Dashiell Hammett, author of The Maltese Falcon, was born in Maryland on this day in 1894 — 128 years ago.
Hammett left school at age 13 and took a series of low-paying jobs, eventually landing at Pinkerton's detective agency. He worked as a detective for eight years and turned his experiences into fiction that set the mold for later writers like Raymond Chandler.
Hammett's deadpan description of violent or emotional events came to be known as the "hard-boiled" style of detective fiction.
Hammett published short stories in his characteristic deadpan style, starting in 1929 with Fly Paper. He published two novels in the same style that year, Red Harvest and The Dain Curse.
The following year, he published The Maltese Falcon, which introduced detective Sam Spade. The novel was filmed three times: once in 1931; once in 1936 under the title, Satan Met a Lady, starring Bette Davis; and again in 1941 starring Humphrey Bogart.
Hammett became involved with playwright Lillian Hellman (author of The Children's Hour in 1934 and The Little Foxes in 1939), who served as the model for Nora Charles in his 1934 comic mystery, The Thin Man. The book was made into a movie the same year, starring William Powell and Myrna Loy, and the characters of Nick and Nora Charles inspired several sequel films.
Hammett and Hellman remained romantically involved until Hammett's death in 1961.
The Maltese Falcon with star, Humphrey Bogart
The Maltese Falcon is a 1941 film noir based on the novel by Dashiell Hammett.
Directed by John Huston, the film stars Humphrey Bogart as private investigator Sam Spade and Mary Astor as his "femme fatale" client. Gladys George, Peter Lorre and Sydney Greenstreet co-star, with Greenstreet appearing in his film debut.
The Maltese Falcon was Huston's directorial debut and was nominated for three Academy Awards.
Fred Sexton, who died in 1995, was the artist and sculptor of the Maltese Falcon, the statuette prop for the film. Sexton taught art and headed the Art Students League in Los Angeles between 1949 and 1953. Sexton made “preliminary sketches” for the Maltese Falcon prop on a “manila envelope,” and then sculpted the model for the prop in clay. During visits to the film set, the prop was “shiny and black.”
The "Maltese Falcon" itself is said to have been based on the "Kniphausen Hawk," a ceremonial pouring vessel made in 1697 for George William von Kniphausen, Count of the Holy Roman Empire. It is modeled after a hawk perched on a rock and is encrusted with red garnets, amethysts, emeralds and blue sapphires. The vessel is currently owned by the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire and is an integral piece of the Chatsworth House collection.
A 45-pound metal prop known to have appeared in the film was sold at auction on November 25, 2013 for over $4 million, including the buyers fee.
On Sept. 24, 2010, Guernsey's auctioned a four pound, 5.4 ounce resin falcon for $305,000 to a group of buyers that included actor Leonardo DiCaprio and billionaire Stewart Rahr, owner of pharmaceutical and generics wholesaler, Kinray. The prop was discovered at a flea market in New Jersey in 1991 by Emmy-winning producer/director Ara Chekmayan.
The Maltese Falcon is considered a classic example of a MacGuffin, a plot device that motivates the characters of the story but otherwise has little relevance.
In 1998, the Modern Library ranked The Maltese Falcon 56th on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century.