Quote:
Originally Posted by Bookpossum
In terms of the plot, I did enjoy the way in which the Falcon was such a perfect McGuffin in the best Hitchcock tradition. All the people in the book cared about it to the extent of killing for it, and yet for the reader, it really didn't matter at all. And the best thing about it was that after all that, it turned out to be a fake.
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The ending was one of the few instances when the film departed from the book, and I thought they were both effective. Cinematically, that last shot of Mary Astor and “The stuff dreams are made of” worked far better than the book ending would have, but in terms of the book, ending with the reminder that Spade is
not a moral person himself and that he still had to deal with repercussions also was excellent.