The Maltese Falcon, first published as a serial in the pulp magazine Black Mask, is the only full-length novel by Hammett in which Spade appears. The character, however, is widely cited as a crystallizing figure in the development of
hard-boiled private detective fiction—
Raymond Chandler's
Philip Marlowe, for instance, was strongly influenced by Spade.
Spade was a departure from Hammett's nameless and less-than-glamorous detective,
The Continental Op. Spade combined several features of previous detectives, most notably his detached demeanor, keen eye for detail, and unflinching determination to achieve his own justice.
Portrayals
Spade was a new character created specifically by Hammett for The Maltese Falcon; he had not appeared in any of Hammett's previous stories.[3] Hammett says about him:
Spade has no original. He is a dream man in the sense that he is what most of the private detectives I worked with would like to have been and in their cockier moments thought they approached. For your private detective does not—or did not ten years ago when he was my colleague—want to be an erudite solver of riddles in the Sherlock Holmes manner; he wants to be a hard and shifty fellow, able to take care of himself in any situation, able to get the best of anybody he comes in contact with, whether criminal, innocent by-stander or client.[4]
Screen
From the 1940s onward, the character became closely associated with actor
Humphrey Bogart, who played Spade in the
third and best-known film version of The Maltese Falcon.[5] Though Bogart's slight frame, dark features and no-nonsense depiction contrasted with Hammett's vision of Spade (blond, well-built and mischievous), his sardonic portrayal was well-received, and is generally regarded as an influence on both
film noir and the genre's archetypal private detective.
Spade was played by
Ricardo Cortez in the
first film version in 1931. Despite being a critical and commercial success, an attempt to re-release the film in 1936 was denied approval by the
Production Code Office due to the film's lewd content. Since
Warner Bros. could not re-release the film, a second version was made. For the comedy Satan Met a Lady (1936), the central character was renamed Ted Shane and was played by
Warren William. The film was a box-office failure.
George Segal played Sam Spade, Jr., son of the original, in the film spoof, The Black Bird (1975). The Black Bird was panned by critics.
Peter Falk delivered a more successful spoof the following year as Sam Diamond in
Neil Simon's Murder by Death. This was preceded by the spoof character Sam Diamond in The Addams Family episode "
Thing Is Missing" (1965) portrayed by Tommy Farrell.
A 1946-1951 radio show called The Adventures of Sam Spade (on ABC, CBS, and NBC) starred
Howard Duff (and later
Steve Dunne) as Sam Spade and
Lurene Tuttle as Spade's devoted secretary Effie Perrine, and took a considerably more tongue-in-cheek approach to the character.
In 2009, with the approval of the estate of Dashiell Hammett, the veteran detective-story writer
Joe Gores published Spade & Archer: The Prequel to Dashiell Hammett's THE MALTESE FALCON with
Alfred A. Knopf, the original publisher of Hammett's The Maltese Falcon.
Books
The Maltese Falcon (1930)
Serialized in five parts, in the September 1929 to January 1930 issues of Black Mask
Satan Met a Lady (1936, Warner Bros.) (based on The Maltese Falcon, with the character names and the object of their search changed), starring
Warren William in the lead role
The Adventures of Sam Spade (1946–1949, CBS): 157 30-minute episodes, starring
Howard Duff
The Adventures of Sam Spade (1949–1950, NBC): 51 30-minute episodes, starring
Howard Duff
The Adventures of Sam Spade (1950–1951, NBC): 24 30-minute episodes, starring
Steve Dunne
Suspense: "The House in Cypress Canyon" (December 5, 1946, CBS): 30 minutes, featuring
Howard Duff
Suspense: "The Kandy Tooth Caper" (January 10, 1948, CBS): 60 minutes, starring
Howard Duff
Maxwell House Coffee Time (aka The Burns And Allen Show): "Gracie Sends Sam Spade to Jail" (February 10, 1949
NBC) a 30-minute episode starring
Howard Duff—both as himself and as Sam Spade.[8]
The Adventures of Babe Lincoln (circa 1950, CBS): unaired, starring
Howard Duff
Single-page comic strips, appeared in newspapers, magazines, comic books. Tie-in with radio show The Adventures of Sam Spade, which Wildroot also sponsored. Artist:
Lou Fine.
Spade was highlighted in volume 21 of the Detective Conan manga's edition of "
Gosho Aoyama's Mystery Library", in the section (usually the last page) where the author introduces a different detective (or occasionally, a villain) from mystery literature, television, or other media.