The Malte Faln (1941) is a Warner Brothers film based on the novel of the same name by Dashiell Hammett, starrg Humphrey Bogart as Hardboiled Detective Sam Spa, Mary Astor as his Femme Fatale client, Sydney Greenstreet his film but, and Peter Lorre and Elisha Cooke Jr. as his Ambiguoly Gay sikicks. The story ncerns a private tective's algs wh three unscpulo adventurers who pete to obta a fabulo jewel-encsted statuette of a faln.
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MALTE FALN, THE (1941): GAY TEXT/SUBTEXT–LORRE’S CHARACTER (LGBTQ, GAY)
Upon the 75th anniversary of The Malte Faln's release, 's time to look at the gay myths ntaed the Hollywood perennial. * the maltese falcon gay *
Hard, tough, thls, mascule -- the words often ed to scribe Hollywood's 1941 tective classic The Malte Faln are also terms found gay eroti to pict the male an. " The search for this "pricels token, " stolen by pirat and mored to be found the Barbary Coast, driv the film and Sam Spa's trigug unrworld enunters: They clu those wh a v femme fatale, Brigid O'Shghnsy (Mary Astor), and a host of equally lty, schemg gay men, nvergg upon that sexual meltg pot San Malte Faln is Hollywood's first gay masterpiece.
It's fascatg to see that the film dramatiz this as one of society's primal myths and do so the most unexpected way: The spenseful plot gradually reveals Spa's unmistakable homophobia. ) For anyone who thks gay film characters -- and gay awarens -- are new to Hollywood, this movie go beyond polil rrectns and to the plexy of Hollywood's tac regnn of queerns. The Malte Faln's gay squad nstute the glory of the stud era's character-actor legacy.