The Maltese falcon was what i would consider a traditional american mystery movie. It was the kind of movie you saw being seen in other movies where characters liked to see what they considered to be “the classics” or old movies in general. One thing that I noticed was that they used a lot of shadow play. From beginning to end there was always this ominous feeling that there could be something lurking behind the shadows, that the killer could have been around detective Spade the whole time the whole, and he just didn’t know it.

I noticed that there were many things in this movie that are still prevalent in movies today ( the conventions). it starts out in the very beginning when Detective Spade is questioning what he considered to be the damsel in distress. Its typical in many movies that the damsel becomes the protagonists love interest and then is actually just playing the character throughout the whole movie to get what she needs. (such is the case in this movie since shes the one that killed Archer.) Another convention that you see is the killers arm with the gun only being show, this type of convention is often used in beginning of movies just to make you wonder throughout the whole movie as well as make you suspect everyone around the protagonists. The terrifying shriek upon the discovery of a dead body can also be called a convention as its used in at least 90% of modern horror movies. Lastly i will mention a convention that you don’t see often but when you do, you gain a certain respect for a character, Joe Cairo he starts off as some weaselly little man with buggy eyes the type of person you would not give a second glance to, then within seconds of meeting him and getting that impression it changes and all of a sudden there’s a gun being pulled and that little man that you perceived to be nonthreatening just became the biggest threat in the movie.

When it comes to Detective Spade he is a complicated man, we can call him a womanizer, an alpha, mistrusting to those around him (although in the end we see if was for good reason.) he did not like police men, they seemed to just be in his way stopping him like barriers at every turn. With criminals, the man despised them all they did was set him back even more than the police did (drugging him and having him sleep for most of the day) but at the end of the day he was a man of morals, and did what needed to be done, he could have just let the femme fatale walk away, give her a chance at freedom but chose not to, instead he stuck to his morals and did the right thing,

This movie changed my perception of all old movies. I never liked black and white movies, it took me 8 years to watch the wizard of OZ because i didn’t believe that there was color in it till i was forcibly sat down and made to watch it. I tend to like graphics and explosions and most of all color, but thanks to this movie ive gained a new found fondness for the movies of the older generation and will be more open to seeing them more often.