The Maltese Falcon/YMMV


 * Adaptation Displacement: Of the novel, as well as two previous film adaptations.
 * The Bogart film is an exceptional adaptation. Virtually the sole difference between novel and movie is that the sex (hetero- and homosexual) is slightly more explicit in the book.
 * Award Snub: Its failure to win Best Picture for 1941 would be understandable, as it was up against no less a cinematic classic than Citizen Kane... Except that one didn't win either.
 * Informed Attractiveness: The characters rave about what a beauty Mary Astor's character was. Judge for yourself.
 * It Was His Sled:
 * Moment of Awesome: Spade's one upping of the villains. The guy always keeps his cool.
 * Also, when Spade quickly and easily disarms the hotheaded gunman, Wilmer, taking his pistols. He later ridicules Wilmer about it, claiming that "A crippled newsie took them from him. I made him give them back."
 * Unintentionally Sympathetic: Joel Cairo, whose effeminate actions were supposed to creep out a 1940s audience but these days it just labels him as an outsider.
 * The fact that the 1941 film is set during a time when homosexuals were being murdered by the Nazis, and Cairo is clearly a foreigner with an Eastern European accent, makes him even more sympathetic.
 * Vindicated by History