The Maltese Falcon [Blu-ray]

Never disappoints. Plot twists around every corner. I love Bogie. And, I love film noire. I'm reminded of the Star Trek: TNG episode where half the senior crew members were in the holodeck with Captain Picard who was living out his fantasy of a gum shoe, private eye, private deck, private detective, whatever you want to call him. It's the vibe these films give off, the light and shadow, the plot twists, the darkness. Do yourself a favor and rent or buy this film.

This 2-disc set includes a 4K disc with a visually gorgeous restoration of the film and an insightful commentary track; and a bluray disc with a bunch of extras including several excellent documentaries and a lot of stills. Really, a splendid package. I won't talk about the film because literally books have been written about it and it's probably the most important film noir ever made, and the equal of "Casablanca" among Bogart films.

If you want to learn movie history--if you want to know who Bogart was--if you're interested in noir, you need to watch this. But the best reason is that it's simply a great and entertaining movie, just about perfect in every respect; not the most serious or ambitious movie, but arguably the best executed. And the cast is glorious, with Sidney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre turning in two of the most memorable supporting performances ever, to say nothing of Mary Astor, Elisha Cook Jr and the rest of them. All credit to Dashiell Hammet for a great story, and to John Houston for capturing it magnificently and with no fuss.

Excellent character acting. This movie is one of Bogart's best acting jobs right up there with The Caine Mutiny, The African Queen and The Treasure of The Sierra Madre. I think it to be the most enjoyable of all his films.

The classics never go out of style.

Wanted to add this title to my collection and lend it to a friend who had never seen the movie. Found out it was Blu-ray only when I thought I bought a dual formatted CD. So read the information and order the correct format for your player. The film is outstanding and it’s number one in my library..

FORMAT: Blu-Ray UPC: 8-83929-11825-0 RELEASED: 2010-10-05TITLE: The Maltese Falcon (1941) • NR • 1:40:32 Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, Peter Lorre, Sydney Greenstreet John Huston (Director) The movie that many film historians consider to be the very first example of "film noir"! (I personally DON'T agree with that assessment, as there are, in my opinion, MANY earlier examples of film noir — such as, Bogie's own from 1937.) Be that as it may, this is still an EXCELLENT movie — with its collection of odd-ball and/or duplicitous characters, with their various (and, nefarious) motivations, all plotting against one another in order to achieve some nebulous goal! This is the movie that cemented Humphrey Bogart as a superstar actor — and, it also changed John Huston from an erstwhile highly-respected screenwriter (and VERY small-time actor, on the side) into a VERY highly-respected screenwriter, and a MUCH sought-after director (with a slightly-more-frequent bit playing acting career, on the side). Of the MANY great things about this movie, one of the most important, in my opinion, is that EVERYBODY is perfectly cast — and, consequently, EVERY performance is pitch-perfect (Peter Lorre and Sydney Greenstreet, speaking of just two great examples of that aforementioned perfect casting, very nearly steal the movie). Another important aspect of this movie is its brilliant dialog — sometimes, while re-watching this movie, for the who-knows-how-many-time, I forget about following the plot and just absorb the wordplay between the characters (with the many snide remarks and sly innuendos). HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. See the other reviews for more detail and/or other opinions regarding the plot of the movie.VIDEO: 1.37:1 • B&W • 1080p • VC-1 (28.6 Mbps) Let's get the bad news out of the way off the top: Those of you that have seen Warners' glorious blu-ray presentation of , and expect that SAME level of visual presentation here, with this release of "The Maltese Falcon" will be disappointed — but, only slightly so. While this movie's image has MANY of the same VERY positive visual attributes as "Casablanca" (namely: excellent contrast and gray-scale, great sharpness and detail, and a total (or, nearly so) absence of artifacts such as black specks, white dots, hair-lines or dropped frames), it also has some negative visual attributes of its own — that were non-existent (or, nearly so) in "Casablanca" (namely: a pervasive, ever-so-slight softness in MANY scenes, and a very few scenes that were overly "contrasty", with very limited gray-scale [yes, I know that film noir is known for its stark, high-contrast cinematography, but these scenes didn't match the appearance of the rest of the movie, and, further, look like they may have originated from less-than-pristine source elements]). OK, that's the "bad" news. Now, for the "good" news: This is still an EXCELLENT transfer to blu-ray. As a person who has owned this movie first on VHS tape and then later on Laser Disc, before purchasing this blu-ray version, I can tell you that this version is a visual revelation, and it looks FANTASTIC! Only a hyper-picky, so-called "videophile" could possibly have a "reason" to condemn the picture quality of this release — the rest of us will simply count our blessings and enjoy the show.AUDIO: DTS-HD Master Audio Mono (48 KHz, 24-bit) Again, just like with the audio presentation of "Casablanca", the fine sound engineers at Warner Home Video have done extensive clean-up work on the film's soundtrack, because there are no pops, bumps or hiss to speak of. Also, the dialog is very clear and natural sounding, with all voices being clearly defined and easily understood. However, the transfer's dynamic range is fairly limited, and there isn't any deep bass nor any top-end to speak of (though, the musical score does sound better than one would expect under the circumstances). Otherwise, considering the age of the source elements and the fact that this is a monophonic, dialog-driven movie from the early 1940s, this film's soundtrack has VERY good sound quality.EXTRAS: Commentary (by Bogart biographer Eric Lax) 'Making Of' Video (The Maltese Falcon: One Magnificent Bird [SD]) Becoming Attractions: The Trailers of Humphrey Bogart [SD] Warner Night at the Movies (interactive featurette [SD]) Gag Reel/Bloopers (Breakdowns of 1941 [SD]) Makeup Tests [SD] Trailers ('The Maltese Falcon' and 'Satan Met a Lady') Three Radio Show Adaptations of 'The Maltese Falcon' [SD = Standard Definition] None of the extras were reviewed.

Great older movie, a classic.

Included:- 4k UHD with the 4k movie and audio commentary- Blu Ray with the HD version of the movie and all the other extrasThis is one of those timeless classics that I'm actually seeing for the very first time with this release, as I've seen it recommended quite a bit.The dialogues are great and all the actors brought their A game here. Humphrey Bogart in particular really makes this movie.I ended up watching it more than once because I enjoyed it so much, and each time I noticed new details in the story.In terms of visuals and sounds, I can't really compare it to whatever this movie used to look like (haven't seen the included blu ray version of the film yet), but the movie looks really good. There's a lot of rich textures and contrasts, and some really great shots. I think the black and white look of the film adds a great deal to the presentation.

Sigue siendo una estupenda película y ahora en 4K se disfruta todavía más.

...As the portly Sidney Greenstreet said.One of the all time classics faultless in every way the cast is pitch perfect as his Huston's direction(his first film?) Bogart was superb but also was the gorgeous Mary(bed eyes) Astor not a dud among the other characters look sharp for Huston's Dad WalterA film you can watch time and again and see something different

My all time favourite Bogie movie. DVD came when expected and the quality is very good.

Le faucon maltais (The Maltese Falcon) est un grand film de John Huston de 1941.Adapté par Huston d'un roman policier de Dashiell Hammett, le film démarre d'abord lentement avant d'adopter un rythme haletant. Deux détectives privés, Sam Spade (Humphrey Bogart) et son associé Miles, en manque de clients et d'argent, reçoivent la visite d'une étrange cliente qui leur confie une étrange mission: filer un homme pour arriver à retrouver sa soeur et la remettre sur le droit chemin. La mission paraît simple, c'est de l'argent facilement gagné. Mais le bon vivant Miles attiré par la cliente, trouve...la mort. L'homme qu'il s'agissait de filer est également abattu peu de temps après. Sam Spade est soupçonné des deux meurtres par la police, assez peu dégourdie dans cette affaire. Attiré lui aussi par la cliente (Mary Astor), mais d'une autre trempe que son associé, il essaie d'élucider toutes ces morts, et se retrouve mêlé à la recherche d'un mystérieux faucon maltais que toute une série d'individus louches cherche à s'approprier: le mystérieux Joel Cairo aux multiples passeports (Peter Lorre), "the fat man", Kasper Gutman (Sidney Greenstreet, au jeu inoubliable) et leur porte flingues, souffre douleur de Bogart.Au delà de l'intrigue captivante et du tempo rapide et envoutant du film, Huston dépeint surtout des caractères et dévoile les côtés les plus sombres de l'âme humaine à travers tous ces personnages attirés par l'argent et prêts à tout pour parvenir à leur fin. Humprey Bogart symbolise au milieu de tous ces personnages peu reluisants l'homme fort, intelligent, obstiné, moralement intègre mais capable d'utiliser les moyens les plus machiavéliques pour parvenir à ses fins. Le DVD comporte également un documentaire de 44 minutes sur Humphrey Bogart qui montre l'évolution de l'image de l'acteur à travers les bandes-annonces de ses films: on y voit que Bogart a d'abord joué des seconds rôles de gangster, puis un premier rôle (toujours de gangster) dans High Sierra, avant que la Warner ne change son image en le transformant progressivement en héros positif, d'abord à travers le personnage du détective du Faucon Maltais, puis de héros romantiques.