Discovered this original film of "The Maltese Falcon" 1931 and was amazed how this version of the story was produced. The film stayed pretty close to the Humphrey Bogart, Sidney Greestreet and Peter Lorre theme. However, Ricardo Cortez (Sam Spade) and Bebe Daniels(Ruth Wonderly) acted completely different and the cheating of money from an envelope, caused a gal to have to take all her clothes off, in order to find out where she might have hid the money. Just mentioning the word take your clothes off in those days was probably horrible in a film during the 1930's. The ending of the picture was completely different, and the gal in question was treated with kid gloves. I always felt the Bogart Maltese Falcon could have done away with Mary Astor, the gals in this picture were more sexy and attractive that the 40's version.
Review of The Maltese Falcon
