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
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.