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The Transfer from One Medium to Another: "The Maltese Falcon" from Fiction to Film

There is a well-known anecdote about the scripting of the 1941 film version of Dashiell Hammett's archetypal hard-boiled detective novel. John Huston, then a scriptwriter at Warner Brothers, convinced studio head Jack Warner to allow him to direct a third film version of The Maltese Falcon. Warner gave his consent with the stipulation that Huston work up an acceptable script for the project before he gave his final approval. The aspiring young director was to work with veteran writer Allen Rivkin on the scenario. The two scriptwriters decided that the most logical first step in the process of turning Hammett's novel into cinematic form would be to have their secretary type up the dialogue from the book, dividing it into scenes as it seemed appropriate. The secretary followed her instructions faithfully. However, upon completing the manuscript, she sent it not to Huston and Rivkin but, by accident, to Warner himself. Warner, ironically enough, was delighted with this "adaptation." He called Huston into his office and insisted that the film be put into production at the earliest possible moment. Huston was astonished but hardly inclined to protest. So the unfortunate Allen Rivkin lost out on a potentially interesting writing assignment and John Huston prepared to direct a script which was undoubtedly among the most faithful adaptations of a fictional work in the history of cinema. Though Huston subsequently made a few minor adjustments in his screenplay, the dialogue and action of the finished film are taken almost entirely from Hammett's novel. In part, this fidelity was possible because of the character of the original material. The Maltese Falcon lends itself wonderfully to the demands of film. It contains a great deal of action set in various locations around the city. With its detached, third-person point of view, it does not raise the awkward cinematic problem of portraying the thoughts of any of its characters: most of the action is narrated through crisp, witty dialogue. Moreover, Hammett's laconic style means that the atmosphere of the novel is not dependent on a rich verbal texture that might be difficult, if not impossible, to duplicate on the screen. The dialogue itself, though highly stylized, works well aurally as well as visually. Unlike the novels of authors such as Fitzgerald or Faulkner, The Maltese Falcon does not contain speeches which look beautiful on the printed page but which sound forced and stilted when read aloud. All of these qualities made Hammett's book an ideal choice for adaptation to the cinema.