John Huston was a director whose career lasted so long and stretched across multiple different generations that even suggesting that he was at some point a newcomer seems quite absurd, since he is undeniably an institution on his own, someone whose work stretched from the classical era to the period of New Hollywood and beyond. In a career that lasted nearly half a century, he undeniably made a profound impact on the industry, rising to the status as one of the most important directors to ever work in the medium. These same talents were present right from the start, since if we look at his directorial debut – the brilliant and subversive The Maltese Falcon – we see a director fully in command of his artistic vision and ability to weave a story together. Arguably inspired by his own experiences in the industry, as the son of one of the most celebrated actors of his generation, Huston certainly had a massive advantage, which he used to great effect in this film. Many don’t even realize that The Maltese Falcon is the second film adaptation of the serialized novel by the master of pulp fiction Dashiell Hammett, which is a credit to the impeccable quality and the feeling of immediate importance that strikes us the moment the film starts. It barely even feels like a debut – the shaky hesitance and raw inexperience that we often find in the early work of even the greatest directors is completely absent here, with Huston’s direction being precise, polished and enthralling, which is quite an unexpected development considering the depth of the work he is doing, and how he oscillates between different genres in his construction of this thrilling and captivating psychological thriller that not only launched his career, but an entire genre that would become incredibly influential in its own right.

There are some genres that have been around for so long, and made such a considerable impact on the way we view cinema, that we just naturally assume that they existed right from the very start. However, logically there needs to be an instance of a film being the first made within that genre, and whether it came about as a result of a risky gambit that happened to work out well, or through the process of a variety of other genres converging to create a new kind of storytelling, there’s something incredibly fascinating about trying to get to the heart of where a particular genre originates. The Maltese Falcon is widely considered the first authentic film noir, the work that launched a genre that would be immensely popular for several decades, before being overtaken by neo-noir in the early 1970s, which still borrowed heavily from the original foundation, but just added a new level of revolutionary cynicism to the proceedings. As is often the case with pioneering works, there’s a certain quality that allows us to understand why it was so artistically revolutionary from the start. It may not be the first film to look at such themes through a slightly darker lens (although its perspective is one that is much more bleak than other mainstream gangster films, this representing a movement towards more disconcerting stories that don’t necessarily have a neat ending or moral resolution), and it isn’t necessarily the most ambitious in terms of how it approaches certain ideas – but through being build on a solid foundation of suspense and eccentric characters (both of which are essentially the bread-and-butter of the film noir genre), it manages to readjust many interesting ideas to form an even more deceptive and charming thriller that set the standard for the entire genre.

The Maltese Falcon was certainly not the first time audiences had been put under the entrancing spell of Humphrey Bogart, but it was one of the first instances where he was able to lead a film on his own. In the 1930s, he had been cast in a range of tremendous films that showcased his impeccable talents, but they were often designed to highlight actors like James Cagney, who eclipsed many of his contemporaries in terms of the films he was given. There were a few times Bogart was the star, and Warner Brothers didn’t take too long to realize that he was an incredible talent in his own right – and as a result, The Maltese Falcon is one of his most important films, since it represented a watershed moment in his career. Finally, he had arrived as a leading man (and it made even more surprising how strong his performance was, considering George Raft was actively courted for the role and turned it down) and he managed to very effectively play the role of Sam Spade, which became one of his signature parts, a fondly remembered performance that feels like it contributed to the larger-than-life mythology that surrounded Bogart. He’s joined by a terrific cast that included Mary Astor as the femme fatale, and a pair of malignant villains played by character actors extraordinaire Peter Lorre and Sydney Greenstreet, the latter making his feature-length debut surprisingly late in life. Yet, the entire film orbits around Bogart, who is the perfect mix of mysterious and charismatic – and while he was a versatile actor that could play several kinds of roles, this conflicted, slightly sinister anti-hero carries a significant amount of cultural cache in terms of his career, and has always been the driving force behind his most distinct and memorable performances.

Even beyond the technical and conceptual strengths of this film, The Maltese Falcon is undeniably a work that comes about through the perfect collision of style and substance, both of which point towards Huston’s impeccable skills as a director. This is not an easy film to unpack if you aren’t prepared for the sheer complexity of the story – film noir is known for its layered, incomprehensible stories, and while it isn’t close to the level of something like The Big Sleep (the other detective film that essentially established Bogart’s status as an icon) or Dark Passage in its abstract execution, there is still a lot of peculiarities that underpin this film. There have been many very smart and insightful analyses of this film and how it uses both the intangible elements and literal motifs (such as the titular object, one of the most iconic from this entire era of Hollywood – the sheer amount of statues of that falcon that have been produced over the decades for collections must be staggering), and everything that can be said about this film has been adequately covered, which only proves the immense brilliance lingering beneath the surface of the film. It takes a very gifted director to shepherd all of these ideas together into a film that is not only interesting, but radically entertaining as well, which is part of the impact made by this production, which proves to be a major moment in this period of narrative storytelling, which Huston manages to convey with brilliance and elegance, providing the illusion of being a true master, when in reality he was a newcomer that just had enough raw talent and ambition to convince us that he was a seasoned veteran, possessing so much potential that he harnessed into a run of extremely successful and brilliantly-made films over the course of his early career, which eventually flourished into one of the most impressive bodies of work by any director. 

It’s not surprising a new genre was born out of this film – it is a fast-paced, enticing and thoroughly entertaining, and offers us an abundance of thrills, more than many other similarly-themed films may tend to provide, since it takes a lot of work to be this compelling. Huston’s directorial approach is distinct right from the start – stylish (his use of light and shadows in this film is unmatched) but not without depth, since there is a story that reflects many of the more sinister details hiding behind the bleak but compelling visual landscape that the director evokes. It’s a film that is very much driven by the desire to add new levels onto the gangster and crime drama genre, showing a much darker side in which a happy ending isn’t compulsory, and where the stories are guided by a sense of polarizing complexity and a complete lack of logic in some moments. There is very little morality present in these films, and a complete resolution is highly unlikely – and yet, audiences have continuously shown their utter admiration for these films, which reflects our inherent interest in the darker side of reality, and how it can be manipulated to be a work that is both challenging and riveting, which is increasingly rare in an industry driven by a desire to be incredibly conceptual, when in reality it’s the most simple works that prove to be effective. The Maltese Falcon earns its reputation as a pioneering work of film noir, and while everyone involved would certainly do much better work, this added a new layer to their careers, since they were part of the creation of a new genre, one that would become extremely influential and very important to the entire history of the industry.