![]() The fantastic thing about Spade, which you don’t realise until the end of The Maltese Falcon, is that he knows every single person he comes across is a liar and a fraud. ![]() Spade looks at others through a prism of distrust, dishonesty and deceit. And he knows that motivation is often driven by greed, investigating according to the edict of “Follow the Money” some 47 years before the saying was uttered in the All the President’s Men. Not just street smarts, but a psychological insight into what drives people to do the things they do. Spade isn’t just some rough and ready thug. ![]() My favourite detective: Kurt Wallander - too grumpy to like, relatable enough to get under your skin Spade has no original … For your private detective does not … want to be an erudite solver of riddles in the Sherlock Holmes manner he wants to be a hard and shifty fellow, able to take care of himself in any situation, able to get the best of anybody he comes in contact with, whether criminal, innocent bystander or client. ![]() He portrayed Spade as Hammett described him: ![]() Humphrey Bogart played Spade in the second film portrayal, which became a hit when it was screeened in 1941. It was so popular it was soon released as a novel. In The Maltese Falcon, Spade investigates the sudden murder of his partner, Miles Archer, while fending off a myriad of shady characters - Joel Cairo, Wilmer Cook, Kasper Gutman and Spade’s love interest, Brigid O’Shaughnessy - all focused on locating a stolen fabled gold and jewelled black falcon figure. ![]()
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