Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Audience Rating: Unrated
Binding: DVD
EAN: 9786305729327
Format: Black & White, Closed-captioned, DVD-Video, Special Edition, NTSC
ISBN: 0790748401
Label: Warner Home Video
Manufacturer: Warner Home Video
Number Of Items: 1
Picture Format: Academy Ratio
Publisher: Warner Home Video
Region Code: 1
Release Date: February 15, 2000
Running Time: 100 minutes
Sales Rank: 16922
Studio: Warner Home Video
Theatrical Release Date: October 18, 1941
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Editorial Review:
Description:
Sam Spade is caught in a frantic search for the jeweled falcon of Malta and his partner's killer. His pursuit leads him to a group of desperate individuals who also want the bird.
Amazon.com essential video:
Still the tightest, sharpest, and most cynical of Hollywood's official deathless classics, bracingly tough even by post-Tarantino standards. Humphrey Bogart is Dashiell Hammett's definitive private eye, Sam Spade, struggling to keep his hard-boiled cool as the double-crosses pile up around his ankles. The plot, which dances all around the stolen Middle Eastern statuette of the title, is too baroque to try to follow, and it doesn't make a bit of difference. The dialogue, much of it lifted straight from Hammett, is delivered with whip-crack speed and sneering ferocity, as Bogie faces off against Peter Lorre and Sydney Greenstreet, fends off the duplicitous advances of Mary Astor, and roughs up a cringing 'gunsel' played by Elisha Cook Jr. It's an action movie of sorts, at least by implication: the characters always seem keyed up, right on the verge of erupting into violence. This is a turning-point picture in several respects: John Huston (The African Queen) made his directorial debut here in 1941, and Bogart, who had mostly played bad guys, was a last-minute substitution for George Raft, who must have been kicking himself for years afterward. This is the role that made Bogart a star and established his trend-setting (and still influential) antihero persona. --David Chute
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - The Stuff Dreams are made Of
"The Maltese Falcon" is a great movie because of its great actors and tight dialogue. Bogart, as the cynical but ultimately ultramoral, Sam Spade, is great as are his antitheses, Peter Lorre, Sidney Greenstreet and Mary Astor. Spade is suckered by a beautiful woman [Astor] into what turns out to be the criminal enterprise of locating the 'Maltese Falcon', a ceramic bird worth millions. Men and women fight and die to gain its possession.
The plot is convoluted but convincing and, finally, after the murder of several illicit wealth-seekers, the Falcon is located it and is found to be a phony. The cops lead the beautiful Astor who, while still proclaiming her 'love' for Bogart, off to her well-deserved punishment. Bogart, as Spade, has the opportunity to set her free but...does the 'right' thing and refuses to save her. Still, the last lines of the film really turn it from a good detective film to a great one. When asked what the worthless ceramic bird is all about, Spade answers, "The stuff dreams are made of."
Dreams, after all, aren't really about wealth. They are about pursuit.
Ron Braithwaite, author of novels--"Skull Rack" and "Hummingbird God"--on the Spanish Conquest of Mexico
Rating: - The Maltese Falcon ( 3-disc set)
This an classic by bogart, and I love this special edition 3-disc set. If love the classic, you had to buy this 3-disc set, I got an great deal at Amazon.com.
Rating: - Movie mastery throughout
How do you review an acknowledged classic movie? One must say that, of its kind, 'The Maltese Falcon' is justifiably classified as among the very best. I refer, of course and only, to the Humphrey Bogart, Sydney Greenstreet and Peter Lore version.
These 'old' black and white movies probably appear very 'out of date' to many younger people. This might be, but the films themselves are masterpieces. They rely on acting, directing and a good story to carry them along. Today, with all the bells and whistles - particularly the 'special effects', absolute rubbish is often considered good entertainment. Not so in the days gone by. Then, quality HAD to be evident, or the movies flopped.
The Maltese Falcon, Bogart edition, is supremely good in all respects and the colour doesn't matter in the slightest.
The surplus and absolutely redundant 'extras' included can, without loss, be left unopened!
Rating: - Maltese Falcon three disc special
Fascinating to see the three different versions, and how the dialogue and the whole style changes from one to the other, while the story remains essentially the same.Thoroughly recommended
Rating:  - The Matlese Falcon is made out of PEOPLE ... PEOPLE ...
Quick - as a young, energetic, inexperienced director you must make a final decision. As this director, one must either decide to show the audience the famed jeweled bird that has nearly taken up an hour and forty minutes of time, or transform a rather talking ending into a glorified public service announcement. The decision is a difficult one, but one must remember to reward the audience for their patience and time. Alas, that is not the case with this director in his first film "The Maltese Falcon". We are speaking of John Huston and his directorial debut with this live-action version of Dashiell Hammett's famed voice. It is a caper of sorts, a classic "who-done-it" which forces the audience to listen for clues and make their own judgment upon a vast array of cinematic icons. There is the first time introduction to the cultish detective Sam Spade, an early view of Chiklis' Vic Makey from "The Shield", in which Spade is held by no bonds and answers to nobody higher. There is the dame, Brigid O'Shaughnessy, who is the quintessential wild-card of the group, holding nothing but betting all, she sparks where there should be a flame. Peter Lorre's classic Joel Cairo leaves plenty for parody for the next several decades, while Sidney Greenstreet plays the cliché British crime lord willing to believe he is the smartest in the bunch. So we have a beginning - Huston inventing a formula that will be copies, used, abused, and overplayed throughout Hollywood for the rest of days - so ... why doesn't ... Read More
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