Three Falcons, All Maltese

Dave Kehr writes about remakes of the Maltese Falcon:

Remakes, according to a deeply ingrained critical convention, are inevitably inferior to the original films. Exhibit A in the case against that irrational assumption has long been John Huston’s 1941 “Maltese Falcon,” featuring Humphrey Bogart in his star-making role as Dashiell Hammett’s hard-boiled private detective, Sam Spade. Huston’s “Falcon” was actually the third version of Hammett’s best-selling novel of 1930 to be produced by Warner Brothers, following a reasonably faithful adaptation by Roy Del Ruth filmed in 1931 and an imaginative reworking of the material into something approaching a screwball comedy in 1936, directed by William Dieterle and retitled “Satan Met a Lady.”

All three versions are included in a three-disc set coming out today from Warner Home Video. It’s being sold separately at $29.98, but is also included, along with Huston’s “Across the Pacific” (1942), Vincent Sherman’s “All through the Night” (1942), Lloyd Bacon’s “Action in the North Atlantic” (1943) and Michael Curtiz’s “Passage to Marseille” (1944) in the box set “Humphrey Bogart: The Signature Collection, Volume II,” priced at $59.98. Though the Huston remains the definitive version — thanks as much to the miracle of casting that brought together Bogart, Mary Astor, Peter Lorre, Sydney Greenstreet and Elisha Cook Jr. as to Huston’s direction — the two other versions have striking merits of their own...