The Maltese Falcon

Still on the evening of the murder of his partner Archer, Sam Spade (Ricardo Cortez) receives two San Francisco cops he clearly knows well (J. Farrell MacDonald and Robert Elliot as Polhaus and Dundy), and learns that their client was also killed, but sharing little, in the 1931 version of The Maltese Falcon.

Otto Matieson plays a customer calling himself “Doctor” Cairo, in a less flamboyant performance that Peter Lorre’s in John Huston’s landmark 1941 re-make, Ricardo Cortez as Sam Spade, Una Merkel his excited assistant, in the first movie version of The Maltese Falcon, 1931.

Opening Hollywood’s first pass on Dashiell Hammett’s celebrated novel, Ricardo Cortez as a dandier Sam Spade of San Francisco, Una Merkel as his assistant Effie, eager to introduce a new client with an odd name (Bebe Daniels), Roy Del Ruth directing, in Warner Bros.’ The Maltese Falcon, 1931.

Spade (Ricardo Cortez) has new client Ruth (Bebe Daniels) stashed in his pad when his paramour and new widow of his partner Iva Archer (Thelma Todd) arrives in a huff, in Warner Bros.' 1931 version of Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon.