Sam Spade Sam Spade Sam Spade is a fictional private detective and the protagonist of Dashiell Hammett's 1930 novel, "The Maltese Falcon". Spade also appeared in four lesser-known short stories by Hammett. "The Maltese Falcon", first published as a serial in the pulp magazine "Black Mask", is the only full-length novel in which Spade appears. The character, however, is widely cited as a crystallizing figure in the development of hard-boiled private detective fiction—Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe, for instance, was strongly influenced by Spade. Spade was a departure from Hammett's nameless and less-than-glamorous detective, The Continental Op. Spade combined several features of previous
A Date with the Falcon with the Falcon" would be the first of many sequels that featured other actresses in leading roles. The series also became a breeding ground for other talented studio contractees including director Edward Dmytryk and actors Barbara Hale and Jane Greer. The "Falcon" series was also the progenitor of a new genre - film noir. In his review of "A Date with the Falcon", Bosley Crowther wrote, in "The New York Times", that, a pattern existed in the "Falcon" series "... the pattern. Mr. Sanders, an idle man of the world, is just about to be married—this time to Wendy Barrie—when