In this classic Humphrey Bogart film noir, John Huston sketches a dark, cynical world with painfully deep perception. Sam Spade, Dashiell Hammett’s archetypal private eye, is caught in the desperate search for the jewelled falcon of Malta. Spade’s pursuit of his partner’s killer leads him to a group of individuals who want the black bird: Brigid O’Shaughnessey (Mary Astor), the beautiful femme fatale, cowardly Joel Cairo (Peter Lorre) and pompously inflated Kasper Gutman (Sydney Greenstreet) and as the falcon comes within their reach their intense greed is sharply etched. Huston also wrote the script.