Maltese Falcon Society Don Herron and private investigator Jayson Wechter. The society's first meeting was held at John's Grill, a restaurant where Dashiell Hammett ate and which he featured in "The Maltese Falcon". The speakers at that first meeting were David Fechheimer, a Hammett researcher and private investigator, and E. Hoffmann Price, a pulp fiction author. The society opened chapters in New York and Japan. By 1982, the society had 110 members in San Francisco, 55 in Japan, and 50 in New York. As its official toast, the society adopted the one used by Sam Spade in Chapter 2 of "The Maltese Falcon":
The Falcon Takes Over Chandler novel "Farewell, My Lovely", with the Falcon substituted for Chandler's archetypal private eye Philip Marlowe and the setting of New York City replacing Marlowe's Los Angeles beat. The film was the second adaptation of a Marlowe story, after "Time to Kill", released earlier in the same year. That film, also, did not use Marlowe as the main character, changing the name to Michael Shayne. As it played in film theaters, "The Falcon Takes Over" was considered a "co-feature" or the second half of a double bill. Theodore Strauss in his review for "The New York Times", wrote, "For a