FAQ

Yes, in fact it could be argued that John Huston's version of The Maltese Falcon is one of Hollywood's most faithful adaptations of a novel. Huston's screenplay follows almost every scene in Hammett's 1930 novel in correct order and includes almost all of the characters under their original names. The bulk of the film's dialogue matches the dialogue in the novel nearly exactly. (An exception is Spade's closing line, "the stuff that dreams are made of", which was a Shakespeare quote suggested by Bogart.)

Huston was forced by the production code to play down Brigid's promiscuity and her sexual relationship with Spade, which is more explicit in the novel. In this one sense, the pre-code 1931 version could be said to be closer in tone to Hammett's original

Another minor change is that, in the film, the viewer learns about the history of the Maltese Falcon in a written prologue. In the novel, the reader does not know what the Falcon is until Spade learns it from Gutman more than halfway through the book.

When Hammett wrote the novel The Maltese Falcon, he described Wilmer as a "catamite" (a young boy in a sexual relationship with an older man). The publisher objected, so Hammett changed it to "gunsel," an obscure bit of street slang with the same meaning. Because so few people were familiar with the term, it snuck past the Breen Office and into the finished film. Most people who watch the movie assume "gunsel" is just another word for "gun man," and many subsequent novels and films noir have misused the term as such.

"The Maltese Falcon" existed in film versions in 1931 and 1936 before the famous 1941 Humphrey Bogart picture. The first two depicted a Sam Spade who was much more a wisecracking fellow bent towards seduction and comedy. According to ScreenPrism, the tone of 1941's Maltese Falcon starring Bogart and Mary Astor, directed by John Huston, introduced the style of film noir in the detective film and was one of the first precursors to the genre. Humor was replaced with a few dark verbal jabs. Spade's attractions to women are not out of whimsy or fun, but danger. From there, the dangerous femme fatale became a common staple of the noir genre.