Maltese Falcon, The (DVD)

Connect to Facebook/Twitter, recommend via email and much more.

---

Video:
Warner Bros. obtained the best copy of the film they could find to transfer, and digitally restored it from original elements. A high bit rate ensures that the 1.33:1 (from 1.37:1) black-and-white contrasts show up strongly, the black tones, especially, almost always deep and solid. The picture quality is first-rate.

Audio:
The Dolby Digital 1.0 monaural sound is also quite good for its age, coming up as well as we might expect. The soundtrack renders dialogue crisply, and background music, naturally restricted in frequency and dynamics, is nonetheless clear and persuasive.

Extras:
In honor of the film's rank as one of the best detective movies of all time, if not the very best, Warner Bros. have given it not just an ordinary special-edition treatment, but a Three-Disc Special Edition treatment. The first disc contains the feature film, with an informed and informative audio commentary by Bogart biographer Eric Lax; a theatrical trailer for "The Maltese Falcon" that contains an introduction by Sydney Greenstreet; twenty-eight scene selections (but no chapter insert); English as the only spoken language; and English, French, and Spanish subtitles.

In addition, the first disc includes a Warner Night at the Movies 1941: First, there's a vintage newsreel. That's followed by the Oscar-nominated Technicolor musical short "The Gay Parisian," twenty minutes of the ballet set to an arrangement of Offenbach tunes, "Gaite Parisiene," and performed by the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. Then, there's a trailer for 1941's "Sergeant York." And, finally, there are two classic cartoons, "Hiawatha's Rabbit Hunt," in color with Bugs Bunny, and "Meet John Doughboy," in black-and-white with Porky Pig.

Disc two contains the full-length film versions of the Dashiell Hammett novel that preceded the Bogart classic. The first is "The Maltese Falcon" from 1931 with Ricardo Cortez and Bebe Daniels, directed by Roy Del Ruth. WB made it the year following the book's success, and it is a pretty straightforward retelling of the story, until the very end. However, Cortez looks much too much like a matinee idol to make a convincing Spade, and he exudes little of Hammett's hard-boiled characteristics. The movie comes with twenty-one scene selections (but again no insert); English as the only spoken language; and English, French, and Spanish subtitles.

The second movie is "Satan Met a Lady" from 1936 with Warren William and Bette Davis, directed by William Dieterle. Apparently, Warner Bros. didn't want to duplicate completely a movie they had made just five years earlier, so they changed the title, the names of the characters, some of the plot, even changing the black bird to the Horn of Roland. Spade, now Ted Shayne, is a devil of a ladies' man and so troublesome the local civic leaders keep kicking him out of town. Despite its lighthearted tone, this version completely misses the point of the book and the other two films. It comes with twenty scene selections; a theatrical trailer; English as the spoken language; and English, French, and Spanish subtitles. Both films are worth watching once, but if either version teaches us anything, it's how very good the Bogart movie is.

Disc three contains mostly documentary material. The first is the 2006 documentary, "The Maltese Falcon: One Magnificent Bird." It's thirty-two minutes long, provides a background on Hammett, the book, and the movie, and contains comments from filmmakers, actors, and authors like Peter Bogdanovich, Richard Deakins, James Cromwell, Michael Madsen, Frank Miller, and many more. After that Robert Osborne hosts "Becoming Attractions," a documentary look at the career of Humphrey Bogart as seen through the trailers for his movies, showing the various ways Hollywood marketed him. It's a novel idea. Then there's a hilarious, thirteen-minute studio blooper reel, "Breakdowns of 1941," where we get to hear famous old actors cussing out their mistakes; and that's followed by a one-minute series of makeup tests. The last items are audio-only bonuses from 1943 and 1946, three radio-show adaptations of "The Maltese Falcon," two of them featuring the original stars, plus another version starring Edward G. Robinson.

Parting Thoughts:
As a testimonial to the enduring public approval of "The Maltese Falcon" over the years, other movies have parodied it and its characters many times. "The Cheap Detective," "The Black Bird," "Murder By Death," and "The Maltese Bippy" are a just a few titles that come to mind, affectionate tributes to the original. All of the films in the "Bogart Signature Collection, Vol. II" are worth watching, but it is "The Maltese Falcon" that a legion of fans continue to call a classic. Count me among them. If the big box seems too intimidating, remember that while the other films are exclusive to the set, you can buy the "The Maltese Falcon" Three-Disc Special Edition on its own.

---

Connect to Facebook/Twitter, recommend via email and much more.

---