More than anyone, Humphrey Bogart was the face of film noir. Most histories of the genre mark John Huston’s definitive adaptation of Dashiell Hammett’s hard-boiled novel as the starting point, and Bogie’s portrait of private investigator Sam Spade encapsulates much of what makes noir so compelling: Spade is a callous cynic by experience, a louse whose dim estimate of human behaviour is his strongest professional attribute, and a closet romantic beneath it all. Huston famously said that 95% of directing was in the casting, and his first film bears that out.
See also Wim Wenders and Francis Coppola’s movie Hammett, with Frederic Forrest as the former p.i. turned author getting caught up in a mystery, screening immediately after The Maltese Falcon.
Media Partner
John Huston
Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, Sidney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre, Elisha Cook
USA
1941
English
Indigenous & Community Access
Also in This Series
The Conversation
Gene Hackman is Harry Caul, 'the best bugger on the West Coast', a surveillance expert whose jealously guarded anonymity is threatened when he happens across what seems to be a murder plot.
The Fall (4K Restoration)
Shot over four years across 24 countries, cowritten by a six year old girl, and entirely self-financed by commercials director Tarsem, The Fall is such a mind- (and eye) boggling movie it's hard to believe it actually exists. Yet here it is!
Winter Kills
An inspired black comic adaptation of the ultimate conspiracy theory, based on a novel by Richard (Manchurian Candidate) Condon. It's a lunatic riff on the Kennedy assassination(s), with Jeff Bridges finding who really killed his brother, the President. Screening in 35mm print.
