THE MALTESE FALCON

DATE: 1941.

WHAT IT IS: A prop from the eponymous motion picture.

WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE: The prop (which exists in two versions) is a statuette of a falcon. One is made of lead and bronze, weighs 50 pounds, is nearly 12 inches high, and has slash marks on the head. The other statuette is also made of lead and has a bent tail feather.

Few pieces of movie memorabilia have captured the public imagination like the Maltese falcon, the prop from the film The Maltese Falcon. And real life has mirrored movie fiction. As in the movie, the prop has been both shrouded in intrigue and the object of relentless desire.

In the 1920s, Dashiell Hammett’s tale of the search for a bejeweled statue of a bird of prey ran in serial form in a magazine. Hammett’s story was inspired by a falcon legend derived from real-life history, which records that the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, who was also the king of Spain, granted the island of Malta in 1530 to the Knights of St. John, who had been driven from the Aegean island of Rhodes by the Turks. There were two conditions: should the knights ever abandon Malta, the Mediterranean island would become imperial property again; and as recognition that the island was still under Spanish dominion, once a year on All Saints’ Day, the knights would send a falcon to Charles.

The legend picks up some years later with one of the annual falcon levies. Sometimes, instead of providing a live falcon, the knights sent falcon statues bedecked with precious gems. In the late 1530s, a bejeweled falcon statue was shipped to King Charles but during its voyage was snatched by marauders. It was discovered hundreds of years later, in the early 1900s, in a Parisian antique shop, from which it was again stolen, thus setting in motion the drama of a suspenseful hunt.

Hammett’s fictional story of the hunt for the fabulous historical artifact was so popular that it was published in book form in 1930. The following year, The Maltese Falcon, the first of three film adaptations, was released, starring Ricardo Cortez and Bebe Daniels.

Five years later, the next film adaptation was playing in movie theaters. Called Satan Met a Lady and starring Bette Davis, Warren William, and Arthur Treacher, the priceless object of pursuit in this movie was a ram’s horn.

In 1941 the third adaptation, also titled The Maltese Falcon, was released, with Humphrey Bogart, Peter Lorre, Mary Astor, and Sydney Greenstreet. The movie was not expected to be successful for several reasons: the story had been done twice before; John Huston had never directed a movie before; and the actors were not then stars. But Huston, who felt that the earlier films had not captured Dashiell Hammett’s wonderful dialogue, wrote a script that was faithful to Hammett’s fast-paced, suspenseful prose and gave the film a dark and edgy feel. Huston’s Maltese Falcon, costing less than $400,000, was a low-budget production that became a huge success, launching Humphrey Bogart, who played Detective Sam Spade, and director John Huston into instant stardom. In the Huston production, the statue of the Maltese falcon has a long history of intrigue as shady people take huge risks to find the figurine. Sydney Greenstreet’s con-artist character, Kasper Gutman, finally acquires it, but it turns out to be a worthless carving of lead.

The Maltese falcon movie prop that has a bent tail feather.

The Maltese falcon movie prop that has a bent tail feather.

Two lead statues were made to represent the Maltese falcon in the movie. The future value and importance of these props probably wasn’t recognized during the filming, as one of the prop men reported they used the fifty-pound statues as weights on the movie set.

Over the years, as the film itself has acquired legendary status, the Maltese falcon prop has been widely counterfeited. In 1993 Christie’s, the auction house, put up for sale a five-pound resin Maltese falcon statue allegedly used in the Humphrey Bogart movie. The authenticity of the Christie’s figurine was disputed, and the auction was canceled. It has never been proved that this statue matches any image of the Maltese falcon seen in the movie.

One of the two real props made for the classic Bogart film was auctioned by Christie’s the following year, this one coming from the estate of actor and director William Conrad, who used the prop as a bookend after supposedly receiving it as a gift from Jack Warner, the head of Warner Brothers.

As in the movie, the statue in real life turned out to be an object of consuming desire, even if it had no inherent value. In December 1994, jeweler Ronald Winston purchased the statue for a hefty $398,000. In the film the raving character played by Sydney Greenstreet uses a penknife to slash the Maltese falcon and discovers it is not made of gold but lead. The statue purchased by Winston is believed by some to have been a practice prop as its slash marks are too deep and abundant, and does not have a bent tail feather as seen in the film.*

After acquiring the prop, Winston, son of the famed jeweler Harry Winston, who donated the Hope Diamond to the Smithsonian Institution, decided to fulfill the dreams of the characters. He created the Winston falcon, a ten-pound, 11¼-inch-high solid-gold statue with two Burmese cabochon ruby eyes and a 42.98-carat pear-shaped diamond on a platinum chain hanging from the beak, all mounted on a four-inch-square malachite base. It was initially valued at $8 million. Winston, however, reportedly sold the movie-prop Maltese falcon for one million dollars within a few years after acquiring it.

The other Maltese falcon prop from the Humphrey Bogart movie was purchased in 1987 by Dr. Gary Milan, a Beverly Hills dentist and artifact collector. Milan’s falcon, like the one usually seen in the film, has a bent tail feather, unlike the other Maltese falcon prop from the movie, as well as some slash marks.

Humphrey Bogart’s Sam Spade detective character poignantly observed that the Maltese falcon was “the stuff dreams are made of.” Indeed so in big-screen make-believe, but the statuettes would have little actual value if they hadn’t been the centerpiece of one of the most popular motion pictures of all time. Plucked from the set of a fictional movie where they represented an unobtainable object of desire for a cast of colorful, unforgettable characters, the Maltese falcon statuettes—by virtue of their metamorphosis from cheap props into fabulously expensive collectors’ items—may now be said to have become dreams made into stuff.

LOCATIONS: Warner Bros. Museum, Burbank, California (on temporary loan from Dr. Gary Milan); the Winston falcon is owned by a person who wishes to remain anonymous.

Footnote

*The bent tail feather may have resulted from an accident on the set in which the falcon was dropped, just missing actress Lee Patrick’s foot and slightly injuring Bogart’s toes.