The Maltese Falcon is a 1931 American pre-Code crime film based on the 1930 novel The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett and directed by Roy Del Ruth. The film stars Ricardo Cortez as private detective Sam Spade and Bebe Daniels as femme fatale Ruth Wonderly. The supporting cast features Dudley Digges, Thelma Todd, Walter Long, Una Merkel, and Dwight Frye. Maude Fulton and Brown Holmes wrote the screenplay; one contemporaneous report said that Lucien Hubbard was assisting them.
While the film was successful, its legacy was deeply hampered by the enforcement of the Hays Code. The film was remade by the studio twice, with its 1941 remake starring Humphrey Bogart and Mary Astor overshadowing its predecessors. The film was not seen in its entirety until after the collapse of the Code in the mid-1960s. A print has been held by the Library of Congress since the 1970s.
In San Francisco, private investigator Sam Spade (Ricardo Cortez) and his partner Miles Archer (Walter Long) are hired by Ruth Wonderly (Bebe Daniels) to follow Floyd Thursby, a man that allegedly ran off with her younger sister. Later that night, police detective Tom Polhaus (J. Farrell MacDonald) informs Spade that Archer has been killed while tailing Thursby. Thursby is killed later, and the police suspect Spade.
The next day, Spade calls on Wonderly in an attempt to find out her real reasons for hiring them. She gives Spade little information, but manages to keep him on the case. Later, Dr. Joel Cairo (Otto Matieson) visits his office and offers him $5,000 if he can retrieve an enamel figurine of a black bird. Cairo is trying to recover it for the "rightful owner". Not knowing anything about the statuette, Spade plays along and agrees to try to recover it.
That night, at his apartment, Spade tells Wonderly about his talk with Cairo, and she becomes nervous. Then Polhaus and his superior Lt. Dundy (Robert Elliott) arrive. They question Spade, but are interrupted by the screams of Wonderly, who is holding Cairo at gunpoint after he has broken in. The policemen leave with Cairo in tow. The next morning, as Wonderly sleeps in his bed, Spade lifts her latchkey and thoroughly searches her apartment, finding nothing.
Returning to his own place, Spade receives a note from Casper Gutman (Dudley Digges), inviting him to come and talk about the black bird. Over drinks and cigars, Spade learns the history and value of the statuette, which is encrusted with precious jewels. Gutman is the mastermind behind the attempt to steal it. Believing Spade has it, Gutman reveals everything he knows. Just then, Cairo arrives and tells Gutman privately that Spade does not have the falcon, as Wonderly gave it to the captain of the ship La Paloma, which arrives from Hong Kong that night. Gutman slips Spade a mickey (knockout drops) in a celebratory drink, and leaves.
Later that night, Spade arrives back in his office and finds his secretary Effie Perine (Una Merkel ) asleep behind his desk. Suddenly, a man staggers in, drops the suitcase he is carrying, and dies – it is Captain Jacoby (Agostino Borgato) of the La Paloma, who has been shot several times. The suitcase has the black bird in it. Spade checks the bag at a baggage check and sends himself the ticket in the mail. Called in to see the district attorney (Morgan Wallace) because of Archer's murder, Spade is given 24 hours to wrap up the case and identify the real killers.
Wonderly lures Spade into his apartment, where Cairo and Gutman are waiting with guns. Gutman offers him an envelope with $10,000 in exchange for the falcon. Spade insists there also has to be a "fall guy" that will go to jail for the murders and suggests Gutman's gunman, Wilmer Cook (Dwight Frye). Gutman and Cairo agree to Spade's proposal. Spade calls Effie and asks her to bring the suitcase to them in the morning, while Gutman explains how Wilmer killed Thursby and Jacoby.
The bag shows up, and Wilmer escapes while the conspirators are frantically opening it and examining the bird. They soon determine that it is a fake, they have been duped by the previous owner, and Gutman and Cairo decide to make another attempt to steal it. As they leave, Gutman takes back his $10,000 from Spade at gunpoint. Spade immediately calls Detective Polhaus and tells him to pick up Gutman, Cairo and Wilmer. Confronting Wonderly, Spade accuses her of killing Archer to frame Thursby and get him out of the way. She admits it, and Spade tells her that he is going to turn her in, despite their love for each other.
When Dundy and Polhaus show up, they reveal that Wilmer killed Gutman and Cairo before being apprehended. Spade gives them Wilmer's guns, tells them that Wonderly killed Archer, and they take her away. Spade goes to visit Wonderly in prison to tell her that he has been made chief investigator for the district attorney's office. Spade instructs the prison matron to treat Wonderly well and give her whatever she wants. When the matron asks who will pay etc..,
