The Maltese Falcon
Overall, the Maltese Falcon was a genuinely interesting movie, that contained some of the elements of a mystery story. However, overall, I would say that this story conforms more to an action/thriller movie than a mystery.
The movie started out with some very interesting unexplained murders (Archer and the client's partner), which made it seem as if it would be a mystery story. When Spade arrived at the crime scene, however, there was no collection of evidence nor anything about interviewing witnesses, which signaled to me that solving the murders was not meant to be the main point of the movie.
The introduction of Cairo and the Fat Man (Gutman) with his cronies started the series of action-packed tense scenes in the movie. Spade seemed to become the tough, hand-to-hand combatant we see in action movies instead of detectives. While he does possess that cocky, independence that we see in other mystery detectives like Holmes and Dupin, he doesn't think of himself as an intellectually superior than his peers, rather he just sees the police and others as nuisances. Even the final reveal that Wonderby killed Archer was not based upon any evidence whatsoever, rather Wonderby's possible motive and Spade's relentless intimidation that leads to a confession. While mystery is not central focus of this movie, the movie certainly keeps the audience engaged with the splendid reveals and the street-savvy combatant (not detective) Spade.
The movie started out with some very interesting unexplained murders (Archer and the client's partner), which made it seem as if it would be a mystery story. When Spade arrived at the crime scene, however, there was no collection of evidence nor anything about interviewing witnesses, which signaled to me that solving the murders was not meant to be the main point of the movie.
The introduction of Cairo and the Fat Man (Gutman) with his cronies started the series of action-packed tense scenes in the movie. Spade seemed to become the tough, hand-to-hand combatant we see in action movies instead of detectives. While he does possess that cocky, independence that we see in other mystery detectives like Holmes and Dupin, he doesn't think of himself as an intellectually superior than his peers, rather he just sees the police and others as nuisances. Even the final reveal that Wonderby killed Archer was not based upon any evidence whatsoever, rather Wonderby's possible motive and Spade's relentless intimidation that leads to a confession. While mystery is not central focus of this movie, the movie certainly keeps the audience engaged with the splendid reveals and the street-savvy combatant (not detective) Spade.
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