The Maltese Falcon (1931 film) The Maltese Falcon (1931 film) The Maltese Falcon is a 1931 American pre-Code crime film, based on the 1930 novel of the same name by Dashiell Hammett and directed by Roy Del Ruth. The film stars Ricardo Cortez as private detective Sam Spade and Bebe Daniels as Ruth Wonderly. Maude Fulton, Brown Holmes, and Lucien Hubbard (who went uncredited) wrote the screenplay. The supporting cast features Dudley Digges, Thelma Todd, Walter Long, Una Merkel, and Dwight Frye. A print has been held by the Library of Congress since the 1970s. In San Francisco, private investigator Sam Spade (Ricardo Cortez) and
The Maltese Falcon (1941 film) the sense that he is what most of the private detectives I worked with would like to have been, and, in their cockier moments, thought they approached. Other characters in "The Maltese Falcon", however, were based on people he met or worked with during that time. The novel itself was serialized in five parts in "Black Mask" during 1929 and 1930 before being published in book form in 1930 by Alfred A. Knopf. It was first filmed the next year and for a second time as "Satan Met a Lady" in 1936, but rewritten as a light comedy with many