Picture this: You’re 42 years old. You’ve been kicking around Hollywood for a decade, mostly playing gangsters in one crummy programmer after another. Your third marriage is on the rocks, you’ve just shot your 40th movie, and you wonder if stardom is just for pretty boys like Errol Flynn, not serious actors like you. Then, just like that, you’re cast in one of the most legendary films of all time. The Maltese Falcon was life-changing for Humphrey Bogart in three key ways: It

Regular readers of this blog know that I love “Pre-Code” films, those naughty little gems made between 1930 and 1934, when studios were...