Release Year: 1941

Genre: Crime, Drama, Film Noir

Director: John Huston

Writer: John Huston, Dashiell Hammett (novel)

Stars: Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, Gladys George

Ahh, that eternal question: what are dreams made of? Fairy dust? Ghost's tears? Crème brûlée? Millions of firing synapses, hard at work while the body lies unconscious and semi-paralyzed?

Not according to two Big Daddies of Literature, they ain't. For the Bard, Willy Shakespeare, dreams are made of the fleeting lives of actors. (Whoa, depressing.) And for John Huston, who adapted Dashiell Hammett's novel The Maltese Falcon for the silver screen, dreams are made of…a bird statue.

Yup: The Maltese Falcon was the original piece of art to capitalize on the wisdom of "put a bird on it."

And you'd better believe that, when this Humphrey Bogart flick hit the silver screen in 1941, people all around the world started dreaming of the Maltese Falcon and the obscene amount of riches it promised. Enough cold, hard cash to travel the world, find love, and buy all the Bogie-style fedoras you could ever want.

It's hard to imagine that a tale of a jaded PI, a haughty dame, and a bunch of crooks all chasing after a mysterious statuette would ever be considered a gamble in terms of cinematic adaptation, but The Maltese Falcon had been adapted twice before then-newcomer John Huston got his directorial mitts on the project. Both previous Falcon adaptations had flopped.

But Huston wanted to do the detective story right, which meant sticking close to his source material. In the book and film, a detective named Sam Spade is asked by a femme fatale named Brigid O'Shaughnessy to help her find the mysterious Maltese Falcon. Her request results in Spade's entanglement with a gang of crooks, including a fat man known as…"the fat man."

Huston brought in big names like Humphrey Bogart and Mary Astor, alongside character actors Peter Lorre and Sydney Greenstreet. All but Astor you might recognize from that other big Bogie smash: Casablanca. But before 'blanca (as the film buffs call it) this motley crew worked together to define the film noir genre. Noir is French for "black," like the darkest coffee or the richest chocolate, and The Maltese Falcon is like these two treats in movie form: dark, full-bodied, and mysterious.

Detective Sam Spade became a character who endured the test of time. He was featured in numerous radio plays and comic books, and even in a PC detective game in 1985. (That's right: without Sam Spade, we might not have Carmen Sandiego.) And the role of Spade solidified Bogart's legacy as a go-to tough guy with ambiguous morals. Bogart was the quintessential man's man, and the anti-hero's anti-hero.

The Maltese Falcon transports you back to a time when the good guys were bad, the dames were worse, the nights were dark, and everyone smoked indoors. The movie itself isn't made of dark chocolate, but it's still the perfect film to satisfy your craving for classic noir.

Stop us when this sounds familiar: a world-weary private investigator. A mysterious, smokin' hot dame who's up to no good. A band of eccentric criminals. Some very attractive shots of light streaming through Venetian blinds. Dark, fog-choked alleys. Witty banter so dry you could use it as kindling.

We're guessing you yelled "stop!" after "world-weary P.I." (Sorry, our music's a little loud.) Because, if you're anything like us, you're a fan of neo-noir: think The Usual Suspects (1995), Memento (2000), Fargo (1996), Pulp Fiction (1994), or Nightcrawler (2014).

But none of these dark 'n' bleak films would exist if it weren't for one of the best-known granddaddies of film noir: The Maltese Falcon. All those neo-noir films have a little Falcon in them: a beak here, a feather there, and a huge dollop of hardboiled anti-hero over yonder.

There is a natural evolution in cinema from mostly amoral detective Sam Spade to the sociopath played by Jake Gyllenhaal in Nightcrawler. Carrie-Anne Moss's character in Memento owes a huge debt to Brigid O'Shaughnessy, the original femme fatale. And Pulp Fiction has its mysterious glowing briefcase, maybe one of the greatest movie MacGuffins since the Falcon. (Maybe the Falcon is in the briefcase?)

Basically, The Maltese Falcon is a crash course in film history. And if traveling back in time to the beginning of noir cinema isn't enough for you (greedy much?) throw in the start of a couple of Hollywood super-careers, including that of Humphrey Bogart, who all but cemented his role as a pulls-no-punches anti-hero, and of John Huston, director extraordinaire.

So settle your fedora over your eyes at a rakish angle, throw your arm over the back of that couch, pop the collar on your trench coat, and let your expression grow dim with jaded cynicism. (Just don't light up a ciggie, no matter how cinematic those swirls of cancer-smoke in The Maltese Falcon look.) Get ready for the movie that launched a thousand other movies…and still holds up as smart, slick, and exciting more than sixty years after it was made.