Falcon's Lair

On October 19, 1941, less than two months before Pearl Harbor, Warner Brothers released Dashiell Hammett's the Maltese Falcon. The dark detective tale starring Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, and Peter Lorre dripped with foreboding. By then most of America feared getting involved in the growing conflict overseas. A.O. Scott of the New York Times offers a recent critique on the classic.