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 Falcon Out West the customers is likely to be confused—the producers have meshed a whodunnit with Western atmosphere. The result is schematically novel; in other respects, it is old, familiar stuff. ... in the wide open spaces, where crooners and stock Indians roam, the Falcon goes through his old routine of spotting the guilty one. Tom Conway is still the dapper Falcon, Carole Gallagher and Barbara Hale are girls in the case, and Cliff Clark and Ed Gargan are, as usual, the dumb, uncooperative cops." Film historians Richard Jewell and Vernon Harbin described "The Falcon Out West", as "... sleuthing with standard horse-opera