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 Maltese Falcon (1941 film) on such films as "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre" (1948), "Key Largo" (1948), "The African Queen" (1951), and "Beat the Devil" (1953). Bogart's convincing interpretation became the archetype for a private detective in the "film noir" genre, providing him near-instant acclaim and rounding and solidifying his onscreen persona. It was "The Maltese Falcon" that Ingrid Bergman watched over and over again while preparing for "Casablanca", in order to learn how to interact and act with Bogart. The role of the deceitful "femme fatale" Brigid O'Shaughnessy was originally offered to Geraldine Fitzgerald, but went to Mary Astor when Fitzgerald decided