The Maltese Falcon

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Warner Brothers has one of the greatest film catalogs of any studio; yet they don't appear to take their DVD issues very seriously. Who on earth would put "Goodfellas" on two sides of a disc? or not release the "Director's Cut" version of "Eyes Wide Shut" (imagine the added revenue if they had)? or release a slapdash collection of Kubrick's films? or almost never digitally enhance the audio or visual transfer or provide any significant extras? Compared to the deluxe packages that Universal, Criterion, and, even, Paramount has mustered, Warners' issues - all released in cheap and easily breakable snap cases - are a peculiar desecration of a vaunted film legacy.

Case in point: "The Maltese Falcon". Arguably the greatest detective film ever made, Warners at least releases it with a decent video transfer. Unfortunately, the audio synchronizing is off during the last 15 minutes of the movie (by a second but it's still noticable) and I wasn't able to access all the people on the "Cast and Crew" menu (no, it wasn't a machine error, as I tested on several discs thereafter). Moreover, although I enjoyed the "Trailers of Humphrey Bogart" section, it would have been nice if Warners spent the money to create a documentary history of the film the way they did on Universal's "Casablanca" release.

Much ink has been spilt praising "The Maltese Falcon" so I won't go into any panegyrics here. It's just a shame that Warners doesn't take this market seriously enough to put more care into the DVD releases of their finest films.

Warner Bros. Pictures presents "MALTESE FALCON" (1941) (101 min/B&W) -- Starring Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, Sydney Greenstreet, Barton MacLane & & Peter Lorre

Directed by John Huston

Outstanding detective drama with Bogey as Dashiell Hammett's creation Sam Spade finding himself surrounded by shadey characters all greedily fighting for possession of a statue of a falcon containing priceless jewels. John Huston's first directorial effort (which he also scripted) moves at lightning pace.

Academy Award nominations for Picture (Warner Bros), Screenplay, Best Writing (John Huston) and Best Supporting Actor (Sydney Greenstreet)

George Raft was originally cast as Sam Spade. He turned it down because it was "not an important picture," taking advantage of a clause in his contract that said he did not have to work on remakes.

Although this was the 62-year old Sydney Greenstreet's film debut, he had already worked as a prominent stage actor for forty years.

Notable for being also the initial combination of Greenstreet & Lorre on film (they appeared 8 times together).

Other films to feature the Greenstreet / Lorre combination were Casablanca (1942), Background to Danger (1943), Passage to Marseille (1944), The Mask of Dimitrios (1944), The Conspirators (1944), Three Strangers (1946) & The Verdict (1946)

BIOS:
1. John Huston [Director]
Date of Birth: 5 August 1906 - Nevada, Missouri
Date of Death: 28 August 1987 - Middletown, Rhode Island

2. Humphrey Bogart [aka: Humphrey DeForest Bogart]
Date of Birth: 25 December 1899 - New York City, New York
Date of Death: 14 January 1957 - Los Angeles, California

3. Mary Astor [aka: Lucile Vasconcellos Langhanke]
Date of Birth: 3 May 1906 - Quincy, Illinois
Date of Death: 25 September 1987 - Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California

4. Sydney Greenstreet [aka: Sydney Hughes Greenstreet]
Date of Birth: 27 December 1879 - Sandwich, Kent, England, UK
Date of Death: 18 January 1954 - Hollywood, California

5.Peter Lorre (aka: László Löwenstein)
Date of birth: 26 June 1904 - Rózsahegy, Austria-Hungary [now Ruzomberok, Slovakia]
Date of death: 23 March 1964 - Los Angeles, California

6. Barton MacLane
Date of Birth: 25 December 1902 - Columbia, South Carolina
Date of Death: 1 January 1969 - Santa Monica, California

7. Gladys George [aka: Gladys Clare Evans]
Date of Birth: 13 September 1900 - Patten, Maine
Date of Death: 8 December 1954 - Los Angeles, California

Mr. Jim's Ratings:
Quality of Picture & Sound: 5 Stars
Performance: 5 Stars
Story & Screenplay: 5 Stars
Overall: 5 Stars [Original Music, Cinematography & Film Editing]

Total Time: 101 min on DVD ~ Warner Bros. Pictures ~ (10/05/2010)