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) the film set, she remembered seeing a prop that was "shiny and black", but "not like patent leather shoes". Fortier also identified initials inscribed in the right rear tail feather of a plaster Maltese Falcon prop owned by Hank Risan as her father’s. Fortier explained that she owns many of her father’s paintings and commented that many of the signatures share the same idiosyncratic characteristics. The "Maltese Falcon" itself is said to have been based on the "Kniphausen Hawk", a ceremonial pouring vessel made in 1697 for George William von Kniphausen, Count of the Holy Roman Empire. It is modeled