THE MALTESE FALCON (1941) The stuff dreams are made of

One reason THE MALTESE FALCON is a true classic is because no matter how many times you see it, you still can't quite recall how it unfolds or ends, and you’re always delighted by every word of dialogue and every twitch of Bogart’s upper lip (a reviewer once wrote that Bogie made dialing the phone look exhausting). He was, is, always will be Dashielle Hammett's Sam Spade, whose murdered partner he coldly memorializes as “a guy who had ten thousand in insurance, no children, and a wife that didn't like him.” (Trivia note: Dash's story had been filmed twice before - a version with the same title in which the character names and dialog were picked up for the Bogie version (except that the earlier version was racier - no Hays Code yet), and a version based on but pretty different from the original called SATAN MET A WOMAN (1936). It starred Bette Davis and did little to advance her career.)