THE MALTESE FALCON

New Zealand Listener, Volume 12, Issue 302, 6 April 1945, Page 17

THE MALTESE FALCON

(Warner Bros.)

|? has taken nearly four years for The Maltese Falcon to get around to my part of the world, and I cannot help feeling that the bird’s

plumage may have lost a little of its sheen in that time. For one thing we have probably seen some of the imitations before we have had the chance to see the original. But it still remains a good thriller about bad people — a Dashiell Hammett story about a group of very determined crooks double-cross-ing one another in order to gain possession of the bejewelled statuette of a falcon and all mixed up with a private detective (Humphrey Bogart) who is even tougher than they are. As social types not one of them’ is worth a moment of your sympathy; as characters in an improbable but exciting situation they are good for an evening’s enter-tainment-if this is the sort of entertainment you like. Sidney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre in particular are brilliantly sinisterSidney Greenstreet with the huge girth, the deep laugh, the By Gad, sir, I like you, sir, by Gad I do, you’re a character if you don’t mind my saying so; and Peter Lorre, showing everyone what acting really is in a part that makes him into a ridiculous little, greedy little, soft little, whining little money-grabber. And Elisha Cook Jr., the drummer boy of Pharitom Lady is there, too, in another nasty little triumph of acting. And Mr. Bogart himself, so hard the bullets would glance off him if he ever gave anybody a chance to take a shot before he dropped him,