The Maltese Falcon

Not Rated Into the offices of the Spade & Archer detective agency sweeps a Miss Wonderly, who offers a large retainer to Sam Spade and his partner Miles Archer if they’ll protect her from someone named Floyd Thursby. The detectives believe neither Miss Wonderly nor her story, but they believe her money. Since Archer saw her first, he takes the case—and later that evening he is shot to death, as is the mysterious Thursby. Miss Wonderly’s real name turns out to be Brigid O’Shaughnessey, and, as the story continues, Sam is also introduced to the effeminate Joel Cairo and the fat, erudite Kasper Gutman. It turns out that Brigid, Cairo and Gutman are all international scoundrels, all involved in the search for a foot-high, jewel-encrusted statuette in the shape of a falcon. Though both Cairo and Gutman offer Spade small fortunes to find the “black bird,” they are obviously willing to commit mayhem and murder towards that goal. (allmovie.com) Will call tickets may be picked up at The Cary Box Office beginning one hour prior to the movie.