'Elisha Cook Jr' was the longest surviving member of the cast, dying at the age of 90 in 1991.
"Academy Award Theater" broadcast a 30 minute radio adaptation of the movie on July 3, 1946 with Humphrey Bogart, Sydney Greenstreet and Mary Astor reprising their film roles.
"The Screen Guild Theater" broadcast a 30 minute radio adaptation of the movie on May 18, 1950 with Humphrey Bogart reprising his film role with his wife Lauren Bacall who was not in the original film.
"The Screen Guild Theater" broadcast a 30 minute radio adaptation of the movie on September 20, 1943 with Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, Sydney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre reprising their film roles.
"The stuff that dreams are made of" was voted as the #14 movie quote by the American Film Institute. The line is paraphrased from William Shakespeare's "The Tempest": "We are such stuff as dream are made on, / And our little life is rounded with a sleep."
Humphrey Bogart had to supply his own wardrobe. This was common practice at Warner Brothers as a way for the studio to save some money.
Humphrey Bogart has absolutely no resemblance to the character of Sam Spade as described in the book. There, he is over 6 feet tall, has a hooked nose and blond hair.
Jerome Cowan, playing Spade's doomed partner Miles Archer, is only on-screen for two minutes total, although to many it seemed as if he had a much bigger part.
George Raft was originally cast as Sam Spade. He turned it down because it was "not an important picture," taking advantage of a clause in his contract that said he did not have to work on remakes.
However, according to the author John McCarty, author of The Films of John Huston, in an ICONS Radio interview (10-07-07) the real reason Raft bowed out was because a successful screenwriter, John Huston, was going to direct his first movie. Raft didn't want to trust his part to this neophyte director.
John Huston had Mary Astor run around the set several times before each of her scenes in order to give her a breathless, nervous appearance on screen.
John Huston hated the first two attempts to film "The Maltese Falcon". He felt particularly strongly about the fact that the studio had imposed a happy ending on the previous two examples.
John Huston planned every part of the film down to the very last detail, storyboarding all of it. His notes on the script were so efficient that not one line of dialog was changed in the final edit.
John Huston recruited Mary Astor to play a prank on his father, Walter, after the elder Huston had filmed his cameo. Astor called up Walter, telling him she was producer Hal Wallis' secretary, and that Wallis thought he'd over-acted during his scene. Huston was enraged, declaring that he'd never been accused of over-acting in his life, but agreed to return the next day to re-shoot the scene. John then took the phone from Astor, identified himself as Wallis, and repeated the criticism. Walter grew even more furious, declaring that he'd already agreed to the re-shoot, and it was only when John exploded in laughter on the other end of the phone that Walter realized his son was playing a prank on him.
John Huston's first directorial effort.
Peter Lorre's favorite of his films.
Sydney Greenstreet appeared in a special trailer to promote the film.
Sydney Greenstreet was cast whenever the production had difficulty finding an actor large enough.
Sydney Greenstreet's first on-screen appearance.