The Maltese Falcon 4K 1941

The forties of the last century are the birthplace of the noir genre: sinister shadows, a cynical story, a protagonist in a raincoat and a hat with a cigarette in his mouth, a femme fatale - all these are inherent features of the genre, and here in one of the first films of the genre they are all present in full force.

Like all noir thrillers, the plot begins with a murder investigation that grows larger and larger with each new strand. By the middle of the film, in the best tradition of the genre, the protagonist steps over a powerful mob boss and then balances on the brink of life and death trying to resolve the tangled case in the end. As a big fan of the genre, I was just absolutely thrilled to watch one of the founding pictures of noir.

Humphrey Bogart, a kind of Max Payne, is constantly running into trouble and many of the most influential mafiosi in the city have a grudge against him. But at the end, he gets out of all, even the most difficult situations, masterfully and brilliantly. There are no spectacular action scenes inherent in the modern representatives of the genre, but the emphasis here is put above all on suspense, and the film succeeds just fine: you follow the local history, being afraid to look away and miss some detail.

Of course, the local fight scenes would be pretty funny now, considering how ridiculously staged they are (and even back then, Hitchcock films had more realistic fist-fighting scenes), but it's not the fights that win you over, it's the gloriously dark atmosphere of mystery and cynicism. The characters are cold-blooded and devilishly clever, and the main character makes such phrases to the characters that you want to immediately put them in your citation book. The classic "And why not" was later used in many similar films.

The Maltese Falcon is a thriller of the highest caliber, with a well-written script, decent acting and great atmosphere. I highly recommend to all fans of noir to see where the genre began. For the rest of us I advise to watch it, just for the sake of getting acquainted with the old cinematography and one of the highest quality films of that time.