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) 1989, but that version is no longer available. CBS/Fox Video released a 101-minute black-and-white version of the film on laserdisc in 1982. The music was written by Adolph Deutsch, who later went on to win an Academy Award. The recording was re-released in 2002 along with other film soundtrack works by Deutsch, including "George Washington Slept Here," "The Mask of Dimitrios," "High Sierra" and "Northern Pursuit." Perhaps the earliest radio adaptation of "The Maltese Falcon" was on the "Silver Theater" broadcast on the CBS radio network on February 1, 1942, with Bogart as star. "Philip Morris Playhouse" staged an adaptation