Maltese Falcon Society Don Herron and private investigator Jayson Wechter. The society's first meeting was held at John's Grill, a restaurant where Dashiell Hammett ate and which he featured in "The Maltese Falcon". The speakers at that first meeting were David Fechheimer, a Hammett researcher and private investigator, and E. Hoffmann Price, a pulp fiction author. The society opened chapters in New York and Japan. By 1982, the society had 110 members in San Francisco, 55 in Japan, and 50 in New York. As its official toast, the society adopted the one used by Sam Spade in Chapter 2 of "The Maltese Falcon":
The Falcon Takes Over a craven bid to cash in on the popularity of the Warner Bros. hit, "The Maltese Falcon", turning Marlowe into a detective called the Falcon (played by George Sanders) and releasing the movie with the title, "The Falcon Takes Over". The Falcon Takes Over The Falcon Takes Over (also known as The Falcon Steps Out), is a 1942 black-and-white mystery film directed by Irving Reis. The B film was the third, following "The Gay Falcon" and "A Date with the Falcon" (1941), to star George Sanders as the character Gay Lawrence, a gentleman detective known by the sobriquet the Falcon.