the value placed on the "real" Maltese Falcon by Kasper Gutman, Greenstreet's character in the 1941 classic movie.
There's only one scene in the film - the pistol that kills Miles Archer - that doesn't involve the presence of Sam Spade. It was put in at the studio's insistence.
Three of the statuettes still exist and are conservatively valued at over $1 million each. This makes them some of the most valuable film props ever made; indeed they are now worth more than the film cost to make.
Two "Maltese Falcons" were used for the film because Humphrey Bogart dropped the original during shooting. The original falcon is on display in the movie museum at Warner Bros. studios; its tail feathers are visibly dented from Bogey's flub sixty years ago.
Warner Bros. planned to change the name of the film to "The Gent from Frisco" because the novel's title had already been used on the 1931 version. The studio eventually agreed to keep the original title at John Huston's insistence.
When he completed the screenplay, John Huston storyboarded it, allowing him the chance to give great thought to pictorial composition and camera movement. This whole set-up took two days to rehearse.
When she landed the part of Ilsa in Casablanca, Ingrid Bergman watched this film repeatedly so as to study Humphrey Bogart's acting technique.
When Spade visits the murder scene of his partner, in the background can be seen a poster for a film called Swing Your Lady, an in-joke directed at Humphrey Bogart who was one of the stars of this B-movie. Bogart referred to it as "the worst picture I ever made".
When Warner Brothers saw how successful the film was, the studio decided to produce a sequel. Director John Huston had written the script for the sequel, which was to be titled 'Three Strangers'. The film was supposed to contain many of the primary characters from The Maltese Falcon, specifically Sam Spade. Before the film reached production; however, Dashiell Hammett informed Warner Brothers that he owned the rights to the characters in The Maltese Falcon and even though the studio had purchased the rights to novel, it did not own the rights to the characters in the novel. The sequel was never made; but, John Huston's script for Three Strangers was eventually filmed. Although the characters differed from The Maltese Falcon, Peter Lorre and Sydney Greenstreet both appeared in the film.
Word-for-word and scene-for-scene virtually the same as the original novel.