Originally published in a serialized form in the late 1920s, Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon was a highly influential precursor to the tremendously popular hardboiled fiction. It remains an exciting read with a detached, morally ambiguous detective and all the key elements of a noir mystery to be expected of the genre, but lacks the significant substance to make it truly remarkable.
When his partner is shot while on a stakeout for a new client, detective Sam Spade is drawn into a seedy world of bumbling policemen, beautiful and dangerous women, and treasure hunting criminals – all of them seeking the priceless ornament, the Maltese Falcon. The plot, circuitous as it is, is the supporting player to the noir style that Hammett is renowned for. Like with Chandler’s The Big Sleep, even if the reader becomess lost in the twists and double-crossings it doesn’t pose much of an issue. None of the characters ever seem to really know what is truth, who to believe or what is happening. Hammett is careful to never reveal the inner thoughts of those around Spade, we can only trust Spade’s professional intuition, his simmering violence and distrust of everything.
The boy spoke two words, the first a short guttural verb, the second ‘you.’
‘People lose teeth talking like that.’ Spade’s voice was still amiable though his face had become wooden. ‘If you want to hang around you’ll be polite.’
The boy repeated his two words.
Sam Spade is such a great character, described as “a blond Satan”, his motives are always ambiguous, even in the end, but he is just so effortlessly cool. He knows who to call, when to call, he knows the tricks to get the information he needs. Most importantly, he knows to trust no one. Not even the timid yet beautiful Brigid O’Shaughnessy that seeks his help. Of course, their relationship isn’t strictly business, and there are some tantalizing fade-to-black sex scenes, the saucier details ignored in favour of keeping the plot moving. Even if, at times, it feels like much of the plot involves the characters sitting in offices and apartments, smoking during lengthy discussions.
He shut his eyes and smiled complacently at an inner thought. He opened his eyes and said: ‘That was seventeen years ago. Well, sir, it took me seventeen years to locate that bird, but I did it. I wanted it, and I’m not a man that’s easily discouraged when he wants something.’ His smile grew broad. ‘I wanted it and I found it. I want it and I’m going to have it.’
It would be impossible for me to review this book without mentioning the iconic film version, the 1941 film directed by John Huston and starring Humphrey Bogart – the first major film noir. Reading Joel Cairo’s affected dialogue in the Maltese Falcon, it is impossible to not hear Peter Lorre speaking them, or to picture anyone but Sydney Greenstreet as Casper Gutman. Much of the dialogue was lifted straight from the novel for the screenplay, and it must be one of the more faithful novel-to-film adaptations.
Yet, for all its seedy hardboiled style, whipsmart protagonists, crackling dialogue and swift plotting, I can’t help but feel that The Maltese Falcon is, well, empty. Not quite the fraud the characters in the novel so desperately devote themselves to, but similarly not worth as much as we’re led to believe. A successful innovator of the style, and a cleverly plotted thriller but lacking anything beyond that to really give it any weight. It just does not have the psychological depth to push it beyond being a captivating story. Perhaps this can be attributed to the lack of insight into any of the characters, we are blind to their motives – and pure greed seems too simple an answer – and their futile and ruthless search for something which may not even exist isn’t explored in any great depth. Style is the clear winner in The Maltese Falcon, and Dashiell Hammett is a skilled master of the genre.